Spec work, with the thinking left in.
These are unofficial concepts for real UK brands. Nobody asked for them and nobody paid for them. I made them to show how I work: the research, the script, and why each line is there.
Skincare · Seb Skincare · unofficial concept
Leave-on, not wash-off.
- Persona
- Women in their 30s and 40s with red, flaky skin around the nose and brows, who've tried everything.
- Angle
- Why face washes and thick creams keep failing: sixty seconds on your skin versus eight hours.
- Offer
- The 50ml serum, framed against the creams already in the drawer, with the 30-day guarantee.
- Format
- First-person voiceover over phone-style footage. No talking head.
What the research found
- The brand's ads had no human voice: product shots and reviews, but nobody telling their story.
- In the long-running ads I studied, only four advertisers argued leave-on versus wash-off.
- Most ads in the category talk to scalps and beards. Women with flaking on their face were left out.
- The reviews already had the hook: “I never have problems now with my makeup peeling off around my nose.”
“The hardest part of my makeup was never my eyes. It was the bit either side of my nose, because that's where it flaked through by lunch.”
WhyOpens on a moment she'd recognise, not a diagnosis. The right person stops, everyone else scrolls.
“Red, flaky skin down both sides of my nose and between my eyebrows. My GP called it seborrhoeic dermatitis. I called it the reason I had a fringe for two years. So I started checking it in the car mirror before every meeting. Then I gave up on foundation there altogether, and people started asking if I'd caught the sun. In February. And last Christmas, I made sure I was the one taking the photos. I'm not in a single one.”
WhyNo symptom list. Every line is something she changed to cope, and each one hits harder than the last.
“I didn't want a miracle. I wanted to stop hiding my own face.”
WhySmall, believable, in her words. No "clear skin in 7 days".
“And it took me years to work out why nothing helped. The sides of your nose aren't dry. They're the oiliest part of your face. So every thick moisturiser I piled on just sat there on top, and the flakes came back worse. And the face washes? Sixty seconds on your skin, then straight down the plughole. What finally worked was three drops of a light oil, left on all night. Eight hours, not sixty seconds.”
WhyPromise first, then the reason it works. Leave-on vs wash-off is the angle almost nobody in this category uses.
“I'd done the lot. Steroid cream I was scared to keep putting on my face. Dandruff shampoo as a face wash, fine for a week, then right back to square one. Hundreds of pounds of creams, sitting in a drawer. So when this popped up on Facebook, I rolled my eyes. Another miracle oil. I bought it mostly to prove it wouldn't work.”
WhyAnswers what she's already tried, and the doubt that makes people scroll past ads like this.
“Three days in, my skin stopped feeling tight. By the end of the first week, my foundation had stopped catching. I did my makeup this morning in about four minutes. Nose first. And it's not just me. It's got nearly seven thousand reviews, and the one that got me said: 'I never have problems now with my makeup peeling off around my nose.'”
WhyDay 3, day 7, nose first: proof that pays off the hook. Then a real review, word for word.
“It's Seb's Calming Serum. MCT oil, tea tree, chamomile, lavender and rosemary. That's the whole label. Twenty-three quid, and at three drops a night it lasts ages. I'd spent more than that on one tub of cream that made it worse. It is an oil, and it smells of tea tree, so it's a bedtime thing. Wash your face in the morning like normal. And start before the heating goes on, because that's when mine always kicked off.”
WhyPrice framed against the creams she binned. Honest about the oil and the smell, so the objection never builds.
“Use it every night for thirty days. If the sides of your nose look no different, they'll refund your first bottle.”
WhyMatches their real guarantee, and the time an oil like this needs.
“Tap the link, grab the 50ml, and do your first three drops tonight. This Christmas, I'm in the photos.”
WhyEnds on who she becomes, and calls back to the Christmas photos.
Pet · Dear Doggo · unofficial concept
Stop changing your dog's food.
- Persona
- UK owners of a dog with a sensitive stomach, who've already changed food more than once.
