How To Make Video Ads (Fast & Easy)

Barry Hott: I am known for making ugly ads, but today, I'm actually going to be talking about how we need to just make ads. So a slightly different hat here, uh, because that's what we're talking about today.

Barry Hott: Just make ads. Yes, you. Literally all, I think we have many people are in here, over a thousand people are in here. Literally every single one of you can make an ad. Now, some of you, it's your job to make ads. So for you, you're like, yeah, Barry, I already do. Great. Thank you for your service. I appreciate you. Keep doing it. But for those of you, CEOs, founders, CMOs, head of growth, interns, I don't care.

You can do this. So that's what we're going to dig into here. I'm going to try and be conscious of the clock. Someone shout at me if I'm taking too long. So, uh, first, the thing that we know that works well with ugly ads is authentic and relatable content. That's what works well, and it's going to continue to work well. Ads are not going to be getting prettier. That's not happening anytime soon. People have made that prediction for years.

There are ways in which you can make your ads pretty. I'm not saying go make the ugliest ad in the world, but please be mindful, like you don't have to go and make the thing that's as pretty as like your marketing brain wants, okay? For the most part, almost everyone in here is not advertising to marketers or to designers. If you are advertising to marketers or designers, maybe make some pretty stuff, but even then, you should still make uglier stuff. Um, but really the key is making stuff authentically, making stuff that people want and expect to see. And people want authentic content, they want real experiences.

And the thing they don't want is ads. They don't want to they can sniff it out. Subconsciously, as soon as your ad starts to get into frame and people can sniff it out that it looks or feels too much like an ad, they are going to skip it. That's it. You've lost the game.

So your job is to get that attention and keep that attention. And if you can't even get that attention in the first place, you've lost. So a big reason to make ugly ads is just to get that attention in the first place, so you don't lose a giant chunk of your potential audience. So start there.

The best person who can make this content literally is you. You have a phone. You have a phone. You have probably some sort of a camera. You have the ability to speak. You have Canva. You have CapCut. You have, uh, any number of tools. Descript, big shout out to Descript. I love using Descript. You can edit video like it's a Word doc. It's incredible. Use any of these tools to make stuff.

Literally, anyone in your company can do this and probably should do this. Literally from the intern to the CEO. And anything that you can do to make ads will help you be better and more comfortable with the principles, challenges, decisions that go into making ads work. Now, a lot of people are like, Barry, I don't have time for this. Barry, that's not my job. Okay. Well,

Barry Hott: is this the best use of my time? Uh, I think that's a reasonable question, but absolutely, it is. Yes. It is.

Barry Hott: It is worth your time. Is this the best use of my time? What use of your time has a higher potential return on investment? Please comment and tell me right now. What has a higher potential return on investment than making a scalable ad? Please. All right. I'm interested to see if anyone says anything. Uh, yeah, close those deals. Sure. Um, literally almost anyone in the org who has a good perspective, who has a story to tell or can come up with a story to tell, can make something that is worthwhile that can be used in ads. It is cheap, it is quick, and it is relatable. I have seen this work time and time again. As someone who has been in lots of ads, I'm not saying I expect you to be a professional star of ads. That's not the goal. Who cares?

The point is to make stuff. And you don't even have to be in the ad yourself with your face or whatever if you're shy or you don't want to be in there. I'm not saying you have to do that, and I will show you some examples of that in a little bit.

In order to do this, don't just make stuff. Don't first of all, don't just make stuff. Make stuff that looks and feels like the stuff that your audience consumes, not what you consume, but what your broader audience consumes. And that's an important differentiator.

That's like so many marketers I see, they make the stuff that they think like they want. They think other marketers want, but like that's not what scales and that's not what works. So I want you to study the content that your audience consumes, not just what marketers like. And then go shoot stuff on your phone. Don't worry about getting a fancy camera. Please don't worry about perfect lighting, although Savannah probably hates me for saying that and probably completely disagrees. Uh, but that's okay. She can and total respect. I'm not saying I'm right and she's wrong. I'm not. Um, but like, go, don't worry about that stuff.

And I think what you'll also find is when you do study the content that your audience consumes, in so many realms, the the lighting isn't perfect, the camera angle isn't perfect. Like all of these things are imperfect. Now, to to Savannah's point there, the good lighting can matter in some categories. For sure, if that's what the content that your audience is consuming looks like that, then please shoot like that. Absolutely.

