Pott Candles · concept bank · 3 Oct 2026

27 video ideas and 33 image ideas

Built from 12 months of Pott ad data, the content-diversity gaps and the personas. Pick the ones worth making, and shot lists follow for those.

1 · Top ads, for reference

Our top ads by purchases, April 2025 to September 2026, as shown last week.

AdWhat it isPurchasesSpendReturn
213Ailis, Starter Pack as a Christmas gift, voiceover472£18.5k1.94x
153Kate to camera, "never throw away another candle again and here's why"451£29.2k1.41x
84Ailis unboxing the Starter Pack, filling and lighting, voiceover415£15.2k2.09x
70Seasalt Starter Pack with a customer review327£10.1k2.47x
251Brand-made video304£11.1k2.07x
268Lifestyle video286£13.3k1.49x
551Flora unboxing Tomato Vine278£9.5k2.01x
135Story-style static, white text box on a nightstand245£11.3k1.85x

Where it lives. Asked where they burn it, customers said living room 276 times, kitchen 181, garden 61 and bathroom 59 (395 answers). Most ideas below are set in the living room.

Who to cast. Women 45 and over make 70% of purchases (45–54: 29%, 55–64: 32%). Mixed-gender pairs land best when they look like her household. The Chamber Media finding, that mixed-gender videos do better, is worth proving on our own account.

2 · Making it feel real

Making a video feel natural rather than scripted is mostly about how it's filmed and spoken, not the idea. These apply to every video below.

  1. Write the one sentence first. Before filming, write what the video says as one line she'd repeat to a friend. Anything that doesn't serve it gets cut, however good it is.
  2. Open on a moment, not the product. First two seconds: someone saying or doing something. The Pott is in shot by second three.
  3. Talk to someone, not to the camera. Two people talking can't sound read out. For a solo voice, have someone off camera ask a question and record the answer. The third take is usually the natural one.
  4. Bullet points, never a script. Give people three beats and let them say it their way. Ailis's copy rules apply to captions, not to how people talk.
  5. Record the sound as it happens. The match, the lid, the water, real voices. If a voiceover is needed, record it by talking over the finished footage, at about 35 words per 15 seconds.
  6. Shoot it plainly. Phone at eye height, window light, one room, a tripod for anything that needs to match. Anything we claim, like the refill, is filmed as one continuous take.
  7. One idea gets one ad, then variations of the hook. No batches of ten. Test the first 3 seconds, not the whole video.

3 · What stops the scroll

Each video below now has its first two seconds planned on three tracks: what she sees, what she hears, and the text on screen for when the sound is off. Here's what our own top ads say about it. Hook rate is the share of people who watched past 3 seconds.

StyleAdsSpendHook rate
Hands with a voiceover14£93.9k23.1%
Face on camera12£80.2k23.1%
Hands only, own voice7£20.0k22.0%
Polished product video with music14£43.9k13.0%
What the numbers say
  • Hands with a voiceover hooks as well as a face on camera (23% each). Polished product videos with music are the weak ones, at 13%. Some open on a still product, like Ad 175 at 7.9%.
  • The best hooks name a problem or a curiosity. Ad 465, Cook with hands and a voiceover, held 54.5%. Ad 9 "What's in the Starter Pack" held 32.4%, and Ad 321, a Cook unboxing to camera, held 29.1%.
  • A hook has to stop the right person. Ad 353, the refill how-to, hooked 27.1% and still lost money. Ad 213 hooked only 14.4% and sold more than any other ad, because it reached gift buyers in November.
Rules for every opening
  • Something is already happening in the first frame: a face, a hand moving, a sound. Never a product sitting still.
  • Start mid-moment. Open on a line that feels overheard ("Did you buy another candle?"), a confession, a question she answers in her head, or a number.
  • The text on screen carries the hook with the sound off, and it says the same thing as the voice.
  • The hook belongs to the message. If the opening line could sit in front of any brand's ad, it's a trick, not a hook.
  • Test the first two seconds, not the whole video. Each concept lists other opening lines to try on the same footage.

4 · Video ideas

5 · Image ideas

New formats, away from text boxes and product shots

Mostly living-room and hosting ideas. Most of our statics are the white text box or a product shot of the scent or Pott. These keep the product front and centre in a format we haven't run.