Thinking · Newsletter
“Make it feel organic” is not a brief
It is the most common request we get and the one we most often get wrong, because it means four different things.
This piece is now part of a longer guide: UGC ads for performance: the complete guide.
Clients ask for organic or natural more than any other note, and we have got it wrong more often than any other note. The reason is that it is four different requests wearing the same word.
The four things people mean
Unpolished. Phone camera, imperfect light, no grade. A production instruction.
Unscripted. The person sounds like they are thinking, not reciting. A performance instruction.
Unbranded. It does not open with a logo or a product shot. A structural instruction.
Believable. The person seems like they actually use it. An entirely different problem from the other three, and the only one that really matters.
Why the confusion is expensive
You can deliver all three of the first ones and still miss the fourth. A grainy, unscripted, logo-free ad from someone who clearly has never touched the product is less believable than a well-lit scripted one from someone who has.
What we ask now
Not "how organic". We ask which of those four, and what would make this person credible to your buyer. It is a less comfortable conversation and it produces briefs that can actually be executed against.