Creative — Offer Explorer

Make the OFFER the hero. Every visual decision serves one goal: a viewer understands the value and the reason to act now within two seconds. This is merchandising, not branding — clarity of value beats aesthetic flourish.

When to use

• There's a concrete offer to push: discount, bundle, free trial, guarantee, limited drop.
• Promo/sale creative, pricing-page hero, launch banner, email header.
• The message is "here's the deal", not "here's who we are".

When NOT to use

• Testing many message angles broadly → creative-ads-explorer.
• No offer yet, just brand look → creative-explore/creative-moodboard.
• Showing the product in use → creative-scene.

Inputs (ask only what's missing — and never invent these)

• The exact offer: anchor price → deal price, what's included, bonus, guarantee terms, deadline.
• Product + audience.
• Locked visual direction if available.

If any number or term is unknown, ASK. Fabricating a price or guarantee is a hard fail.

Workflow

1. Decompose the offer into value units: anchor vs deal price, bundle items (count matters — visible items = perceived stack), guarantee, bonus, urgency cue.
2. Pick a merchandising layout per concept: stacked-value, bundle-flatlay, before/after-value, guarantee-forward, countdown-urgency, price-anchor-strikethrough.
3. Write 3-5 concepts: headline (the offer in ≤8 words), visual prompt, the value cue it leans on, CTA.
4. Generate with your image tool. Keep any price/tagline text crisp and legible at thumbnail size; pass it verbatim. Save to ./creative/offer/<concept>.png.
5. Rank by clarity-of-value and recommend the clearest.

Worked example

Offer: course bundle, normally $400, now $149, +free templates, 30-day guarantee, ends Friday.

## Concept "Stacked Value"
headline: "$400 of training — yours for $149"
visual: vertical stack of 4 module cards + "BONUS: templates" tab, strikethrough $400 → $149
value cue: anchor contrast makes the discount feel large
CTA: Get the bundle
[ref: ./creative/offer/stacked-value.png]

## Concept "Guarantee-Forward"
headline: "Love it or your money back"
visual: bold 30-day badge center, course thumbnail behind, calm palette
value cue: removes risk → lowers purchase friction
CTA: Try risk-free
[ref: ./creative/offer/guarantee.png]

Recommendation: "Stacked Value" for cold traffic (value clarity); "Guarantee" for warm/hesitant. → winners to creative-polish.

Quality bar

• A stranger grasps what they get and why now in under 2 seconds.
• Every price/term on screen is real and matches what the user provided.
• Text is legible at the size it'll actually be seen (thumbnail/feed).
• The value cue is deliberate (anchoring, risk-reversal, scarcity) — not decoration.

Common pitfalls

• Inventing numbers — prices, discounts, guarantee terms come only from the user. Flag gaps.
• Cluttered hero — too many value units competing; lead with one, support with the rest.
• Illegible price text — the most important element rendered too small or low-contrast.
• Urgency without basis — don't add a fake deadline; only show one the user confirmed.

Handoff

Winning concepts → creative-polish for production finish. Keep brand consistency via the creative-explore stub.

Tooling

Needs a text-to-image tool. Without one, deliver concepts (headline + layout + visual prompt + value cue + CTA) for the user to render.