Thinking · Newsletter
There is no perfect ad, and chasing one is expensive
The pursuit of the definitive asset is how teams end up with one very polished thing and no information.
This piece is now part of a longer guide: Hooks and creative briefs: the complete guide.
Asked whether there is a perfect UGC video, the honest answer is no, and the reason matters more than the answer.
Why not
Because "perfect" is relative to an audience, a placement, a moment and a price. Change any of those and the ranking changes. An asset that is the best thing in the account in March can be mid-table by July without anything about it changing.
What the pursuit costs
Time, mostly. A team polishing one asset toward perfection is a team not generating the comparisons that would tell them what to polish. The information is in the spread, not in the specimen.
What to chase instead
A library with enough variation that the account can tell you what it wants. That is a different discipline: fewer decisions made in the edit, more decisions made in market.
The caveat
This is not an argument for shipping rough work. It is an argument against shipping one thing. Quality and volume are not opposed; quality and singularity are.