hands-full-ad: tradesperson on site, phone keeps ringing, the voice agent picks up

Roman on camera, Rachel filming. Shot on the build site we are living on.

First Meta ad creative for RomanLogic. Modelled on the Powered Now "tradies, how you're expected to answer the phone" sketch, their most-tested creative (21 versions out of 50 of their ads). We mirror it straight: the pain acted out, the save shown on screen.

Target: 18 to 22 seconds vertical. Platforms: facebook and instagram reels, plus ig stories, with a Threads caption only. UK spelling throughout (Roman's voice). No prices anywhere.

Beats

1. Hook, 0 to 3 s, wide, dust floor, Roman mid-task

Open on him lifting a plasterboard or dragging a trestle past camera, dust visible, phone starts ringing from a bucket or windowsill. He clocks it, hands obviously full. No speech yet, ambient only.

Burned hook overlay, pick one and rewrite in your own voice:

1. running a business while running the site
2. SMBs, how you're expected to answer the phone
3. the leads call when your hands are full

Rule check: hook under about 8 words burned, stake first, no em dashes.

2. Pain escalates, 3 to 10 s, tighter, handheld

Phone keeps ringing. Cut-aways:

1. a dusty hand reaching, giving up
2. phone sliding off the trestle
3. him wiping his hands on his jeans and it is hopeless

A second ring layer can overlap if you want to sell "and another one". No VO yet.

3. The save, 10 to 16 s, phone screen insert

Insert shot: phone face up on a bucket or board, ringing, then the call auto-answers. Agent's voice comes through the speaker, calm and clear, handling the lead. Roman pauses, looks over, carries on working with a tiny grin.

The agent's spoken line is yours to write. Scaffold below to fit the window, for you and Roman to rewrite in your own voice. UK spelling, no price.

DRAFT scaffold, roughly 6 s (rewrite before recording)

Timing window, from the ring cutting out at about 10 s:

Single-speaker variant (easier to record, just the agent):

These are placeholders. Any figure, time of day or job type is yours to change. Keep each agent line to about 2.5 s or roughly 7 words so it lands inside the window.

4. Payoff and CTA, 16 to 22 s, Roman to camera, dust on his forehead

One sentence to camera, yours to write, roughly 8 to 10 words. End card: wordmark and one-line CTA copy.

Watch-outs

1. The agent's spoken line is the one thing that must be handwritten. I only scaffold the ring-to-answer timing.
2. No em dashes in any burned text or caption.
3. Centre everything on the frame's own centre line, not inside each box.
4. Measure the finished frame for orphans on the burned hook before render.
5. Caller ID on the phone insert uses a fake contact, never a real name or number.
6. SFX (ring, thuds) bake in at the quiet default. The agent's voice sits on top at normal level.

Shoot checklist, one afternoon on site

1. Roman in work clothes, dusty is good
2. A phone we can set to ring on cue, plus a second phone to call it
3. A real surface for the auto-answer insert: bucket, board, windowsill
4. Tripod for the insert and the to-camera, handheld for the pain beats
5. Vertical 1080 by 1920, 30 fps, three takes of every beat

Captions and end card

Yours. Sentence case for the RomanLogic account, UK spelling for Roman's voice, 4 to 5 hashtags on facebook and instagram, 1 topic tag on Threads, no price words. Run python3 tools/keywords.py pick "..." on the draft caption before locking it.