A consumer finance platform that helps people manage their money and access personalised financial products. The work had to make money management feel handled rather than hard.
Banners
UGC
DemandBox creative studio
Creative strategy, ad production and UGC built for performance.
We write the angle, design the asset, cast the creator and ship every cut your channels need, then read what happened and build on it. Static, animated, UGC, founder-led and influencer-led, across every placement that matters.
What does a performance creative studio do?
A performance creative studio writes the angle, designs the asset and produces the video that runs inside paid campaigns. DemandBox covers static and animated ad creative, UGC, founder-led and influencer-led video, sized for every placement, then compares concepts in the account and cuts the ones it has stopped rewarding.
The studio at a glance
- What we produce
- Ad concepts, static and animated banners, and short-form video
- Formats
- Static, animated, live action video, motion graphics and creator footage
- Placements
- Paid social, display, native, YouTube and connected feeds, cut for 9:16, 1:1, 4:5 and 16:9
- Who appears
- Sourced creators, professional actors, your founder, or an influencer the audience follows
- Volume
- Set by what a clean test needs in the account: distinct arguments first, then depth inside the ones that earn it
- How results are read
- Concept by concept in your account, with engagement metrics used as diagnostics rather than the scoreboard
Creative made for
What we create
Format is how the ad is delivered. Approach is who tells the story. Most campaigns need several of both running at once.
Formats
How the ad is delivered.
- Static banners
- Display, paid social and native, sized to every placement
- Animated ads
- Motion built from a static that is already performing, or originated as motion from the start
- Video ads
- Short-form, captioned, cut for 9:16, 1:1 and 16:9
Approaches
Who tells the story.
- UGC
- Creator-shot, native to the feed, scripted around a real objection
- Founder-led
- The person behind the product making the argument directly
- Influencer-led
- Borrowed trust from a voice the audience already follows
How a large advertiser brief is handled
A large advertiser brief is handled by turning one business objective into a set of distinct creative arguments, producing each at the volume a clean test needs, and labelling everything so the media team can attribute a result to an argument rather than to a filename.
Big briefs fail in predictable ways. A single hero idea absorbs the budget, three near-identical variations get called a test, and by the time anyone can read the result the quarter is gone. The first thing we do with a brief is separate the objective from the arguments that could serve it. One objective usually supports four to six genuinely different claims: a pain the buyer already feels, a status quo worth attacking, a proof point, a comparison, a category-defining idea. Those are the units that get produced and tested, not colourways.
Scoping runs off the media plan rather than a package. If the account is running three audiences across two platforms, the volume required to read anything is a function of spend per cell, not of how many assets a studio likes to quote. We size the round against what your media team can actually serve, then produce every format that plan needs in one pass, so a channel launch never waits on a resize.
Review is the part most production breaks on. With several stakeholders, sequential approval turns a two-week round into six. We work from one round of concept-level feedback before production begins, where the argument is still cheap to change, then one round on the produced asset for brand and legal. Comments land in one place, not across four inboxes, and anything raised after production is logged for the next round rather than reopening the current one.
Everything ships labelled by argument, format and audience, so a month later the question 'what worked' has an answer with a claim attached to it. That naming convention is agreed before the first asset is delivered, because retro-fitting it to a live account is how attribution gets lost.
What a brief round includes
- Distinct arguments, not variations of one idea
- Formats sized to the media plan in a single production pass
- Concept-level review before production, asset-level review after
- A naming convention agreed before delivery so results stay attributable
- A written note on what each concept is testing and what would make it a winner
Video production: casting, scripting, shoot and delivery
Video production here covers writing the script around a real buyer objection, sourcing and casting the person on camera, running the shoot, and editing the footage into every aspect ratio and length the channels need, including UGC, founder-led and influencer-led cuts.
Scripts start from an objection, not from a feature list. Before anything is written we look at what stalls the sale: the switching cost, the integration worry, the internal sceptic, the belief that the current process is fine. The script's job is to raise that objection out loud in the first three seconds and then answer it, because a viewer who recognises their own hesitation keeps watching and a viewer watching a product tour does not.
