Template — Problem–solution

1What it is

The most openly commercial of the four, and the one closest to a traditional ad. A recognisable irritation is shown, escalated slightly, then resolved by the product. Everyone watching knows the shape. The format works anyway — because recognition is the point, not surprise.

Typical length: 15–30 seconds. It's a joke structure, and jokes shorten well.

2When it's the wrong format

• When the problem isn't universal. The opening has to be recognised in about a second. If it needs explaining, you're in demo territory.
• When the product doesn't actually solve it. This format makes a direct causal claim by construction, which is a much stronger claim than a testimonial makes. Check the barred-claims list before you write a word.
• When the brand is positioned as understated. The format's register is broad. A brand whose whole voice is restraint will hate what comes back, and Form BV-01's never sound like answers will usually tell you this in advance.

3The beats

Beat 4 must mirror beat 1 exactly. Same shot, same angle, same action, same framing. The rhyme is the whole mechanism — the audience gets the satisfaction of a completed pattern, and a mismatched pair kills it. Shoot them back to back so the setup is identical.

Beat 2 is one beat, not three. The commonest failure is over-escalating: the frustration gets performed until it stops being recognisable and starts being an advert about a person who is bad at their life. One repetition is enough.

Do not perform the frustration. The problem beat works when it's played flat. An eye-roll to camera is the tell that this is an ad, and it arrives about fifteen seconds before you wanted it to.

4The brief

Write a [20]-second problem-solution script in [5] beats.

PRODUCT
  [PRODUCT NAME] — [ONE PLAIN SENTENCE]
  What it actually fixes: [BE PRECISE — the specific failure, not the category]

THE PROBLEM
  Moment of friction: [A SPECIFIC PHYSICAL MOMENT, not a feeling]
  Who has it: [ONE PERSON IN A SITUATION]
  Why they put up with it: [THE REASON THEY HAVEN'T SOLVED IT ALREADY]

WHAT I CAN HONESTLY CLAIM
  It fixes: [WHAT I OBSERVED IT FIXING]
  It does not fix: [THE ADJACENT THING PEOPLE WILL ASSUME]

BRAND VOICE
  Never say: [OFF-LIMITS LIST FROM FORM BV-01]
  Barred claims: [BARRED CLAIMS FROM FORM BV-01]
  Never sound like: [FROM FORM BV-01, SECTION BV-1]

CONSTRAINTS
  - Beat 1 has no dialogue — it must read as a picture
  - Beat 4 is the same shot as beat 1, described identically
  - One escalation only in beat 2
  - The product enters in beat 3 without being introduced or held up
  - No claim beyond WHAT I CAN HONESTLY CLAIM > "It fixes"
  - The button in beat 5 is under 7 words and is not a slogan
  - No exclamation marks anywhere

Return as: BEAT n — [dialogue or "no dialogue"] / [what's on screen]. Nothing else.

Why they put up with it is the field that lifts this above a generic ad. The reason someone hasn't already solved a problem is almost always the most human thing in the script, and it's the detail a model cannot invent for you.

It does not fix is a guardrail rather than a script element. It rarely appears in the output; it stops the model reaching for the adjacent, bigger, unearned claim.

No exclamation marks sounds trivial and isn't. It's the single fastest way to stop the register drifting into infomercial.

5What to reject

• Beat 4 not matching beat 1. Fatal, and easy to miss on the page — check the two shot descriptions side by side, literally.
• Any causal claim stronger than what you observed. Fixes is not prevents. Helped is not cured. In regulated categories this is not a style note.
• A performed problem. Sighing, eye-rolling, exaggerated struggle.
• The product being introduced. "So I got this…" — no. It just appears.
• A button that's a slogan. If it sounds like it came from the brand, it didn't come from you, and the piece stops being UGC.

6Illustration

DISCLOSURE — "Paid partnership with Sable."  / title card + spoken, 0:00–0:02
BEAT 1 — [no dialogue] / spatula edge under stuck egg, close, unhurried
BEAT 2 — [no dialogue] / same shot, next morning, more scraping
BEAT 3 — "Swapped the pan." / pan lowered onto the ring, half in frame
BEAT 4 — [no dialogue] / identical shot to beat 1 — egg slides off in one motion
BEAT 5 — "Hand wash only, though." / hand lifts the pan out of frame

Beats 1, 2 and 4 carry no dialogue at all. The button is dry and refuses to sell, which is what stops the piece reading as an advert despite being one structurally — and it was produced by a constraint, not despite one. The client bars any suggestion of dishwasher use in creative; the script turned that obligation into the piece's one honest negative.

The most useful finding in this run is invisible to a word check. Beat 2 establishes next morning; beat 4 mirrors beat 1 and resolves it. Read as a sequence, the piece asserts that this is now how every morning goes — a durability claim made by editing rather than by language. Four weeks of recorded use supports has kept happening; nothing on file supports will keep happening. claim-guard flagged it, the creator read it and shipped it knowingly. That's allowed. Shipping it without noticing is not.

7Adapting this

• Where the fix isn't visual: replace beat 4's mirrored shot with a mirrored moment — same place, same time of day, different outcome. Weaker, but it still rhymes.
• Comedic register: escalate beat 2 once more, never twice, and keep beat 4 completely straight. The straighter the resolution, the funnier the setup.
• Regulated categories: get the brand's approved claim wording before drafting, and expect beat 5 to be replaced by their legal team. Write it anyway — a button they reject is easier to fix than a structure they reject.
• Brands with a restrained voice: cut beat 2 entirely and play beats 1 and 4 almost identically. It becomes a quiet before/after, which some brands greatly prefer.