Direction for the ads you already pay to run.

Say your best ad has been running since March.

A person, a white coat, one line to camera.

It's still your winner.

It's also getting tired.

So your agency sends the fix: eight new versions.

Same person, same coat, same logo for the first six seconds, and different words on top.

(That's reshooting a scene by changing the subtitles.)

None of them beats the original.

The hook still doesn't land until 0:07. In all eight.

Here's why:

The ad was never short of versions.

It was short of a decision.

It starts with your ad, the one that's already working.

I watch it muted, then with sound, and find the second where your viewer decides.

Your argument stays.

Everything around it changes:

Then I watch the new one muted.

If you'd skip it, it isn't done.

I once ran an agency that sold leads.

It closed plenty of clients.

Then it had to deliver the leads...

And leads depend on your market, your offer, your follow-up and your closing.

I controlled none of it.

So now I sell the part I do control: the ad.

You get the files, by the date we agree, with revisions until they're right.

You run your ads.

I don't promise what they'll do.

(Anyone who does is guessing with your money.)

You sell something worth $15,000 or more to each customer.

That's the whole list.

Already running ads? Bring the one that's working.

No ads yet?

Then we direct the first one.

"Can't you just send us forty a month?"

Someone can.

It won't be me.

Forty undirected ads is a faster way to spend the same money.

One more: if your winner is a real customer telling their own story, I won't recast it.

(A customer played by someone else is a fake testimonial. The FTC has a rule about it.)

I make films.

A film and a 30-second ad fail the same way:

Nobody decided what the first second was for.

(The ad is shorter. The mistake is the same size.)

So the first thing you get from me is your ad, directed.