Casting is ours end to end. We source creators and actors against the brief, run the auditions, and brief the person on camera directly, so the angle that got approved is the one that gets filmed. For founder-led work the founder is directed rather than left to improvise, with the argument structured in advance and multiple hook takes captured so the opening can be tested separately from the body. For influencer-led work the creator's own voice stays intact; a script that makes a creator sound like a brand ad removes the reason for using them.
Shoots are built for volume from one session. A single day yields multiple hooks, multiple proof segments and multiple endings, which recombine into far more finished cuts than were shot as scripts. That is what makes iterative video testing affordable: the next round of variants comes out of existing footage rather than a new production.
Delivery covers every ratio and length the placements need, captioned and safe-area checked: 9:16 for stories and reels, 4:5 and 1:1 for in-feed, 16:9 for YouTube and display. Cutdowns at six, fifteen and thirty seconds come from the same master so the argument survives the shorter version rather than being trimmed at random.
Delivered with every video round
- Scripts built around a stated objection, with alternate hooks
- Creator or actor sourcing, casting and on-camera direction
- Shoot planned for recombination, not a single finished film
- 9:16, 4:5, 1:1 and 16:9 cuts, captioned and safe-area checked
- Six, fifteen and thirty second versions cut from the same master
Working inside your brand guidelines
Performance creative and brand guidelines are not in conflict. We work inside the existing visual system, typography and voice, and test at the level of claim, hook and format, so the brand stays intact while the argument keeps changing.
Most brand teams have been handed performance work that looks nothing like the brand and told the numbers justify it. That is a false trade. The variables that move performance are the claim, the hook, the pacing and the format. The variables a brand system protects are the logo, the palette, the typography, the tone and the claims legal has cleared. Those two sets barely overlap, which is why testing can be aggressive without the brand drifting.
We start from your guidelines document, component library and any existing master files, and we ask up front which elements are fixed and which are flexible. Fixed usually means logo treatment, colour, type and legal phrasing. Flexible usually means composition, imagery, motion and the order the argument is made in. When something genuinely useful sits on the fixed side, we bring it as a proposal with the reasoning rather than shipping it and apologising later.
Because concepts are reviewed as arguments before production, brand review stops being the bottleneck. Your team sees the claim and the direction while both are still cheap to change, then sees a produced asset that already respects the system. There is no round where a finished film has to be rebuilt because the wrong wording reached the edit.
Working files come back to you. Layered source, editable masters and the exported set, so nothing produced here is locked inside an agency account you would have to negotiate with later.
How brand and testing coexist
- Fixed and flexible elements agreed before the first concept
- Testing at the level of claim, hook, format and pacing
- Concept-level review before anything is produced
- Proposals, not surprises, when something fixed is worth revisiting
- Layered source files and editable masters handed back to you
Selected work
Banners and video produced for these accounts. Click any thumbnail to view it full size.
An online marketplace for comparing and buying insurance. Every concept leads with the saving, then removes the reason not to switch.
Banners
UGC
An AI documentation tool that records a workflow and turns it into a step-by-step guide. The hooks start from the pain of writing documentation by hand.
Banners
UGC
An AI platform that automates chargeback management and prevention for online merchants. Each script opens on money the merchant has already lost.
Banners
UGC
An AI deal workspace where sales teams collaborate with buyers and close deals. Founder and seller voices, talking about deals that slipped.
Banners
UGC
An AI job search platform that matches people to roles and writes tailored resumes and cover letters. Written for the moment the search stops feeling worth it.
Banners
UGC
An AI safety and governance platform for testing, protecting and monitoring AI apps, agents and models. A new category, so the creative does the explaining.
Banners
This account runs banner-led. The full static set sits in the folder above.
Want creative like this in your account?
How we work
- 1
Understand the product, the audience and the campaign goals.
- 2
Research the market, the competitors and the creative already running.
- 3
Identify the strongest messages, the real pain points and the objections that block the sale.
- 4
Develop broad campaign concepts, then focused variations inside each one.
- 5
Write the copy, the hooks and the video scripts.
- 6
Source creators or actors and produce every creative in the formats the channels need.
- 7
Launch, read performance, scale the winners and test the next direction.
What you get working with us
Categories that are hard to explain
Chargeback automation, AI safety and governance, AI deal workspaces, insurance comparison. We write the version that makes sense to a buyer who will never open the documentation.
Volume without sameness
A brief comes back as separate arguments, then variations inside the ones worth pursuing. The test tells you which claim won, not which button colour did.
