Creative fatigue? It's time for a “moonshot”👩‍🚀

Sometimes a 3-second hook swap buys you another week.
Sometimes it doesn’t.

If you’ve been following this series, you know we’ve covered:

1. How to stretch a winning ad without killing it

2. How to spot the exact stage of fatigue

3. And how to systematize production to stay ahead of burnout

But what happens when none of it works?

When every edit flops… and you’ve officially run out of rope?

That’s when it’s time to stop tweaking—and start building something entirely new.

Here’s how we find brand-new winning angles inside the Inceptly creative team.

🔍 Step 1: Watch what’s already working in the wild

When we’re stuck, we don’t stare at a blank doc. We go see what’s working—right now—for other brands in the wild.

That means aggressively monitoring what other advertisers are running—especially those seeing traction across YouTube, Meta, TikTok, or other channels.

We use VidTao for YouTube ad spying and dig into social feeds, competitor funnels, and anything else with signals.

We’re not copying ads—we’re studying success patterns:

• What’s winning in adjacent markets?

• What angles keep showing up?

• What structure gets reused again and again?

Our editor, Valeriy, puts it like this:

“Whenever we need to revive or update a fatigued ad, I turn to social media and channels that share inspiring creative content.

I might start by trying to replicate someone else’s brilliant work—not out of laziness, but as a starting point.

And here’s the magic: as I try to ‘steal’ the idea, I inevitably run into challenges they never showed. I have to improvise, adapt, and solve unexpected problems. That’s how I end up with something uniquely mine—something tailored to the client’s niche.”

👉 Wanna see all of the tips our team recommended? Go here to check out the blog post.

🚀 Step 2: Test entirely new angles (aka “moonshots”)

Tweaks are important. But they’re not enough.

Alongside control ads, we also run moonshots—creative experiments that look nothing like what’s worked so far.

Different visuals. Different tone. Different concept altogether.

We don’t build these because they’re guaranteed to win.
We build them because if one does win… it gives us a whole new direction to scale.

🖊️ Example 1: Doodly 

A few years ago, we scaled ads for Doodly, a hand-drawn animation software.

Our control ad was a beast. Clean structure, sharp offer, 250+ hook variations tested. It worked.

But in the background, we ran experiments. Total departures from the control.

Like these:

📺 And here is the control ad:

Eventually, one of those moonshots beat the control—and unlocked a whole new direction to scale.

👣 Example 2: AI moonshot in action 

More recently, we worked with a health-focused DTC brand whose original testimonial-style ad was performing well. The creative was clean, the offer was solid, and the results were consistent.

But instead of riding that version into the ground, we decided to test something completely different—a full AI-animated video.

Same product. Same core message. Totally new execution.

We’re deep in the trenches launching, iterating & scaling this product - and we’re not able to share the creative or offer with you at the moment.

But in case you’d like to see the style of video we’ve been testing, it’s similar to this one we made for our YouTube ad swipe file:

We started by scripting a short narrative ad about a typical “bullseye” ideal customer for this product, and their experience of this physical problem. From there:

• 🧠 We built a storyboard using AI-generated images

• 🗣️ We voiced the script with AI, added music, and refined the pacing

• 🎬 The final result: a fully animated ad built entirely in-house, with no actors or film crew required

This wasn't just a novelty test. We had three strategic reasons for trying this format:

1. Speed — No delays coordinating with UGC creators, VO talent, or editors

2. Control — Every visual element was tailored to the exact narrative we wanted

3. Novelty — AI visuals still carry a “scroll-stopping” effect with many audiences

Just a year ago, AI-generated video was barely usable. Now? It's producing ads that hold up next to traditional production—at a fraction of the time and cost. Also… the tools are getting scary good.

A year ago, you had Will Smith eating spaghetti that looked like radioactive slime:

Now? It’s pretty convincing—and way faster than traditional production.

🧨 Final reminder: Take your shots

We don’t just fight creative fatigue with better edits.

We fight it with better ideas—and space to test bold ones.

Moonshots won’t always win.
But the ones that do? They change the game.

And if you're always one step behind fatigue… a moonshot might be the only thing that pulls you out.

👉 Want us to diagnose your risk of creative fatigue and help you come up with a plan to avoid it, so you can scale to the moon?🚀 Go here to set up your call.

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