Whattomakeinyourcategory
The brief is not 'make us UGC'. It is which formats, in which order, against what is already winning on the feed. How a discovery call turns into a slate.
Most first conversations start in the same place: the brand knows it needs short-form, has tried a creator or two, and is now staring at a folder of files that did not move anything. The missing piece is rarely craft. It is a plan for what to make, in what shape, in this category, this month.
That is the strategy session. Not a 40-page deck. A working list: the formats that still have oxygen, the ones that are exhausted, and the first pack that will actually teach you something.
Look at the feed before you look at the product
Every category already has a small set of shapes doing the work: talking head UGC, founder origin, podcast clip, demo, street interview, talking product. Two or three of those will be overused in your aisle. One will be empty. We start there, not with a mood board.
- 01
What is already winning
Pull the ads and organic cuts that are circulating. Name the format, the hook family, the person. This is the competitive set, whether they paid for it or not.
- 02
What is exhausted
If four competitors ran the same 'wait for it' UGC last month, that opening is spent. Copying it is how you pay to be ignored.
- 03
What the roster cannot cover
A real founder who will not sit for sixteen takes. A product that needs to talk. A niche too small to hire. Those gaps are often the formats worth producing.
- 04
The first pack
Five to ten files, two or three formats, openings varied on purpose. The point of pack one is a signal, not a campaign.
You brief. We come back with the slate: what to make, which formats, in your category. Then we cut it.
Why this sits in the same studio
Agencies split strategy and production so each can bill. We keep them together because the plan is worthless if the unit economics cannot support the cadence the plan implies. A format that only works as a $4,000 film is not a format we will recommend, even if it looks good in a reference dump.
The discovery call is that conversation. Product, audience, what is already in the feed, what a first pack looks like. Then the files.
Or skip the reading and have us run it.
Book a discovery call