Every placement, built in one pass
Static, animated, UGC, founder-led and influencer-led, cut for 9:16, 1:1 and 16:9 together. A channel launch never waits on a resize.
Fits the brand system you already defend
We work inside existing guidelines rather than around them, and test at the level of claim, hook and format, so brand review is not the bottleneck.
Shipped so results can be read
Every concept ships labelled, so your media team can tie a result to an argument rather than to an asset filename. What scales and what comes out is decided on that, together.
Casting and production are ours, not a middleman's
We source the creators, write the scripts around a real objection and run the shoot. The angle that got approved is the one that gets filmed.
Common questions
- What does a performance creative studio actually produce?
- The creative that runs inside paid campaigns: static banners across display, paid social and native, animated versions of what already works, and short-form video cut for 9:16, 1:1 and 16:9. The writing, the concepting and the production sit in the same team.
- What is the difference between format and approach?
- Format is how the ad is delivered, such as static, animated or video. Approach is who tells the story: a creator in a UGC cut, the founder making the argument directly, or an influencer the audience already follows. A single campaign usually needs more than one of each.
- How many concepts come back from a brief?
- Enough separate arguments for the test to teach you something, then depth inside the ones that earn it. The number is set by what a clean read needs in that account, not by a package size, and the concepts are distinct claims rather than one idea in three colourways.
- How do you handle a brief from a large advertiser?
- One objective is separated into four to six distinct arguments, each produced in the formats the media plan needs in a single pass. Review happens once at concept level and once at asset level, and everything ships labelled by argument, format and audience so results stay attributable.
- How long does a production round take?
- Timelines are quoted against the round rather than a fixed promise, because a static set and a live-action shoot are different jobs. What is fixed is the shape: concepts first, one concept-level review, then production, then one asset-level review before delivery.
- How is the creative measured?
- Concept by concept, on what each one produces in the account, with engagement metrics used as diagnostics rather than the scoreboard. Scale-or-cut calls are made with your media team on that evidence, not announced to them afterwards.
- Do you produce UGC with real creators?
- Yes. Creators or actors are sourced for the brief, scripted around a real objection the buyer has, and shot to look native to the feed rather than like a polished brand film dropped into a social placement.
- How does UGC differ from founder-led and influencer-led video?
- UGC uses a sourced creator speaking as a user, so it reads as native to the feed. Founder-led puts the person behind the product on camera making the argument directly, which carries authority. Influencer-led borrows the trust of a voice the audience already follows.
- Do you write the video scripts?
- Yes. Scripts start from an objection that stalls the sale rather than a feature list, open by naming that hesitation, and are written with alternate hooks so the opening can be tested separately from the body of the video.
- Do you source and cast the people on camera?
- Yes, casting and direction are handled in-house rather than through a marketplace. We source against the brief, run auditions, and brief the person on camera directly, so the angle that was approved is the angle that gets filmed.
- Which aspect ratios and lengths do you deliver?
- Every cut the placements need: 9:16 for stories and reels, 4:5 and 1:1 in-feed, 16:9 for YouTube and display, each captioned and safe-area checked, with six, fifteen and thirty second versions cut from the same master.
- Can you work inside our brand guidelines?
- Yes, and we would rather work inside them than around them. Testing happens at the level of claim, hook and format, inside the visual system and voice already established, with fixed and flexible elements agreed before the first concept is drawn.
- Does performance creative have to look off-brand?
- No. The variables that move performance are the claim, the hook, the pacing and the format. The variables a brand system protects are logo, palette, typography, tone and cleared phrasing. Those sets barely overlap, so testing can be aggressive without the brand drifting.
- Who owns the files you produce?
- You do. Layered source, editable masters and the exported set come back to you, so nothing produced here stays locked inside an agency account you would have to negotiate for later.
- Do you work with in-house creative teams?
- Often. The usual gap is not design skill but production volume and the discipline to retire concepts, so this tends to sit alongside an in-house team, taking the testing volume while they hold the brand system and the higher-craft work.
- Do you also run the media buying?
- Creative can run on its own alongside your media team, or as part of the wider paid media and demand generation work. It performs best when the creative and channel decisions inform each other.
Where creative fits
Tell us what you need to run next.