When I get a new brief, the first thing I do isn't think about the product. It's think about who is most likely to actually buy this — and what that specific person is feeling right now. The hook isn't about the brand. It's about the viewer.
Step 1: Find the frustration
Every product solves something. The brief usually tells me what it solves, but it rarely tells me how frustrated the target customer actually is about that problem. So I try to feel my way into that frustration.
If I'm creating content for a serum targeting hyperpigmentation — I think about what it actually feels like to have hyperpigmentation. The self-consciousness. The foundation layering. The disappointment of trying products that promised results and delivered nothing. That emotional reality is where the hook lives.
Step 2: Write the hook as if I'm texting a friend
I literally imagine I'm texting a friend who has the exact problem the product solves. How would I open that message? Not "I'm so excited to share this product with you." Nobody texts like that. More like "okay so you know how I've been dealing with the dark spots from last summer? I think I finally found something."
That casual, direct opening — that's the hook. It positions me as someone in the same situation as the viewer, which is the most credible position I can take.
Step 3: Test the specificity
Once I have a hook draft, I ask: is this specific enough that only the right person would feel seen? If it's too broad — "if you struggle with your skin" — almost anyone qualifies and nobody feels particularly called out. If it's specific — "if you have combination skin that gets oily by midday but dry patches by evening" — the right person feels like this was made for them.
Specificity is uncomfortable for brands because it narrows the audience. But it dramatically increases the conversion rate among the right audience. You're not trying to reach everyone with one video — you're trying to make the right person stop scrolling.
Step 4: Say it out loud
Before I film, I say the hook out loud five or six times. Not to memorise it — to find out if it sounds like something a human being would actually say. If any word feels unnatural in my mouth, I change it. The written version of language and the spoken version are different, and UGC lives in the spoken version.
Creating hooks that feel genuinely human is probably the thing I work hardest on. If you want content built around hooks that actually stop people scrolling, let's talk.