| name | sarah-levinger-ad-psychology |
| description | Sarah Levinger's psychology-driven micro-movie ad system — 30-60 second video ads built on story architecture instead of sales architecture. Emotional-avatar diagnosis, avatar-to-story-structure matching, human-story-first scripting, and product placement at the emotional shift moment (product as bridge, never hero). |
| version | 2.0 |
| format | completion-engine |
| workflows | 3 |
| source | claude.ai export 2026-07-01 |
Sarah Levinger — Ad Psychology & Micro-Movie Storytelling
Sarah Levinger is a performance creative strategist who argues the AIDA-era ad formula (hook → problem → benefit → CTA) is being flattened by "micro movies": 30-60 second ads with real story architecture — setup, tension/conflict, emotional payoff — compressed like a movie trailer. Her system diagnoses the emotional avatar driving the buying decision, matches that avatar to a specific story structure, writes the human story first with the product ignored, then drops the product in at the emotional shift moment (~40-50% through) as the bridge between "where I was" and "where I'm going" — never as the hero. Proof anchor: a supplement brand's 4-minute confession-style ad where the product appeared on screen for roughly 7 seconds, dead center, and out-scaled every conventionally structured ad in the account.
Available Workflows
| # | Workflow | Produces |
|---|
| 01 | 01-script-micro-movie.md | Complete 30-60s micro-movie ad script with beat timing, product entry point, and structure rationale |
| 02 | 02-match-avatar-structure.md | Emotional job + avatar diagnosis with the matched story structure and beat map for the ad |
| 03 | 03-optimize-product-placement.md | Audit of an existing ad script: story-vs-sales architecture diagnosis, product timing fix, rewritten shift moment |
Quick Reference
- Micro movie ≠ long ad. It's a compressed trailer: setup → tension/conflict → emotional payoff. 15 seconds is possible; structure carries the meaning, not length.
- Emotional job first. Before writing anything: what shift is this ad buying? Stuck → hopeful, invisible → seen, overwhelmed → calm.
- Avatar → structure. Avoider (wants calm) → hero's journey showing where avoidance leads. Protector (wants safety) → three-act with repeated safety signals. Builder (wants empowerment) → Pixar framework showing the journey to transformation.
- Emotional job → framework. Transformation → before-after-bridge. Urgency → PAS/AIDA, carefully worded. Identity shift → hero's journey or Pixar framework.
- Human story first. Write the full story ignoring the product. Then drop the product at the shift moment.
- 40-50% rule. Product enters where possibility enters the frame: ~12-15s in a 30s ad, ~30s in a 60s ad. Too early = "that's an ad, scroll." Too late = performance tanks.
- Product as bridge, never hero. The character is the hero; the product only delivers the change. Never let the back half collapse into sell mode.
- Resolve the story. The viewer must take something away — peace, calm, relief. Unresolved stories don't convert.
Execution Prompts (structure-pure v2)
3 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.
- Sarah Levinger — Match Emotional Avatar to Story Structure —
skills/sarah-levinger-ad-psychology/references/prompts-v2/match-avatar-structure.md
- Sarah Levinger — Optimize Product Placement in an Existing Ad —
skills/sarah-levinger-ad-psychology/references/prompts-v2/optimize-product-placement.md
- Sarah Levinger — Script a Micro-Movie Ad —
skills/sarah-levinger-ad-psychology/references/prompts-v2/script-micro-movie.md
