🏈 Here’s a 25-minute compilation of the best commercials from tonight’s big game.

I remember junior year, grinding through organic chemistry as a pre-med major, while a good friend —an ad major— had a homework assignment to watch the Super Bowl and critique commercials.

I was bitter about it at first. Then we spent the entire game analyzing ads almost if not more than the game itself.

Turns out memorizing molecular structures was less interesting than figuring out why a Budweiser spot made people cry. Took me way too long to figure that out.

First time reading the New Edition Newsletter?

👋 Hey, I’m Brandon Blum. I’m the Founder and Managing Partner at New Edition - a Brooklyn-based creative agency that creates winning creative for emerging consumer brands.

In this weekend’s newsletter, a step-by-step framework to turn founder-market fit into high-performing founder-led content.

BUT FIRST, HERE ARE A FEW UPCOMING NEW EDITION EVENTS TO CHECK OUT …

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WHAT IS “FOUNDER-MARKET FIT”?

Earlier this week, I jumped on a discovery call with the founder of a pregnancy kinesiology tape brand doing 25 orders per day with almost zero ad spend.

Five minutes in, I knew their creative strategy.

The cofounders are the product. Two moms who created pregnancy-specific tape because they desperately needed it. Who wore it daily through their third trimesters. Who can explain round ligament pain without Googling it.

I told her: "You guys have one major thing going for you—you look like your customer. We need to lean into that hard."

This is founder-market fit. And if you have it, it's your biggest creative advantage.

👇 FREE AD CREATIVE TO BRAND OPERATORS WHO READ THIS NEWSLETTER 👇

HERE’S HOW TO CAPITALIZE ON FOUNDER-MARKET FIT

When we work with a brand with founder-market fit, here’s one of the first projects we do with them:

STEP 1: List out four distinct pain points your product solves

Here’s an example of four pain points for a jewelry brand we’ve done some work for this year:

1. Lack of unique, distinctive jewelry options; this brand is creating designs that attempt to stand out from mainstream options

2. There’s a real price gap between affordable and luxury jewelry; this brand was building a compelling mid-tier option that looked good and offered style without the luxury price tag

3. Jewelry maintenance during active lifestyle; this brand created tarnish-resistant, hypoallergenic stainless steel pieces

4. Jewelry That Looks Like Multiple Pieces; this brand’s best seller was a two-piece floating wraparound style creates the visual impression of wearing two pieces of jewelry

STEP 2: Use AI to Create Four Script Variations

I prefer Claude for these types of prompts.

Run the below prompt four times, once for each pain point.

Tweak the scripts to your liking. Then put scripts in a google doc. You should have 4 scripts and 12 hook options.

Create a 30-second founder story script for a [YOUR PRODUCT] brand. 

Context: I'm the founder and I created this product because I personally experienced [PAIN POINT #1]. I am my target customer. 

Target audience: [AGE, GENDER, SPECIFIC SITUATION] 

Pain point to focus on: [PAIN POINT #1] 

Script structure:
- Hook (first 3 seconds): A relatable statement about the pain point
- Story (next 15 seconds): My personal experience with this problem
- Solution intro (next 7 seconds): How I created [PRODUCT] to solve it
- CTA (final 5 seconds): Soft call to action 

Tone: Conversational, authentic, not salesy 

Provide three different text-on-screen hook options to test.

STEP 3: Record Yourself Talking to Camera

Use your iPhone or MacBook. No fancy setup needed.

Need recommendations on affordable equipment to invest in? Keys to Successfully Recording Yourself For Paid & Organic Social

Record each of the four scripts 2-3 times. You can say each line 2-3 times or the entire script in full 2-3 times, whichever you prefer. Try both and see which you are naturally better at.

STEP 4: Edit Three Visual Hook Variations Per Script

For each of your four scripts, create three versions with different visual hooks.

If you’re a skincare brand, try these:

• VISUAL HOOK A: Founder talking directly to camera

• VISUAL HOOK B: Pain point acknowledgement; perhaps dry, flakey skin.

• VISUAL HOOK C: A wild card / something random that your target audience would be interested in (example: waving the product in front of your dog)

General Tip: Try to avoid using a product visual in the first 3 seconds.

STEP 5: Test & Learn

Run all 12 as ads inside a “Test & Learn” meta ad campaign. Create four Ad Sets, one for each pain point. And then add each hook variation inside each ad set.

Set the converting event to “link clicks”, instead of sales.

Set the budget at the ad set level, and let each ad set run for at least 3x your AOV (ideally 5x).

Once that’s done, double down on the pain point that performs best. Create 3 more scripts around that pain point using different angles.

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IN SUMMARY

My bet? Founder-led content will outperform generic UGC by 2-3x on key metrics when the fit is there.

Why? Because when your customer sees someone like them saying "I created this because I was struggling with [problem] and couldn't find a solution," that hits different than a hired creator reading a script.

Either way, stop guessing. Test and learn. You need to go off the data.

Your move: If you ARE your customer, this framework is your playbook. Block off 3 hours this week and execute it.

Need help building this out?

Respond directly or email me ([email protected]); I genuinely read every reply and would love to help you stress-test your strategy.

Until next week ✌️