Why ‘Lazy’ Ads Beat High-Production Creative

In partnership with

“The Lazy Ads Formula” 🛋️📈

Have you noticed how some brands grow faster after they stop trying so hard?

Not because they produce more.
Not because they hire bigger crews.
But because they find a simple formula they can repeat — and repeat — and repeat.

That’s the power of the Lazy Ads Formula.

Not maximal effort.
Not cinematic edits.
Just clear, frictionless creative that feels effortless and sells on instinct.

This week, we’re unpacking why “lazy” creative often outperforms high-production campaigns — and how the right formula can scale your brand faster than new ideas ever will.

Here’s your Lazy Ads fuel for the week:

• The Lazy Ads Formula — Why simple, honest ads outperform overworked creative when energy (and attention) are low.

• The Playbook — How to build a repeatable lazy ads engine with simple templates, real moments, and micro-emotion.

• Why Lazy Ads Work — The psychology behind clarity, speed, volume, and trust.

• Brand Spotlight — How MONDAY Haircare built a scalable, lo-fi creative machine that converts.

• Growth Memo — A reminder that connection beats perfection.

• From Me to You — A tool to understand why the same ad performs differently across platforms.

• Acronym Therapy — CTR gets a new meaning.

Let’s dive in!

INTRO

The Lazy Ads Formula

There’s a point every marketer hits: you’re tired, your ideas feel flat, and every edit somehow makes your ad worse instead of better. Lazy ads exist to keep you from burning out before your creative even makes it to the feed.

Lazy ads aren’t sloppy, they’re light. They’re honest. They’re unstaged moments that look like something your customer already does every day. Showering. Getting ready. Cleaning. Opening a package. Trying something for the first time. These moments don’t need scripts or angles or three layers of strategy. They just need to feel true.

And here’s the real secret: the human brain loves clarity more than cleverness. When an ad is simple, we understand it immediately. And when we understand something immediately, we trust it faster.

Simplicity → clarity → trust → conversion.
That’s the whole formula.

PLAYBOOK

How to Build a Lazy Ads Engine That Prints Results

✨ 1. Choose a Simple Template You Can Repeat
Lazy ads work when the structure is so simple you can remake it endlessly. A VO over B-roll, a quick demo, a few benefits on screen. If it takes more than a day to produce or more than a sentence to explain, it won’t scale.

✨ 2. Start With What Feels Real
Lo-fi wins because it looks like everyday content. Hands, faces, small messes, quick movement. It feels familiar, and familiar feels trustworthy. That’s why people click.

✨ 3. Add Micro-Emotion, Not Big Drama
You don’t need a full story arc. Just small cues: a sigh, a “finally,” a one-second before/after. Tiny emotions land fast and make the ad feel human.

✨ 4. Stick to One Message
One idea always performs better than three. Keep it focused and the ad becomes easier to understand and easier to act on.

✨ 5. Iterate Like It’s a Habit
Winners don’t chase masterpieces. They tweak constantly: new intro, new phrasing, new angle. Same formula. Repetition isn’t boring, it powers the algorithm.

THE WHY

Why Lazy Ads Work

Lazy ads work because they reduce cognitive load, move fast emotionally, and make high-volume testing possible without exhausting your team. When ads are easy to understand and easy to make, you get clarity, speed, and consistency — the three things performance depends on.

Brands don’t scale through creative ambition.
They scale through creative repeatability.

BRAND SPOTLIGHT

Monday Haircare — The Unbothered, Repeatable Creative Machine

MONDAY Haircare didn’t win with the prettiest ads, they won by building a creative system anyone could replicate in minutes. Their rule is simple: if it feels real, post it; if it takes too long, skip it. Their entire brand anchor is built on one promise: “Salon results without the salon price — for real people in real routines.”

You see this reinforced through the same consistent cues again and again: bright bathrooms, hands-on demos, soft voiceovers, quick but believable transformations, and tiny emotional moments like a relieved sigh or a first post-shower hair flip. It’s not aspirational, it’s comforting. And comforting converts.

