The Claude Design Ad System

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The Claude Design Ad System — turn Claude into the creative department behind your short-form video ads. Who it's for: DTC founders, marketers, and creative leads who need real ad concepts without hiring an agency. What you'll get: 7 working prompts that take one product from blank page to a full set of filmable, testable ad executions. Time to first result: about 10 minutes to your first 8 concepts.

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How to use this

Copy the bracketed prompt in each section into Claude Design, swap in your product's details, and run it.
Work through the 7 sections in order. Each one feeds the next, from concept down to a filmable variation set.
Don't skip the "input that changes everything" callout in each section. It's the difference between generic output and something you'd actually run.
One brand, Hearth, runs through every section so you can watch a real campaign take shape, not just read theory.
Run everything through the 10-item checklist near the end before you spend a cent generating or filming video.

The brand we're using

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Hearth — a magnesium and lavender body lotion you rub on before bed instead of taking a sleep supplement. $34 for 8oz, sold direct, mostly TikTok and Reels. Audience: women 28 to 45 who've tried melatonin, gummies, and magnesium pills and are tired of all of it. Proof points: clinical-grade magnesium glycinate, dermatologist tested, 12,000+ five-star reviews, 73% of surveyed users said they fell asleep faster in week one. The objection everyone has: "it's just lotion, how could that possibly help me sleep." Every prompt below is filled in with Hearth's real details so you can see exactly what good input looks like.

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The one-page workflow map

Stage	You feed in	You get out	Do next
1. Creative concepts	Brand brief, audience, proof points, past creative notes	8 ranked ad concepts	Pick your top 2-3 to storyboard
2. Product angles	Real customer reviews, top objection	8-10 positioning angles	Match angles to concepts as hook fuel
3. Storyboards	One chosen concept plus its hook	Frame-by-frame table, 6-10 frames	Hand off to shot list
4. Shot lists	Storyboard plus your budget, gear, location	Production doc grouped by setup, props checklist	Film it
5. Visual references	Brand vibe plus the concepts you're covering	Color, lighting, camera, wardrobe, sound direction	Brief your videographer or shoot it yourself
6. Thumbnails and opening frames	Concept plus platform (feed size, muted autoplay)	6 frame-zero concepts	Pick a winner, shoot it a few different ways
7. Variation sets	One filmed or winning concept	4-6 variant test matrix, one variable changed each	Cut it and launch it as an actual test

1. Creative concepts

What good looks like vs. what beginners get

Beginner prompt gets you	What good looks like
"5 video ideas for a sleep lotion" → generic UGC, testimonial, before/after	8 ranked concepts, each with a verbatim hook, a format, the psychological trigger it uses, and the proof point it's built on
Ideas you could've written yourself in 5 minutes	Ideas that name what's worked before and deliberately avoid repeating it

The prompt

You are a senior DTC creative strategist. I need 8 short-form video ad concepts (15-30 seconds, TikTok/Reels/Stories) for the following product.

PRODUCT: [Hearth Wind-Down Body Lotion]
CATEGORY: [magnesium + lavender body lotion for sleep, $34]
AUDIENCE: [women 28-45, chronically bad sleepers, tired of pills and supplements, active on TikTok and Instagram]
POSITIONING: [a 90-second bedtime habit, not a supplement - you rub it on, not swallow it]
PROOF POINTS: [clinical-grade magnesium glycinate, dermatologist tested, 12,000+ five-star reviews, 73% of surveyed users said they fell asleep faster in week one]
COMPETITORS/ALTERNATIVES WE'RE UP AGAINST: [magnesium spray, sleep gummies, melatonin, weighted blankets]
WHAT'S WORKED BEFORE: [straight UGC testimonials with a hook line to camera]
WHAT WE HAVEN'T TRIED: [comedy, skit format, POV, myth-busting, expert-authority]

For each concept give me:
1. Concept name (3-5 words)
2. The hook - first line, verbatim, under 8 words
3. Format (UGC talking head / skit / POV / voiceover + b-roll / split screen / etc.)
4. The one-sentence "why this works" - the psychological trigger or pattern interrupt it uses
5. Which proof point it's built around
6. Best-fit platform (TikTok / Reels / Stories) and why

Order the 8 concepts from safest/most proven to most experimental. Don't repeat the same hook mechanism twice.

The input that changes everything

"What's worked before / what we haven't tried." Leave it out and Claude defaults to the same three testimonial ideas everyone gets. Put it in and it fills the actual gap in your creative library instead of repeating a format you've already run into the ground.