/cloning-video-ads

name: cloning-video-ads
description: Clones an existing video ad — reads a supplied reference ad, keeps its structure, pacing, shots, camera and hook, and rebuilds it as a new video with the user's own product in place of the original's. Use when the user wants to copy, clone, recreate, or remake an ad or a competitor's video, or make an ad "like this one" with their product. Not for a product ad built from scratch with no reference video, not for a creator sharing their own take on a product and not for cloning image ads.
license: Apache-2.0
metadata:
  version: "0.1.0"
  category: creative
  summary: "Recreates a video ad you admire with your own product. It watches the reference ad, works out the shots, pacing, camera and voiceover that make it work, then rebuilds the same structure around your product — swapping the product, brand and spoken lines for yours while holding the original's craft. You approve the plan before anything expensive renders, and it comes back as one finished clip."

Cloning video ads

Take a video ad the user likes and rebuild it with the user's own product. The reference ad's structure, pacing, shots and hook are kept; its product, brand and spoken lines are replaced with the user's.

A product ad built from scratch, with no reference video to follow, is out of scope — that belongs to `generating-ad-videos`. A still image ad belongs to `generating-image-ads`.

Workflow

Step 1: Analyze the reference ad

The reference ad is the plan the clone is rebuilt from, so read it first and read it in full — a thin read here is the one thing that breaks the clone, and no later step recovers it.

Read `references/reading-the-ad.md` for exactly what to pull out and the breakdown format, then run `video_analysis` on the ad (a video file or URL) to produce that **timed, second-by-second breakdown** of the whole thing.

• **No reference ad** → there is nothing to read yet. Don't invent one; it becomes the first thing the interview (Step 3) asks for.

Step 2: Read the product

• **A product image or URL** — the user's product, the one that replaces the original's → hand it to `analyzing-products` for what the product is, how a person physically uses it, which parts open or move, and what must stay identical wherever it appears.
• **Run `image_analysis` on every other image supplied** — what each one shows. The product photo is already covered by `analyzing-products`; don't read it twice.
• **No product** → don't guess at one. It becomes the first thing the interview (Step 3) asks for.

Step 3: Interview

**Skip this when you already have both the reference ad and the product**, and the user hasn't asked to change the length or ratio.

Otherwise ask once, bundled into a single message, always with a free-text way out.

| Ask | When | | --- | --- | | **The reference ad** — the video to clone | It wasn't supplied. Offer to wait for an upload or a link. | | **The product** — a link or a photo | Neither was supplied. Offer to wait for an upload; a photographed product beats a described one. | | **How long** | Only if the user wants a length other than the reference ad's. The default is to match it. | | **Aspect ratio** | Only if the user wants a ratio other than the reference ad's. The default is to match it. |

When the user waives questions, match the reference ad's length and ratio, say in one sentence what you took, and keep going.

Step 4: Write the product description

Write one description of the user's product and reuse it unchanged in the clip prompt — rephrasing it reads as a different product.

• **Material and finish**, surface by surface — matte or gloss, brushed, woven, translucent, or whatever this one actually is: *"brushed steel barrel, matte soft-touch collar, a woven wrist strap"*.
• **Size** — its width and height, and how it sits against a hand: *"sits in a closed palm, roughly 9 cm tall and 4 cm across"*. Give the real measurements rather than likening it to another object, which the model renders inconsistently.
• **Two to five visual anchors** — features you can verify in the product image and nothing else: exact colours, the shape of a closure or handle, the gauge of a chain or strap, a surface finish, a distinguishing mark.
• **The product mechanism** — how it's built and how it works: the parts that move, how they open or close, and where anything dispenses: *"hinged lid at one end, folds back flat; the brush sits inside the cap"*.
• **What may be done with each part** — which parts are fixed to it, and the whole of what the moving ones allow. Nothing later does anything to the product that isn't on this list.

**Don't transcribe what the label says**, even where the product facts spell it out. Spelling out the printing invites the model to redraw it, and redrawn text comes back warped. The facts may name it; the description never repeats it.

Step 5: Build the clone blueprint

Read `references/rebuilding-the-ad.md`. Then turn the Step 1 read of the reference ad into a **shot-by-shot blueprint** for the clone — keeping the form and swapping only the identity, as that reference sets out. Two things it leaves to this skill:

• **Keep the whole ad in one clip.** The blueprint's shots are the cuts inside a single continuous clip, not separate clips.
• **Pick the clip model, and let it cap the length.** The clone is one continuous take, so its length can't exceed the longest clip the model makes. Read each model's shortest and longest clip from `list_video_models` and pick the model by the target length — up to about 15 seconds runs on `seedance-2.0-fast`, longer up to 30 seconds on `seedance-2.5`. If the target is longer than the longest clip available, cap it there and say so. Carry the chosen model and its length into Step 9.
• **Fit it to that length.** Where the clone runs a different length than the reference, re-time the shots to fit: if shorter, drop the most redundant cuts and keep the beats that define the ad; if longe