Remake your rival's longest-running ad.

Your best ad stopped working and you don't know what to make next. Meanwhile a rival has a video that's been live for a year. Nobody pays for an ad that long unless it sells. Here's how to take it apart and rebuild it for your product.

1Find
2Break down
3Remake
4Plan the shoot

Start step 1

Step 1

Find the ad that won't die

Open the Meta Ad Library. Set the country to United States and the category to All ads.
Type a rival's brand name and pick their Page from the list.
Open Filters. Set Active status to Active ads and Media type to Videos.
Every ad says "Started running on" with a date. Scroll and find the oldest one still running. That's your ad.
Save it. On a computer, right-click the video and pick Save video as. On a phone, screen-record it.

Rule of thumb: live 90+ days means the brand keeps paying for it. If a rival has nothing older than 2 months, try the biggest brand in your niche instead.

Step 2

Break it down, shot by shot

You want the bones: what happens in the first 3 seconds, every shot, every word, and why it works. Most long-running ads land on a shape like this one:

What a breakdown looks like (an 11-second ad)

Result first0-1s
Touch1-3s
Demo3-8s
Reveal8-10s
Point10-11s

11 seconds

Pick a route.

Open the Gemini app or gemini.google.com (the free plan works).
Tap + and upload the video you saved.
Paste this prompt and send.

I'm going to upload a video ad. Watch all of it, with the sound on. I want to copy its structure for my own product, not its words.

Give me 5 parts:

1. FIRST 3 SECONDS
What's on screen, what's said (word for word), any text on screen (word for word), and why someone would stop scrolling.

2. SHOT LIST
A table with: time | what we see (selfie, close-up, hands, product) | what's said (word for word) | text on screen (word for word) | the job of the shot (hook, problem, proof, demo, result, ask).

3. THE BONES
The ad in 4 to 6 beats, one short line each. Example: doubt > test on bare skin > live reaction > result > soft ask.

4. WHY IT'S STILL RUNNING
3 reasons this ad probably keeps selling, based only on what you can see and hear.

5. LOOK AND SOUND
Phone or camera, light, room, who talks (on camera, voiceover, nobody), music or no music, sound effects, and roughly how many cuts per 10 seconds.

Rules: plain words. Don't guess sales numbers. If you can't tell something, write "can't tell".

rea-video is a free, open-source tool that splits a video into shots, reads the text on screen, pulls out the voice and the music, and writes a full report with a storyboard image.

Easiest: paste this into a coding agent that runs on your computer, like Claude Code or Codex. It installs the tool and runs it for you.

Install the open-source tool at https://github.com/JuneYaooo/rea-video on this computer and use it to break down a video ad.

First ask me where the video file is on this computer (for example ~/Downloads/rival-ad.mp4) and wait for my answer. Then:

1. Check that Python 3.10+ and ffmpeg are installed. Install what's missing.
2. Clone the repo and install it (pip install -e .).
3. Run: rea-video decompose <video> -o out/rival --lang en
4. Then run: rea-video summary out/rival/breakdown.json
5. Show me report.md and the storyboard image. If a shot is called "generated" but looks like real phone footage, say so.

Or run it yourself in a terminal:

# once: needs Python 3.10+ and ffmpeg
git clone https://github.com/JuneYaooo/rea-video
cd rea-video && pip install -e .

# each ad
rea-video decompose rival-ad.mp4 -o out/rival --lang en
rea-video summary out/rival/breakdown.json

ChatGPT or Claude in the browser can't install it. They can't run programs on your computer. Use the Gemini route instead, it watches the video directly.

Check the storyboard yourself. The tool sometimes calls real phone footage "generated". Your eyes win. Then paste report.md into step 3.

Short on time? Skip the breakdown. Unlock the rest and get 3 ads we already broke down, live 333 to 436 days.

Step 3

Remake it for your product

Open Claude. Paste this prompt. It asks you 4 short questions, one at a time, then writes it. You get a shot-by-shot script, 3 more openings to test, and a shoot list.

I run a small DTC brand. I want to remake a competitor's long-running video ad for my product.

Before you write anything, ask me these questions one at a time. Wait for my answer before the next one. If I don't know an answer, tell me where to find it, then move on.
1. What do you sell? (category and product)
2. How many days has the competitor's ad been running?
3. Paste the breakdown of their ad (from step 2).
4. Paste your product page link or text.

Then remake the ad's STRUCTURE for my product. Keep the same beats, length and feel. Don't copy their words, claims or brand.

Give me:

1. SCRIPT
A shot-by-shot table: time | what we see | what's said | text on screen. Same number of beats as the original, about the same length.

2. 3 MORE OPENINGS
3 different first-3-seconds I can swap onto the same ad, each from a different angle (a doubt, a result, a mistake people make).

3. PHONE SHOOT LIST
Where to film, what light, props, how to frame each shot, and which shots to film twice.

4. IF I GENERATE INSTEAD OF SHOOT
One prompt per shot for a video tool like Kling. Same person, same room, same phone look in every shot.

Rules:
- Only use claims that are on my product page. No medical claims. No promised results.
- It should look and sound like a real person filmed it on a phone, not a polished ad.
- Use the words my customers would use, not marketing words.

Copy the bones, not the ad. Their words, claims and brand stay theirs. The beats, the length and the feel are fair game.

Step 4

Plan the shoot, or generate it

Shoot it on a phone

Front camera, phone at eye level, window or lamp in front of the face.
A real room, not a studio. The plain phone look is what people trust.
Film every shot twice. Keep the better one.
Vertical, 9:16. Cut anything slow.

Or generate it

Use the shot prompts from step 3 in a video tool like Kling.
Start every shot from the same photo of the same person, so they look the same all the way through.
Ask for a phone look: handheld, natural light, no glossy, plastic look.

Then test it. Put the remake next to your current best ad with the same budget for 7 days. Keep the one that wins. Swap in the 3 extra openings next.

Next step

Get 2 free storyboards for your store

Send your store link. We pick your best-selling product, look at what's running longest in your category, and send you 2 storyboards for it: every shot, every line, ready to film or hand to a creator.

Quick answers

Isn't this just copying?

No. You keep their structure: the order of the shots, the length, the feel. Their words, claims and brand stay theirs. Ads in every category borrow structure from each other all the time.

What if my rivals have no old ads?

Look one level up. Search the biggest brand in your niche, or a brand selling to the same customer in a nearby category. Any video live 90+ days is worth a look.

Do I have to be on camera?

No. Two of the 3 bonus ads have nobody talking. Hands, close-ups and text on screen do the work. Or generate the shots from step 3.

Does the Gemini route cost anything?

No. The free Gemini app takes video uploads. Claude's free plan handles the remake prompt.

Rather not make them yourself?

We make these for your product

Everything on this page, done for you: we find the ads that last in your category and rebuild them for your product.

9 video ads and 6 static ads, ready to test
A test plan: which 3 to launch first and when to cut
If none of the 9 videos beats your best ad within 14 days, you get 3 more hooks free.

$450

Claim my 15 ads Book a call first

Want to see the quality first? See what we make