AI Promotional Video

Overview

Hot Dog Zone UK puts ready-to-go hot dog stands inside venues that already have footfall — forecourts, cinemas, stadiums and pubs. The centrepiece here is a 47-second AI-generated promotional film that pictures one of those stands inside a Screwfix trade counter: a worker walks the aisles, staff serve from the stand, and it closes on a co-branded lockup. Alongside it sit a short vertical social ad, a matching still, and B2B promotional copy aimed at the venue owners the brand wants to sign.

Challenge

The brand sells in two directions at once — to the people who eat the hot dogs, and to the venue owners who host the stands. The pitch to owners is the harder one: it asks them to picture a stand in a space that has never had one, which no product photograph can do. Filming it conventionally would mean a location, a crew and a cast before a single site existed.

Audience

Customers scrolling social, and the venue owners — forecourts, cinemas, stadiums and pubs — the brand wants as hosts.

Objectives

• Show a stand working inside a real host-venue setting, before any site is fitted
• Make the product unmistakable within the first second of a feed ad
• Carry the brand's roundel and colour into a format built for vertical social
• Write promotional copy that speaks to venue decision-makers, not only to customers

My responsibilities

• Directing and generating the promotional film with AI video tools
• Concepting and designing the ad composition
• Animating it as a five-second vertical piece
• Exporting a still in the same composition for static placements
• Writing B2B promotional copy options and call-to-action lines

Research & insight

• The brand grows by signing host venues, so the pitch had to address owners and decision-makers rather than end customers alone
• A trade counter was the right setting to picture: steady weekday footfall, customers already stopping, and no kitchen — the exact case the brand makes to venues
• Vertical social plays sound-off by default, so both pieces had to carry their whole message visually

Strategy

• Use generative video where the subject does not exist yet to be filmed — the stand in someone else's venue
• One composition, lightly animated — at five seconds there is no room for a cut
• Lead with the product shot and the roundel, then the claim, then the call to action
• Split the audience in the copy: appetite for customers, commercial upside for venues

Channels used

Video

AI-generated promotional film and five-second animated ad

Instagram

Vertical 4:5 feed placement

Facebook

Promotional post placement

Creative execution

• AI-generated film of a Hot Dog Zone stand operating inside a Screwfix store, closing on a co-branded lockup
• Five-second vertical animated ad — a spotlight sweep and rising steam over a single composition
• Brand roundel locked to the top of the frame, above the headline
• Matching still export for static placements

Deliverables

• AI-generated promotional film (1920×1080, 47 seconds, silent)
• Five-second vertical animated ad (1080×1350, silent)
• Still cut from the same composition
• Four B2B promotional copy options with call-to-action lines

Results

• Delivered a 47-second AI-generated promotional film, silent and cut for sound-off viewing
• Delivered a five-second vertical animated ad and a matching still
• Delivered four B2B promotional copy options with call-to-action lines for venue outreach

Lessons learned

• Generative video earns its place when the thing you need to show does not exist yet — a stand inside a venue that has not signed is exactly that brief, and no photograph or stock clip covers it
• A five-second ad has no room for a cut — animating one strong composition beats sequencing three weak ones
• When a brand grows by signing venues rather than selling units, the copy has two audiences and they need separate lines, not one blended message

Media gallery