Creating Great Hooks

We’re working with a rapidly growing Kiwi start-up at K&J.

One of the things we’ve been tasked with is helping with their ads, and we’re working on their hooks right now.

The most important part of any ad is the hook, which is the first 3 seconds of the ad.

Hook A:

Hook B:

If you liked Hook B, it’s because it’s got the 5 things that make a great hook.

1. A clear problem or tension

Show the viewer something they instantly recognise as a pain point, frustration, desire, or missed opportunity.

“What the _ _ _ _ my card declined”

2. A specific audience signal

Make it obvious who the ad is for so the right person thinks, “This is about me.”

“An employee tried to spend $77 K on a company card”

3. A pattern interrupt

Use something visually or verbally unexpected to stop the scroll. This could be a bold statement, an unusual visual, a surprising stat, a direct question, or a contrast.

Example:
You can audibly hear her swearing in the first second of the ad

4. A reason to keep watching

You want to find out why her card got declined.

5. A visible outcome or promise

Hint at the benefit early. The viewer should quickly understand what they might gain from watching: company card expenditure issues.

Bonus, if you can add a human in they almost always perform better.

The Marshmallow Test

Every day running a business is a marshmallow test.

It’s a test of whether you are disciplined enough to do the things today that will pay off in 1,2,3,4,5 years ’ time.

Are you willing to spend 3 months onboarding staff so they’re 3x more useful a year from now?

Will you invest 10 hours this week to fix a process that will pay off 100 times over the next 5 years?

Do you have the patience in negotiations to hold out for better terms or price?

Many times, when I’ve traced back the causes of issues in my businesses, it’s because I’ve used band-aid solutions.

Or been too lazy to invest an hour into thinking about a problem, and instead jumped on the first solution that popped into my brain.

With that in mind, the cliché “enjoy the process” is super necessary.

The marshmallow is the reward, and that’s an important part of the equation. But there’s also enjoyment, which is its own type of payoff.

I’m not sure it’s even possible to do stuff you don’t like doing for years on end without at least some enjoyment, before you get to the magical payoff.

I suspect this largely explains “burned out”. It’s too much work and too little enjoyment.

It’s why I think doing things you enjoy is actually good advice, or at the very least, if it's not something you enjoy, then do it with enjoyable people.

There’s no glory in endless suffering. Suffering doesn’t guarantee success; it guarantees suffering.

The suffering will come anyway as a result of doing hard things. It shouldn’t be taken as an indicator of being on the right path.

The same as no enjoyment explains burnout.

I think most success can be explained by enjoyment — the thing stopping us from giving up.