Hook formulas that stop the scroll

A formula is not a shortcut to a good hook. It is a shape that stops you staring at a blank page, and a way of noticing that your six drafts are all secretly the same idea.

Twelve that keep working, each with the pattern, an example, what it suits, and how it fails.

1. The reversed blame

Pattern: “You’re not [failing at X]. Your [thing] is.”

Example: “You’re not bad at folding. Your wardrobe is the wrong shape.”

Suits: anything the customer currently blames themselves for. Fails when: the blame you shift is not one they actually carry. Nobody feels guilty about their kettle.

2. The disqualifier

Pattern: “Don’t buy this if [specific condition].”

Example: “Don’t buy this if you’ve got a dishwasher. Genuinely, it’s not for you.”

Suits: products with a narrow real use case. Fails when: the condition is so rare it excludes everyone, or so vague it excludes no one.

3. The uncomfortable number

Pattern: “[Number] [things] later, and [outcome].”

Example: “Four of these later and I’ve finally got one that doesn’t leak.”

Suits: categories where buyers have already wasted money. Fails when: the number is invented. A number is a fact-shaped claim, and a made-up one is the fastest way to lose the comments.

4. The named moment

Pattern: “[Very specific situation] and this happens every time.”

Example: “Second load of washing on a Sunday, and the machine starts walking across the floor.”

Suits: problems that recur on a schedule the viewer recognises. Fails when: the situation is generic. “When you’re doing laundry” is not a moment.

5. The two objects

Pattern: “One of these is £[x]. One is £[y].”

Example: “One of these is £6 and one is £60. I’ll tell you which at the end — actually no, I’ll tell you now.”

Suits: anything where the price gap is not visible on camera. Fails when: the difference genuinely is visible, in which case you have shown your own answer.

6. The permission

Pattern: “You’re allowed to [thing the viewer feels bad about].”

Example: “You’re allowed to buy the pre-chopped ones. Here’s the tool that made me stop.”

Suits: categories loaded with guilt — food, fitness, tidying, money. Fails when: the guilt is imported. If you had to explain why the viewer should feel bad, they did not.

7. The autopsy

Pattern: “Here’s where the cheap ones fail.”

Example: “Every £15 one fails in the same place. It’s this hinge.”

Suits: products with a genuine engineering difference you can point at. Fails when: you cannot show it. This formula lives entirely on the close-up that follows.

8. The overheard verdict

Pattern: “[Someone else] said [blunt thing] and they were right.”

Example: “My sister said this was a waste of money. She’s had it three months now.”

Suits: products that sound frivolous and are not. Fails when: the third party is obviously fictional. If you are inventing a sister, use a different formula.

9. The time comparison

Pattern: “[Task] used to take [long]. I timed it this morning: [short].”

Example: “Descaling used to be a whole Saturday morning. I timed it today — nine minutes.”

Suits: anything sold on convenience. Fails when: the saving is trivial. Twenty seconds saved is not a hook, it is a footnote.

10. The category refusal

Pattern: “I don’t think most people need [category]. I think you need [narrower thing].”

Example: “Most people don’t need a stand mixer. They need one good bowl and a hand whisk that doesn’t wobble.”

Suits: a smaller, cheaper, more specific product competing with an established category. Fails when: you then sell the expensive category thing anyway. The refusal has to be real.

11. The visible before

Pattern: open on the problem state with no words at all, then one line.

Example: (three seconds of a genuinely chaotic drawer) “This is the drawer. This is always the drawer.”

Suits: anything where the before is more compelling than the after. Fails when: the before is staged. Viewers are unusually good at spotting a mess arranged by a person.

12. The one-rule giveaway

Pattern: “If it doesn’t [specific test], don’t buy it — mine or anyone’s.”

Example: “If the lid doesn’t seal upside down, don’t buy it. Test it in the shop.”

Suits: building trust in a category full of near-identical products. Fails when: the rule is reverse-engineered to fit only your product. Everyone can tell, and it costs more credibility than the hook wins.

Using formulas without sounding like a formula

One per objection, not one per product. The value of a list like this is that it gets you to twelve different ideas rather than twelve rewrites of your favourite. Assign each formula a different objection and you will end up somewhere you would not have reached by polishing.

Throw away the pattern once the line exists. The formula is scaffolding. Read the finished line on its own; if you can still hear the template, rewrite it in your own words.

Do not use the same formula twice in one campaign. Two “you’re not bad at X” openers running against each other are not a test, they are the same ad twice.

Choose fast. Formulas make writing cheap, which makes choosing the hard part. Judge them the way a viewer will — quickly, in pairs, without reading your own notes back to yourself. Hook Battle exists because that comparison is the step that gets skipped.

Related

• How to write a hook for a product video — how to find the objection each formula should answer
• UGC hook examples — how these change when a creator says them
• How to test ad hooks before you spend — choosing between the twelve