21 Ad Formats You Can Run Without a Shoot

Eleven that need no one on camera

These are the ones to start with. Nobody has to speak, so nothing depends on finding a presenter, and they can be made entirely from your product photos.

1. Hand reveal. A hand places the product into an empty frame in the first second. Nothing else happens until it lands.
2. Four grid collage. Four short clips share one screen. A viewer sees your whole range before deciding to scroll.
3. Text behind the person. One large word sits behind the speaker's shoulders, half hidden by them. It reads as depth, not as a caption.
4. Rapid montage. Six to eight one-second shots cut on the beat. Good when the product is ordinary and the feeling is not.
5. Visual demonstration. The product doing the one thing it is for, in close macro. No claim, just the proof.
6. Unexpected environment. The product somewhere a camera crew could never reach. A salt flat, the sea beside a bridge, inside a machine.
7. Split screen. Two things side by side. The old way on the left, yours on the right, one cut, no voiceover needed.
8. Using a prop. A second object next to the product to give it scale or a reason to exist. A hand, a cup, a phone, a door.
9. Cinematic frame. One slow move through a lit room, colour graded, the product held in frame for four full seconds.
10. Screen explains it. A television or a laptop behind the speaker plays the thing being described, so the words never carry it alone.
11. B-roll with text and voiceover. Shots of the product with the voice off camera and one line of text. Nobody's mouth is on screen.

Ten built around a person

A face still outperforms most things on Reels. These need someone willing to talk to a phone, or a presenter we generate for you, which is slower and costs more than the eleven above.

12. Walk and talk. The speaker moves through a real place while talking. Movement holds attention that a static frame loses.
13. Close-up. Face filling the frame from the first word. Intimate, and it reads on a phone held at arm's length.
14. Put the phone down and step back. The phone is set on a surface, the person walks into frame. It signals no crew, which reads as honest.
15. Sit in frame. Seated, one fixed camera, hands visible. The format for anything that takes more than ten seconds to say.
16. Second camera angle. The same take from a second position, cut in at the halfway mark to reset attention.
17. Horizontal video. Landscape footage inside a vertical frame, with the space above and below used for text.
18. Doing something and talking. Hands busy with a real task while the voice carries the message. The task is the reason to keep watching.
19. Break something. A controlled destruction in the first second. Loud, and it earns the next three seconds.
20. Talking in a car. Parked, daylight, phone on the dash. It reads as unplanned, which is why it still works.
21. Straight to camera. One person, one claim, no set. Everything rests on the first sentence being worth the second.

Five of them, made in our studio

Sample ads for products we invented, so nothing here is a client's work. The rest of the list is written out but not filmed yet.

How to use the list

Pick two formats, not ten. One from the first group to carry the product and one from the second to carry the claim. Run both for a week and keep whichever holds viewers past three seconds.

Send us the two you picked along with your product photos and we will make them. If you are not sure which two suit what you sell, say what you sell and we will tell you.