Unscripted founder car selfie video vs studio and UGC ads: −62% CPA
Commentary byROASArchiveOur analysis, not theirsAn unscripted video of the founder talking in a car cut CPA by 62%, according to Kamal Razzak of MHI Media.
It beat both a studio shoot and polished UGC. The brand spends £90k/mo on Meta ads.
- CPA: down 62% with the car selfie video. Absolute CPA figures are not shared.
- Spend: the account runs £90k/mo on Meta, so this is a sizeable account.
- No ROAS, CTR, conversion count or test length is shared.
The change
Before
The account was running polished UGC and studio-shot ads. The brand is not named.
After
The founder sat in a car and explained, without a script, why the company exists. The opening line began "I built this because nothing else actually worked".
Our reading: why it likely worked
Our interpretation, not the advertiser's claim.
- The founder explained rather than sold, which invites curiosity instead of doubt.
- A phone video in a car feels like a personal message, not an ad, so people give it more attention.
- A claim like "Sustainably sourced ingredients" reads as a pitch, while a personal origin story is harder to dismiss.
Caveats: This is a campaign result reported by an agency in its newsletter, with no control group or split test described. The brand, absolute CPA, conversions and time frame are not shared.
How to run this in your account
- Hypothesis
- If we run an unscripted founder video explaining why the product exists, then CPA will drop because it feels like a message, not an ad.
- Primary metric
- CPA
- Guardrails
- Hook rate (3-second views)
- CTR
- Frequency, to spot fast fatigue
- Who should try it
- Brands with a founder who has a real origin story and can talk on camera. It probably won't work if the founder is uncomfortable on video or the story is thin.
Who got the result
MHI Media (Kamal Razzak) published this result (Newsletter). The numbers are theirs; the summary and commentary on this page are ours.
Questions
Do founder-led ads work on Meta?
In this MHI Media case, an unscripted founder video cut CPA by 62% against studio and polished UGC ads.
It is one account with no control group described.
Should ads be polished or raw?
Here the raw car video beat both polished formats.
The author credits the founder explaining instead of selling, not the low production alone.