This Ad Does Everything Right

I have a crush on a commercial. Not a character in the ad—the entire thing itself.

Descript, a tool that lets you edit audio by editing a transcript (and so much more), put out this killer content to introduce the product. It’s worth the two minute watch. 

Here’s what I think it gets right:

  1. It immediately introduces distinct characters—clearly its target audience personas. They’re all extremely relatable. They could be me, you, your boss, your coworker. This is underscored by the fact that the narrator uses the word “you”—the highest converting word in marketing—two seconds in and repeats it throughout the video.

  2. We quickly learn the characters’ goals (like starting a podcast or a YouTube channel) and what’s holding them back, aka their problems. Their troubles with editing audio and video are the same problems that cause you and me gripes. Again, relatability.

  3. The characters’ goals and problems lead in the ad, not the product. The product isn’t introduced until a quarter of the way through.

  4. The narrator empathizes with the characters, and by doing so, with you. Editing can be hard, the narrator says, but it doesn’t have to be. Descript will solve the problem. You feel heard.

  5. You, the viewer, learn the product as the characters do. You follow their (60 second) journey figuring out its capabilities. New technology can be overwhelming to learn, but this ad makes Descript seem simple to get the hang of.

  6. As you follow along on the characters’ journey, your emotional reaction to the product becomes tied to the characters’ emotional reaction to the product. As the characters say “no way!” and “wowww” in response to each new feature they learn, you feel yourself thinking what they’re vocalizing.

  7. Humor is sewn into every second. A boring finance presentation gets called out as boring. A mom interrupts her daughter’s YouTube filming. Entertaining content is content people want to watch.

  8. The ad ends with the characters trying to correctly pronounce “Descript” (Des-cript or De-script). It makes you think about how it should be pronounced. That’s a sneaky but effective way to get you to memorize their name.