- Angle
- A new food changes what goes in, not the gut bacteria that have to digest it.
- Offer
- Three tubs for the 90-day course, about 72p a day, with the first-tub guarantee.
- Format
- Faceless voiceover over phone-shot dog footage, the style of the brand's longest-running ad.
What the research found
- The brand's live ads all argue one angle, the signs of an unsettled gut, and the best of them has run for over 1,000 days.
- Grass eating on walks appeared in only two UK brands' ads.
- Competitors run ads saying chews don't work, so this one answers with the label.
- Taste is the quiet objection, so the script answers it with the duck flavour and “straight from your hand”.
“Stop changing your dog's food. You've done it four times since spring, and you still take three poo bags on a twenty-minute walk.”
WhyCalls out the thing she's already doing. If that's you, you can't scroll past it.
“Runny poos. A gurgling tummy. Grass on every single walk. Sick on the kitchen floor before you've even put the kettle on. The vet calls it a sensitive stomach. So you know which verges he'll go for, and you take the long way round. You've told the neighbours to stop giving him treats. There's a roll of kitchen roll by the back door that's got nothing to do with spills. And every new bag of food means another forty quid, another week of crossed fingers, and another week of him feeling rubbish.”
WhyNames the problem in four words, then spends its time on how she's changed her life around it. That's the part people recognise.
“What you actually want is boring. Firm, boring, predictable poos. Walks you don't have to plan around.”
WhyNobody wants a "gut health journey". They want a boring walk.
“A new food changes what goes into his stomach. It doesn't change the bacteria in his gut that have to digest it. Run short on the good ones, and every bowl is a gamble, whatever's in it. So you stop gambling on the bag, and you top up what does the digesting. You could buy a probiotic, a prebiotic and a tub of pumpkin powder, and stir them into his dinner every night. Plenty of people do. Or he can have one chew. Eight billion CFU of probiotics in every two chews. FOS, which feeds those bacteria. Pumpkin and papaya for fibre. And it's duck flavoured, so he'll take it straight from your hand. No hiding it in cheese.”
WhyExplains why every food swap has failed, so the product makes sense before it appears. Then the chew arrives as the easy option next to three tubs and a spoon, and the duck flavour answers "he won't eat it" before she thinks it.
“And yes, you'll have seen the ads saying chews are useless. Turn the tub round. The count's printed on the label. Ask whoever's telling you that to show you theirs. If you've tried the probiotic paste from the vet, that's made for a few days. Gut bacteria take weeks to settle in.”
WhyCompetitors run ads saying chews don't work. This answers them head-on, with something she can check herself.
“A cockapoo owner wrote: ‘having been on them for a week I can already see a difference!’ And a Shih Tzu owner put it better than we ever could: ‘gone are the days of matted tails and stinky sticky poos.’”
WhyReal reviews, word for word. The second one does the funny, honest bit better than any copywriter could.
“It's Dear Doggo's Daily Probiotic Chews, and if you're going to try them, get three tubs. Their own guidance is ninety days for the best results. One tub lasts a month. Buy one, and you'll stop right before it's had a fair chance. Three tubs is £64.99. For a dog under twenty kilos, that's about 72p a day. Probably less than you've spent on food swaps this year. And Christmas, with everyone slipping him bits off their plate, is ten weeks away.”
WhySells the bundle by setting her up to succeed, then gives her a reason to start now.
“Give him one every day for thirty days. If you're not happy, they'll refund your first tub. Even opened.”
WhyThe brand's real guarantee, in plain words. "Even opened" does the heavy lifting.
“Tap the link, pick three tubs, and give him his first one tonight. He'll think it's a treat. Here's to one poo bag.”
WhyOne action, tonight, and it ends where the hook started: the poo bags.
Both concepts are unofficial spec work. They were not commissioned by, and are not affiliated with or endorsed by, Seb Skincare or Dear Doggo. Scenes are AI-generated and the people shown are not real customers. Quoted reviews are real and quoted word for word. Product details and prices were taken from the brands' own websites in October 2026.
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