For most of Quo’s existence, our advertising looked like what you’d expect from a software company: search ads, banners, the occasional LinkedIn post. It worked very well. But as we grew, it started to feel like we were showing up to a race in a sensible sedan while everyone else had sports cars. We needed something different — and, for the first time, something that could run on TV and streaming.
So we made some commercials. Four of them, over two days, in Boston. They were deliberately modest in scope: we wanted commercials we could confidently run without trying to make a Super Bowl ad.
Here’s what we learned from the experience.
Start small on purpose
This isn’t to say we didn’t think about a Super Bowl-level ad. We talked about doing something bigger, but decided against it — not because we couldn’t afford it, but because we hadn’t done this before, and it didn’t seem like the moment to take a giant swing. We filmed in Boston instead of New York or L.A., and went with a smaller studio whose work we really liked.
We shot four concepts across two days and came out with sixteen-plus cuts. The variety was intentional: test genuinely different ideas, not minor variations on the same thing, so that whatever we learned was actually useful. We wanted to go into a future production — a bigger, more expensive one — with some knowledge behind us, not with all our eggs in one basket.
Pre-production is where the real work happens
The best thing our agency did wasn’t the filming itself (though that was great). It was a workshop they ran before a single script had been written.
It was a live session rather than a brief over email. For a couple of hours, they asked us deep, layered questions about the company, our customers, and what we actually do. They’d return to the same topic from different angles, pushing us past surface answers. By the end of the session, we had a document that captured who we are, who we’re for, and what makes our product matter. It proved so valuable that we’ve since shared the document with some new employees as part of their onboarding process.
Give your agency as much time as they need before production starts. The more thoroughly you educate them upfront, the less you’ll have to fix later.
Match your director to your tone — and be specific
Our agency came through word of mouth, and the real lesson wasn’t ‘get a referral.’ It was: find someone whose portfolio is already in the tonal neighborhood of what you want to make.
Our director was excellent in almost every respect: prepared, tight schedule, good cast, everything moving. But when I saw the first cuts, something wasn’t quite right. The ads needed to feel light — not laugh-out-loud funny, just warm and slightly playful.
Some of the performances had gone broader than that. You could see the effort in the acting: exaggerated expressions, reactions that belong in a multi-camera sitcom rather than a thirty-second commercial that isn’t otherwise broad.
This can happen when a director is used to dramatic material, where pushing emotions big is often the job. Comedy, even gentle comedy, tends to want the opposite. The best light performances are often the ones that look effortless. Our director’s reel was genuinely great, but almost entirely dramatic.
Before you hand your shoot to someone, check the reel for tonal fit, not just technical quality and skill. These are two different things. Being excellent at one doesn’t mean being the perfect fit for the other.
“You have thirty seconds to hook someone who’s only half paying attention, show them what you do clearly enough that they remember it, and leave something behind.”
Define roles before anyone picks up a camera
One of the murkier parts of our process was figuring out who actually owned what. We went in with assumptions about who would be hands-on through direction and editing. Those assumptions weren’t accurate, and no one had put any of it in writing.
We ended up spending a lot of time re-editing one of the ads live on a call, walking the team through changes step by step. It worked out, but it’s not what I planned on doing.
Be explicit with your agency upfront about how you want feedback cycles to work. When we flagged that something felt off, they’d come back with exactly what we’d asked them to change but didn’t always bring their own perspective on that change. Tell them from the start: feel confident in bringing your own creative solutions; you don’t have to do exactly what we ask.
The 30-second story problem
Commercials are genuinely hard to make for a specific reason. You have thirty seconds to hook someone who’s only half paying attention, show them what you do clearly enough that they remember it, and leave something behind.
Name a commercial you saw last month. Now name the company. Now the brand tagline. I can tell you “I’m Lovin’ It” is McDonald’s, but I have no idea if they still use it. To this day, thinking about it does kinda make me want to get McDonald’s.
Ads accumulate slowly. The ones that stick keep things simple.
That balance lives mostly in the edit. Which means the edit needs time. Our first cuts were rushed, and it showed. Build that time in from the start.
What the results showed
We launched two ads first. In “Office Mayhem,” there’s a cast of six celebrating, palpable energy, a lot going on. In “Fast Asleep,” one person is snoozing, tucked up in bed, while Quo’s Sona AI assistant handles his business.
“Office Mayhem” performed better across most platforms. “Fast Asleep” ran neck and neck on broadcast TV, which surprised us. What wins on YouTube doesn’t always win in someone’s living room at 9 p.m.
Then there was “In the Weeds,” the ad I’d personally helped wrestle into shape during post-production, walking the team through changes frame by frame on a live call. I wasn’t particularly thrilled with it through most of that process.
However, it’s outperforming the other ads! My colleague Tori Murray, who leads our growth marketing, put it well: it’s the only ad in the set that shows teammates — not just one person — getting something done. The phone rings. A coworker picks it up. Notes beam back. You understand in three seconds what happened and why it mattered.
Commercials rarely have our full attention. A single moment you can clock while folding laundry is often more powerful than a story you have to follow.
What success looks like, and what it doesn’t
For a local business running its first video ad, the measurement is pretty direct: watch for a spike in calls or walk-ins in the window when your ad airs. For us, it’s more layered. Clicks and trials are tracked by creative, running on YouTube, Meta, and broadcast TV simultaneously. But the underlying principle is the same.
The number I keep coming back to isn’t on any dashboard. It’s the question of whether, six months from now, when someone finally needs a better way to manage their business calls, will the name Quo come to mind? That’s how advertising has always worked: slowly, and rarely visible in the first week’s numbers.
What we learned, and what comes next
I have a theory about small business advertising, illustrated by my dentist. I found them because they marketed to people who hate the dentist — and I hate the dentist. I still don’t know why every dentist doesn’t do that. Maybe it’s just because not everyone hates the dentist, who knows. For a local business, the selling point is often just you: coming across as likable, specific, real. That’s what sets you apart from competitors who aren’t advertising at all. What we learned filming also rings true for any small business looking to shoot commercials:
- Give yourself enough time
- Find a partner who gets your tone
- Know what you want to show before anyone picks up a camera
- Keep the product moment as clear as you can make it
- Create different ads to see what resonates most out in the wild
As for Quo, we’re already planning the next round, with more visual ambition, a bigger scope, and everything learned from this first production folded into the process from day one.
