How Flying Cheeseburgers Inspire Me

How many ads do you see in a single day? Would you believe 300? No? OK, 900? Well, what about 1,500 ads per day?

Yes, you really are seeing 1,500 ads per day... for starters. The average person gets 5,000 to 10,000 messages flashed in front of their eyeballs EVERY SINGLE DAY. Crazy town, right?

So if getting your product, service, or whatever you do, in front of the right people is hard enough, add to that the complexity of the sheer volume of messages you are fighting with. It's depressing.

Combating this challenge isn't as difficult as you might think. You need a few things.

The 4 Things You Need

1. A Scroll-Stopping Image Or Video 2. Compelling Copy 3. A Great Offer 4. Make The Conversion

Notice I snuck number 1 in there instead of making you wait for the reveal like I usually do? That's because it's the single most important step in getting the sale, opt-in, or conversion, and burying it at the bottom of a list is exactly the kind of thing that gets ignored in a 1,500-ads-a-day world. You don't get to step 2, 3, or 4 if nobody stops scrolling long enough to see them.

That's where a scroll-stopping image or video comes in. I prefer video for many reasons, but the most compelling one for me is they convert better than boring static images. Remember, you've got to stop the scroll if you want them to get to your headline.

Here's why this matters more than people think. A thumb moving down a feed isn't reading. It isn't evaluating your offer. It's pattern-matching, at a glance, looking for a reason to keep moving. Your copy, your offer, your CTA — none of it exists yet as far as the scroller is concerned. It's invisible until something visual interrupts the pattern. That's the whole job of the image or video: not to sell, not to explain, just to make the thumb stop moving for one extra second. Everything else you worked so hard on only gets a chance to work after that happens.

Video has an edge here because it moves, and movement breaks pattern faster than a static image ever will. A still photo blends into the scroll. Motion doesn't. Your eye is wired to notice it whether you want to or not. That's not a copywriting trick, that's biology, and it's why I lean on video every chance I get.

In this video, I demonstrate how an ad from another company inspired my creativity and can inspire yours too.

It all started when I was served an ad from our video partner, Promo. The ad consisted of a simple video of flying cheeseburgers. See my step-by-step process using Promo to create an ad for Ad Zombies using a simple stock video of flying cheeseburgers.

Inspiration isn't always some grand epiphany. Sometimes it's just a cheeseburger flying across your screen at the right moment, reminding you that the scroll-stopper always comes first.