Storytime

A first-person story told to camera — the time something happened — with the product arriving somewhere in the middle rather than at the front.

When to use it

When retention is the problem. A story buys attention that a pitch cannot, which makes it the right choice for a longer ad or an expensive product that needs a whole argument.

The thing to get right

The product must land inside the story, not on top of it. A storytime that pauses to advertise loses the audience at the seam.

The format at a glance

• Output — a video ad.
• Structure — 5 beats, each one a separately planned shot.
• Family — Creator & UGC video.
• Recipe id — storytime, which is what you name when you ask for it by hand or from an agent.

Where in the story should the product appear?

Inside it, somewhere in the middle, as part of what happened rather than as an interruption to it. A storytime that pauses to advertise loses the audience at that seam, and the seam is usually visible in the retention curve.

Related formats

Formats built around a person on camera — the talking-head, the unboxing, the try-on, the demo. These are the highest-volume paid-social formats on TikTok, Reels and Shorts, and the ones where realism matters more than polish.

• Street interview — a man-on-the-street / vox-pop style Q&A clip
• Customer testimonial — a real, relatable customer giving a sincere on-camera review (social proof)
• Get ready with me — a "get ready with me" routine clip while talking to camera
• Reboxing / restock — a satisfying repackaging / restock reveal — the product re-wrapped or restocked in oddly-satisfying order
• Reaction / duet — a creator reacting to something on screen (duet/stitch style)
• Mystery box reveal — a suspenseful mystery-box build-up and reveal of the product

The full catalog is on the creative recipes index.

Models that render it

This format is rendered by a video model. The plan picks one unless you name it, and Seedance 2.5 is the default pick. You can ask for another by name, such as Gemini Omni, Veo 3.1 or Veo 3.1 Fast. All three render native sound, so a voice comes out of the same take as the picture. The video models page compares every option.

Hermoso plans and renders a storytime from your brand rather than from a prompt you write, composites every on-screen word after the render so the copy comes out exact, and exposes the same format to an AI agent over MCP. How Hermoso renders a format covers all three.