| name | oren-dara-ad-psychology |
| description | The psychology layer under performance ads — Oren John × Dara Denney's six consumer-psychology tactics for cold-traffic creative (taboo/mirroring with a lived-experience veto, justification math, armchair investigation with designed rage-bait + comment virtue-mining, prove-it-in-frame, us-vs-them visual psychology with multiples/grid eye-mechanics, credible-explainer authority staging), plus the organic→paid learning flywheel and Dara's 6-part creative-strategy operating process. Use BEFORE format/vessel selection — this skill decides the psychological mechanism; dara-denney-meta-ads decides the vessel. Do NOT use for organic-only brand content, pure static production (route dara-static-engine), or luxury insider-code positioning (route oren-luxury-psychology). |
Oren John × Dara Denney — Ad Psychology
"They're all rooted in something that a consumer wants to do, how they think, some of the psychology of it, and some of the things that actually work in performance and organic." — Oren
The layer UNDER format selection. An ad converts cold traffic when it is the safe (taboo/mirroring), justified (selfish desires), credible (authority), or proven (demonstration) container for something the customer already thinks, wants, or says privately. Six tactics, each with a real scaled ad and a named failure mode — plus the operating loop that feeds them (organic mining in, comment mining out).
Position in the stack: run this skill to choose the psychological mechanism and concept → hand the concept to dara-denney-meta-ads for vessel, hooks, statics, test plan, and production. Fidelity note: single-source extraction (6.9k words); everything is quote-grounded in references/source-quotes.md — never invent past it.
Workflow Map
Tier 1 — Foundation
| # | Workflow | When to run | Output |
|---|
| 01 | /adpsy-tactic-select | Front door — new brand/persona, or ads feel generic | Ranked brief: 2-3 of the six tactics matched to brand × persona × awareness, each with mechanism, concept seed, and failure-mode warning |
| 02 | /adpsy-taboo-ad | Category has unsaid customer truths (health, money, body, politics-adjacent) | Taboo ad concept: inner-monologue line, safe-space framing, comment prompt, lived-experience veto verdict |
| 03 | /adpsy-justification-math | Price is the #1 objection OR high-AOV/luxury purchase | Justification suite: cost-per-use math, heirloom/investment framing, girl-math variant, plus the inverse "we're not cheap" status filter |
| 04 | /adpsy-armchair-investigation | Category has unfairness/rip-off energy; audience overlaps drama/true-crime | Scenario script (investigation structure), persona casting spec (incl. AI + demographic puncture), designed comment-engagement plan |
Tier 2 — Practitioner
| # | Workflow | When to run | Output |
|---|
| 05 | /adpsy-prove-it | Product has a demonstrable claim | 2-3 proof-in-frame concepts: 60-second demonstration, extreme-circumstance variant, trend-carrier variant |
| 06 | /adpsy-credible-explainer | Trust/authority gap; "we can't do expert ads" | Authority plan: scavenged-chain casting options, set/staging spec, organic pre-seeding sequence, script beats |
| 07 | /adpsy-visual-psych | Concept is message-heavy with no visual layer; comparison ads | Visual psychology spec: multiples/grid/Z-F devices, visual value-prop, opinion-based legal framing |
| 08 | /adpsy-comment-mine | Ad live ≥1 week with real comments | Virtue map + vernacular bank + next-iteration briefs ranked by revealed virtue |
Tier 3 — System & Stacking
| # | Workflow | When to run | Output |
|---|
| 09 | /adpsy-organic-flywheel | Ideation still starts from competitor ad libraries | Organic→paid research loop: audience-organic sources, format-replication shortlist, learning-flywheel cadence |
| 10 | /adpsy-strategy-sprint | Standing up or auditing a creative-strategy operation | Dara's 6-part process instantiated: research → brief → roadmap (awareness balance) → weekly sprint → QA → analytics with winner-softening watch |
Recommended Sequence
- New brand:
/adpsy-tactic-select → the matched tactic builder (02–06) → /adpsy-visual-psych layer → hand to dara-denney-meta-ads (/dara-format-selection or /dara-static-engine) for vessel + production.
- Live account:
/adpsy-comment-mine + /adpsy-organic-flywheel → feed findings into /adpsy-tactic-select next round.
- Operation:
/adpsy-strategy-sprint wraps the whole loop into a weekly cadence.
Stacking Guide
| Pair with | To get |
|---|
dara-denney-meta-ads | The vessel: 8 video formats, 7 static archetypes, hooks, test plans, AI production. This skill = mechanism, that skill = machine. |
luke-iha-* (mechanisms, proof ladders, vicious hooks) | Deeper mechanism/proof architecture under a prove-it or justification concept |
oren-luxury-psychology | Extend "we're not cheap" into full connoisseurship-ladder positioning |
sarah-levinger-ad-psychology, kunal-shah-consumer-psychology | Second-opinion psych lens on tactic selection |
meg-heckman-buyer-trigger-os | 50ms gate + trigger audit on the visual-psych layer |
kallaway / tess-barclay | Trend carriers for prove-it and organic-flywheel replication |
jonah-berger-contagious | Share/comment dynamics under the rage-bait engagement design |
Quick Reference
- Genius context:
genius.md — six-tactic table, 10 patterns, hidden knowledge, rubric, hard vetoes. Load before any workflow.
- Verbatim bank:
references/source-quotes.md — timestamped quotes; frame-verified items marked 📷.
- Tactic map:
references/six-tactics-map.md — tactic × mechanism × exemplar × failure mode × stacking partner, one page.
- Extraction archive:
extractions/oren-dara-ad-psychology/ (report, transcript, visual context).
- Hard vetoes (from genius.md): shock-for-shock · golden-nugget review that fails the lived-experience test · fake authority (bought scrubs, car-set expert) · claim without demonstration · competitor-library-first ideation · unlabeled speaker-attributed facts.
Execution Prompts (structure-pure v2)
10 deterministic practitioner prompts — each carries an Output Contract, Output Skeleton, and Quality Gate. When a deliverable matches one, Read it and honor its contract instead of improvising the output shape.
- Oren × Dara — Tactic Selection Brief —
skills/oren-dara-ad-psychology/references/prompts-v2/01-tactic-selection-brief.md
- Oren × Dara — Taboo Ad Concept —
skills/oren-dara-ad-psychology/references/prompts-v2/02-taboo-ad-concept.md
- Oren × Dara — Justification Math Suite —
skills/oren-dara-ad-psychology/references/prompts-v2/03-justification-suite.md
- Dara Denney — Armchair Investigation Package —
skills/oren-dara-ad-psychology/references/prompts-v2/04-armchair-investigation.md
- Oren John — Prove-It-In-Frame Concepts —
skills/oren-dara-ad-psychology/references/prompts-v2/05-prove-it-concepts.md
- Oren × Dara — Credible Explainer Authority Plan —
skills/oren-dara-ad-psychology/references/prompts-v2/06-credible-explainer-plan.md
- Dara Denney — Visual Psychology Spec —
skills/oren-dara-ad-psychology/references/prompts-v2/07-visual-psych-spec.md
- Dara Denney — Comment Virtue-Mine Report —
skills/oren-dara-ad-psychology/references/prompts-v2/08-comment-mine-report.md
- Dara Denney — Organic→Paid Flywheel Map —
skills/oren-dara-ad-psychology/references/prompts-v2/09-organic-flywheel-map.md
- Dara Denney — 6-Part Creative-Strategy Operating Doc —
skills/oren-dara-ad-psychology/references/prompts-v2/10-strategy-sprint-doc.md