🔍 Why MONDAY’s Lazy Ads Formula Works

1. One format, endless creators
Same skeleton demo → visible result → simple line. Different people, same clarity.

2. “Show me” beats “tell me”
Every ad highlights one benefit paired with a simple demo. That’s why it works in under 3 seconds.

3. Production never slows them down
Phone footage = infinite variations. This lets them test, rotate, and refresh faster than competitors.

4. Imperfection feels trustworthy
Wet hair, frizz, blurry bathroom mirrors, the stuff most brands hide becomes MONDAY’s advantage.

5. Creators deliver the emotion
The micro-reactions (a small gasp, a happy stroke of soft hair) communicate more than scripted lines ever could.

🎬 5 MONDAY Ads That Perfectly Show Their Lazy Ads Engine

1. The One-Take Shower Demo

Human Insight: This mirrors the viewer’s exact routine, making the content instantly relatable.
Strategic Insight: One-take demos allow infinite scaling any creator, any hair type, any bathroom can recreate it within minutes.

2. The Before/After + Hair Flip Cut

Two clips: “before” with flat or frizzy hair, then a clean “after” with improved shine and movement.
Human Insight: The hair flip isn’t about glam, it's about the satisfaction of visible improvement.
Strategic Insight: MONDAY keeps the transformation small and believable, building trust rather than overpromising.

3. The Benefit Breakdown + Bottle Close-Up

Human Insight: Reassurance in the simplest form, people want the product explained clearly, not embellished.
Strategic Insight: These are the easiest assets to mass-produce, perfect for filling gaps in paid media rotations.

4. The Creator VO “Morning Routine”

A creator films casual B-roll while talking softly about why they love the shampoo.
Human Insight: The voiceover sounds like a friend’s recommendation, which increases trust and click intent.
Strategic Insight: Unscripted VO allows diverse voices and micro-narratives while staying within the same template.

5. The Shelfie + Texture Satisfier

Close-up of the bottle on a bathroom shelf, followed by a lather shot.
Human Insight: The “satisfying texture” moment taps into the same psychology that makes skincare swatches go viral.
Strategic Insight: These assets are versatile, they work as ads, organic fillers, and retailer partner content.

📝 The Bigger Lesson

MONDAY proves something most brands underestimate: ads don’t need to be clever — they need to be repeatable. Their creative engine is built on simple demos, clear benefits, real homes, real hair, and predictable formats supported by micro-emotion. They don’t chase originality; they chase consistency. And because of that, their ads always feel familiar, human, and trustworthy.

That’s the Lazy Ads Formula and it works because it’s honest, scalable, and impossible to fatigue.

🪞Growth Memo

From Me to You 🎧

If you’ve ever run the same ad across platforms and seen completely different results, that’s the platform effect and Neurons helps you understand the simple, science-backed reason behind it. In a quick on-demand session, Neurons CEO and neuroscientist.

Make Every Platform Work for Your Ads

You’re running an ad.

The same ad. On different platforms. Getting totally different results.

That’s not random: it’s the platform effect.

So stop guessing what works. Understand the bit-sized science behind it.

Join Neuroscientist & Neurons CEO Dr. Thomas Ramsøy for a free on-demand session on how to optimize ads for different platforms.

Register & watch it whenever it fits you.

👉 Watch the Webinar

MEMORABLE THINGS

The Memo-ry 

Simple ads scale.
Simple systems win.
Simple clarity builds trust.

Good creative feels effortless both to make and to watch.

Acronym Therapy 🧩

CTR
Click-Through Rate.

Also: Copy. Test. Repeat.
Because lazy ad engines don’t scale through big swings. They scale through tiny, repeatable tweaks that compound.

NEXT WEEK

The Gift Card Advantage 🎁✨

A lighter breakdown of how to make buying feel effortless,not by pushing harder, but by removing the friction.
It’s the power of a tiny shortcut: a card, a code, a click that lets people give value without overthinking.

Can’t wait to share more next week!
 
Creative Strategist
The Marketer’s Memo