I'm just a mad scientist wearing the Creative Strategy hat. 🤪🧪

what a thing.

Everybody is obsessed with song ads right now. They retain attention. They get cheap clicks. They can absolutely crush CPA. But cheap acquisition and great acquisition are two different things. A catchy song can drag almost anyone through an ad. Repetition, music, absurdity… it hijacks attention extremely well. Drama does it differently. Conflict. Tension. Characters. An unanswered question. You’re still getting insane retention, but now someone is staying because they’re mentally invested in what’s happening. They want to know what happens next. And that gives you something a song ad doesn’t always give you: time to build the problem, introduce the product and make someone actually understand WHY they should care. That’s where I think customer quality starts to separate. One format can be incredible at generating cheap first purchases. The other has the potential to generate customers who actually understand what they bought, why they bought it and why they should keep buying it. That distinction matters when you look past Day 1. I have zero problem going 1:1 CAC to COGS. But here’s the part people are missing: 1:1 isn’t the metric to optimize for. The lifecycle of that customer is. If you’re acquiring customers cheap but they never reorder, never subscribe, never buy another product and disappear after Day 1, you didn’t discover some magical acquisition strategy. You literally just bought revenue. If a company spends $50 acquiring a customer on a $50 product and that customer becomes worth $200, they’ll buy as many of those customers as you can give them. Finding MORE of those people is where creative matters. CPA tells you how efficiently you got someone through the door. LTV tells you whether you got the RIGHT person through the door. So when I see people calling 1:1 CAC/revenue AI song ads “the future,” I think they’re optimizing for the wrong thing. The future isn’t whoever can manufacture attention the cheapest. It’s whoever can turn attention into actual investment in the product and brand. That’s why I’m betting heavily on drama. Songs can make people stay. Drama can make people care. And I think over time, LTV is going to show just how big that difference is.

Your customer doesn’t want another UGC ad. They want a fucking show. Look at how people actually consume content. They’re sitting on the couch with Netflix playing in the background, scrolling Reels because they’re bored and looking for something interesting enough to steal their attention. Then your ad starts: “Hey guys, so I’ve been using this product for the last…” Swipe. Nobody gives a shit. People have gotten insanely good at recognizing an ad. And traditional UGC isn’t impressive anymore. Another influencer person holding a product. Another testimonial. Another 60-second yap session explaining features and benefits. We keep trying to make UGC look more “authentic” when the bigger problem is that the format itself has become predictable. The future isn’t making UGC look more authentic…. It’s making the ad interesting enough that people forget it’s an ad. Give me a character. Give me a problem. Give me conflict. Give me a reason to find out what happens next. Then put the product inside the story. Because people don’t skip stories. They skip commercials. And I think the brands that understand that first are going to have a massive creative advantage.

This is black hat af and one of the most insane libraries I've ever seen. How do these not get banned on Meta?

being under $25k/month as a CS is a skill issue.

When asked for the secret to success, I think the most underrated and overlooked strategy is trying really really really hard for a very very long time. Works for everyone I know who’s done it.

half the mfers you see posting “hiring creative strategists” “ looking for a senior strategists” “looking to scale my brand to 500K so need a strategist” Are just people who’ll get you on a unpaid trial for 2 weeks with 0 benefits or refuse to pay up for a month to get you do 40 concepts a week. Do not trust all of em.

The demand for good creative strategists is way higher than the amount of good ones out there. It's like developers pre ai. There weren’t enough good devs, so everyone got huge salaries regardless of how good they were. Same thing with creative strategists right now. The amount most are asking is not in line with the value they deliver. A really good cs should earn their fee back easily. Unfortunately that's often not the case. Most cs just swipe an ad, throw it into an llm and remake it for your product without thinking too much about it. A great cs can make a huge difference, but most aren't good enough.

fuck it 1000 ads to swipe for free: real-simple-labs.github.io/1…

If you're in ecom... Pay the f*ck attention to what Resilia is doing with their creative right now horny Suno w/Pixar songs. Not any Pixar. Realistic-face Pixar. One of the easiest ways to market your product while holding the viewers' attention until the end.

Am I the only one who starts dreaming about angles, avatars, and ad concepts while sleeping? I literally had concept ideas in my sleep. I even dreamed I was using a competitor's product. I think this is what they call: Creative Strategy Syndrome.

If you're in ecom Pay the f*ck attention to what GroundingWell is doing with their creative right now 550+ ads live. Their winning angle is hotel guests asking what mattress they use. They don't even sell mattresses.

How to use Systems Thinking as a Creative Strategist: Input = humans Process = ads Output = customers Feedback = metrics Stop asking: “Is this ad good?” Ask: “Where does value stop flowing?” Find the broken link and fix it.

Your customers have already written your best ads. They just posted them on Reddit at 2 am instead of sending them to you.

"Native ads don't have a thumb-stop rate." Well... you sure, bro?💀

As we learned in direct response marketing, we should never, ever blame the audience or the people we're selling to. But let's be honest. Isn't your life, as it is today, your fault? IT IS. Everything in your life is your fault and within your responsibility. The good. The bad. The wins. The mistakes. everything. The moment you stop blaming others, economy, luck, You take back control. Because if it's your responsibility, it's also yours to change. That's when things start moving.

I've taken more than 1,000 cold showers by now. More than 3 years straight. And I mean it. Not a single skipped day. Sometimes your psychology tells you, "This is hard. I can't do it." Or, "I'll do it tomorrow." But if you do something enough times, it becomes your second nature. You eventually reach a point where being uncomfortable feels comfortable. Where pain is pleasure. That's what average people can't understand about monumentally successful people. Choose your new norm.

great opp for the right CS.

Been using this War Map sheet for quite a few months now, and it's been a game changer for me. As you can see, I hid my little tiny goals for the quarters. :) But this is just the dashboard. If you look at the bottom, you can track every single day and month of the year. If you want it, just DM me and I'll send you the template your way. BTW, high-ticket coaches charge thousands of dollars for this sheet. lol.