Street interviews that asked what was stopping people, then made their answer the ad.
What’s Stopping You is a paid video campaign for 1st Formations, one of the UK’s company formation agents, filmed on the streets of Shoreditch. A presenter asked passers-by what starting a business feels like, and their answers became the ads. We made the films and 1st Formations ran the media; every figure here comes from 1st Formations’ own ad account and covers the first nine days from launch on 7 January 2026 unless stated.
Cost per conversion from the hero film among people who had already visited the site
Of the account average: the hero’s cost per conversion across all spend, £49.48 against £98.96
More spend in week two, and conversions doubled with it
Finished films: one hero and three social cuts, each in four ratios
Start with the question people already ask themselves
In late 2025, 1st Formations asked for video ads that would get more people to register a company. Someone weighing up a business of their own has a bigger question on their mind than which formation agent to use: can I actually do this?
That question set the shape of the work. The ads had to open on the doubt the viewer already carries, stay with it long enough for them to recognise themselves, and close with 1st Formations as the easy first step. The brand would arrive at the point where the answer was wanted.
What’s Stopping You
The fastest way to put a viewer’s doubt on screen was to let other people say it for them. In December 2025 a presenter took to the streets of Shoreditch and asked passers-by what starting a business feels like, and whether they knew what the first step would be. Most didn’t.
Then she told them a company could do the paperwork for less than a cup of coffee, and we filmed what happened next. The people who might start a business did the selling, in their own words, with the reactions left in. One day of street interviews gave us the raw material for every film in the campaign.
One film, built like a sales conversation
The hero runs 61 seconds and walks the viewer through seven steps, each one earning the next. It opens with a hook, “Starting a business can be…?”, and the street answers: exciting, difficult, scary. At 0:08 the presenter frames the day, out in London finding out what would help people take the next step.
At 0:19 comes the problem. Asked what the first step is, people admit they have no idea, and the viewer sees their own doubt on screen. Three seconds later the offer lands: “A company that could do the paperwork for you for less than a cup of coffee. How does that sound?”
Only at 0:32 does the brand appear, once the answer is wanted: it’s called 1st Formations. Proof follows at 0:45, with 20,000 five-star reviews said to camera in the street, and at 0:53 the film closes on “Focus on your business, we’ll handle the formation” and a prompt to register today. Feelings first, then the doubt confirmed, then the answer, and the name last of all.
Three shorter cuts, and a version for every screen
Some placements favour shorter ads, so the same footage was cut into three social films of 28, 36 and 41 seconds. Each one draws on the same day in Shoreditch and the same cast of passers-by.
Alongside widescreen 16:9, every film was delivered in vertical 9:16, portrait 4:5 and square 1:1, sixteen files in all. Each placement ran a version made for its screen, so the street interviews filled a phone held upright as fully as they filled a desktop feed.
The film built like a conversation converted best
The campaign went live on 7 January 2026. In its first nine days, the hero had the lowest cost per conversion of the 8 video ads running in the account: £49.48, half the £98.96 account average. Among people who had already visited the site it came in at £24.
In week two, 1st Formations raised spend by 90% and conversions doubled with it. All of these figures come from 1st Formations’ own ad account; we made the films and 1st Formations ran the media.
The numbers set the structure for the next films
Two weeks in, we went through the account data with 1st Formations to see why the hero converted and the shorter cuts lagged. The answer was the sequence: start with the viewer, confirm the problem, then give the answer and the proof.
That structure shaped the founder films we shot at LSE in February 2026, and the second programme 1st Formations signed in May: product films, animation and a static ad system. The lesson travels beyond this account: people act on an ad that starts with their doubt and ends with the answer.
What changed.
In its first nine days the 61-second hero film had the lowest cost per conversion of the eight video ads in 1st Formations’ own ad account, at £49.48 against a £98.96 average, and £24 among people who had already visited the site. 1st Formations raised spend by 90% in week two and conversions doubled with it. The sequence behind the hero went on to shape the founder films shot at LSE in February 2026 and the second programme 1st Formations signed in May.
Read it on pivitt.co.uk