31st March 2026 - 10 mins read
Welcome to the second edition of Ad Break!
So… what is this exactly?
Ad Break is a creative newsletter powered by Ramdam. Twice a month, we share what’s happening in the world of ads: the creative shifts, the trends in your feeds, and the ideas you should probably be paying attention to.
Who am I?
I’m Mitalee. I watch a lot of ads, so you don’t have to sit through the bad ones.
The goal is embarrassingly simple:
Every issue should leave you with at least one idea you can actually use in your next creative brief.
⚠️ Fair warning: after reading this, you're going to start noticing every ad differently. 👀
Today, we're talking about:
Let's dive in!
We've all seen reaction videos a hundred times. And we'll keep stopping for them every time we scroll.
You already know why: it's the text.
You see a shocked face and your eyes go straight to what's written on it. Without thinking.
Every 👏 single 👏 time.
And that's really all there is to it.
A surprised face and the right text overlay.
The face can be subtle, it can be over the top, it can be a creator you've never heard of. Doesn't matter. What matters is what you write on it. It decides whether someone keeps watching or keeps scrolling.
So how do you write text that makes someone stop?
Make the not-knowing feel unbearable.
The formula is simple:
[Implication that viewer is missing something] + [a gap they can't close without watching]
Example:
None of these are particularly clever. None of them are beautifully written. But every single one opens a gap the brain feels compelled to close because the not-knowing is genuinely, slightly uncomfortable.
The goal isn't to make people curious. It's to make them feel like the answer already exists, and they just don't have it yet.
How to use it for your ads:
You'll see this mostly in health, productivity, and finance ads, but it works for anything. The face, the format, and the hook are all interchangeable; just point it at your audience's pain point and run it.
TLDR:
By the time you read this, it's already over. Fruit Love Island (AI-generated fruits on a dating show) took over the internet, hit 200 million views, had more followers than the actual Love Island page at one point, got covered by CNN, and then the account was deleted 🤯.
All of this between March 13th and 27th (that's just 2 weeks!!!)
Everything was organic. Will any of it work in paid acquisition? Honestly, we have no idea 🤷🏼♀️
But if you're thinking about
- organic flood
- experimenting with AI, or
- planning a series of content
this is one of the best storytelling case studies we've seen in a while.
A few things worth taking notes on:
PS: These are untested in paid ads, so if you try any of them, come back and tell us how it went 😉