So definitely go and shoot the stuff that looks like what your audience is look uh looking at. Like I said, edit in CapCut, Descript, Canva, use text overlays. You can literally go and make something in TikTok while it still exists and use like text overlay functions from in there. You can use text overlay functions from Instagram to make it look like a real Instagram post, like and then pull it back. Like it's so easy to do. And yes, you can even do this for a luxury brand. Some people always ask me like, can should luxury brands can't have ugly ads, right? No. They can, but you have to be more conscious of things like the setting or what you're wearing or accessories, right? You can spice up an ugly ad and make it luxury by making it truly luxury, featuring fancy lug uh fancy watches, featuring, you know, stage it in a private jet or in a in a fancy mansion. Like all of those things are things you can do to frame things for a luxury brand. So,

Barry Hott: I want to show you a couple examples here. Uh, one of these I shot, one of these I did not. Um, but these are examples where you don't even have to be in it. You're literally just shooting something in two different ways, uh, that can be used, like any of you can do. One of them requires a little bit more, uh, something more, a little bit different, but we'll get into that in a second. So let's take a look at this one real quick.

Barry Hott: This is my Tushy Ace bidet toilet seat. It is one of my favorite things I've ever purchased, maybe the number one favorite thing I've ever purchased because I use it every day. And so would you because you probably poop every day. You need to get something like this. It CLEANS your butt. It makes you feel FRESH. It decreases irritation, it decreases itchiness. You hate, you know, hate having a scratchy, itchy butt. This is what you need. Plus, it's just CLEANER. It's way CLEANER to clean your butt with water than with silly toilet paper. I guess you still can use toilet paper to pat yourself dry. But this thing even has a dryer built in right there. I don't know what you're waiting for. hellotushy.com. Get yourself one right now. This is the Ace. If you don't want to spend a few hundred bucks, you can get the cheaper model, which just is sprays water in your butt, still gets the job done, get your butt nice and clean, but doesn't have the dryer or the heated seat and all that. This is probably the upgrade you want though. I highly recommend it.

Barry Hott: All right. Thanks for watching that whole ad. I'm not going to show the next whole one. But, uh, this was super easy.

I mean, literally, I'm just talking behind the camera, shooting it with one hand, showing it. In this specific case, it works also well because I'm able to show a toilet, which is both potentially relevant to the audience that's watching it, shooting in a way that is potentially relevant and looks like stuff that other people would shoot. It's not overly polished. It wouldn't immediately look or feel like an ad, especially because it's like a toilet. It's kind of a funny thing. Like, why would anyone shoot an ad like that? And also, I like shooting in this way because I can actually redo that voiceover to add in whatever I want. I can redo that completely. So, literally, I can shoot that the way that I did, and even if I mess up or even if I don't like something, or if I later like want to make an optimization to it, I can actually re just redo the voiceover. I can do it five different ways. This ad has scaled. This concept is very, very simple to do. Find a way to like show your product in your hand and talk about it, or show the problem in your hand and talk about it. There are so many things. Show a prop in your hand and film it. If this is relevant, this $10,000 prop might be relevant to this audience, but that doesn't mean it'd be relevant to every audience. If you're trying to sell a bidet, this would not be a relevant hook. If you're trying to sell, I don't know, some sort of financial thing or you're trying to sell, uh, a marketing course, maybe, like Building Ads with Barry, yeah, this might be a helpful prop for that audience who's trying to make money and cares a lot about money. So, let's take one other look at, uh, this one right here. This is from licorice.com.

Barry Hott: All right, we got Jamie Pastor in Arizona, ordered a free two-pound licorice gift box. The first flavor she ordered in that gift box is going to be one of my favorites, Australian Red.

Barry Hott: I'm just going to stop it right there. We do not need to watch this whole ad. But what I want you to take away from this is that you can literally get either either a chest mount or a head mount for your phone, or you can get, uh, an Insta Go 360. You can buy a specific camera that that or a GoPro or something like this that can help you shoot so you can shoot hands-free and use both your hands. This effect is a first-person view. It's super relatable. There's tons of organic content that's being shot in this way, and it's a fun storytelling method.

So it's so easy to do. And a lot of businesses, you have a warehouse. The showing the warehouse lighting, showing the warehouse stack, showing all of it, there's something to that that doesn't feel like an ad and doesn't feel hyper polished. And people really don't sense it as an ad, and then that you can get their attention. The thing with both of these is also like, if you think about, um, what we're seeing in the beginning, like is this relevant to people?

Barry Hott: Maybe in this top here, you know, it says he love, you know, I'm surprising my dad, he loves licorice. They're talking about gifting. So, and then this video actually goes on to talk about

Barry Hott: talking about liking the different flavors. So like, it's a pretty box, there's like talking about the snacks, like it's super relevant. And if we think about

Barry Hott: this ad, not only does it show a toilet, but there's a reveal, right? The very first second is something I'm thinking about. There's literally motion in that. Shout out to Motion for for this event, but there's motion happening in that first shot, that first frame, something is happening there. So these are small things that if you're interested in learning more about, that's what I have a course for, uh, buildingadswithbarry.com. Come, uh, join us in a couple days. We're launching, kicking off. Would love to have you.

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