The Brief
HEMI Skin is a fictional direct-to-consumer skincare brand we designed from scratch to demonstrate a specific service: AI UGC-style video ads for e-commerce. The product is a single hero SKU — a niacinamide + peptide serum — competing in one of the most saturated paid-social categories online.
DTC skincare lives or dies on creative variety. Real-creator UGC delivers strong performance but burns budget fast — industry-standard UGC creator pricing on platforms like Billo and Insense runs roughly $200–$500 per finished spot, with 1–3 week turnarounds and inconsistent visual quality across talent. We set out to prove an AI alternative that holds up to platform scrutiny, scales with the ad budget, and keeps a single 'creator persona' visually consistent across an entire campaign.
The Pipeline
Strategy first. Claude generated a 28-angle hook map for the serum category — pain-led, science-led, before/after, ingredient education, social proof, and morning-routine framings — paired with a structured Hook → Body → CTA architecture for systematic testing on Meta and TikTok.
Next we built the creator. Higgsfield Soul Character was trained on a synthesized portrait to lock a single AI 'creator' identity across every spot — same face, same voice cadence, same hand gestures — varied only in wardrobe, location, and lighting. This is the unlock for AI UGC at e-commerce scale: a brand-safe presenter with no booking fees, no scheduling delays, and no off-brand surprises.
Product reference was generated with GPT Image 2: an 8-angle photorealistic grid of the HEMI serum bottle, locked as the canonical visual reference for every video prompt so the product reads identically in every spot. Hero footage was produced in Higgsfield Marketing Studio (Seedance 2.0) using the UGC and Pro Virtual Try On presets — phone-native handheld feel, natural lighting, conversational pacing.
Final assembly happened in CapCut: 3 hook variants × 3 body cuts, each delivered as 1:1 (Meta feed), 4:5 (Meta tall), and 9:16 (Reels / TikTok / Shorts). Captions are burned in for sound-off viewing, with platform-compliant AI-disclosure markers baked into the asset per Meta and TikTok's 2024 policy updates.
Tools: Claude (creative strategy + prompt engineering) · Higgsfield Soul Character (locked AI creator identity) · GPT Image 2 (product reference grid) · Higgsfield Marketing Studio / Seedance 2.0 (UGC video generation) · CapCut (assembly + captions).
Behind the Scenes
Every spot in this campaign uses the same Soul Character — one trained AI creator, locked across hook variants, platforms, and ratios. The HEMI serum bottle is the same canonical product reference in every shot. The brand voice is one Claude-generated hook architecture, varied only at the wardrobe / location / time-of-day axis. The pipeline is sequential: strategy locks the angle, the angle locks the hook, the hook locks the script, the script locks the shot list, the shot list locks the prompt. By the time we're generating video, every creative decision upstream is already made.
The Deliverables
“Real UGC sells. AI UGC sells at scale. The creator stays consistent, the budget stays predictable, the brand stays on-message.”
Frequently Asked
How is AI UGC different from a real-creator ad?
Real-creator UGC is filmed by a human creator on their phone and delivered through platforms like Billo, Insense, or direct UGC marketplaces — industry-standard pricing of roughly $200–$500 per finished spot, 1–3 week turnarounds, and visual style that varies across talent. AI UGC is generated end-to-end with a locked AI creator identity, delivered in days, and visually consistent across an entire campaign. For most DTC brands the right answer is a mix — but AI UGC removes the bottleneck.
Will Meta or TikTok flag AI-generated UGC?
Both platforms permit AI-generated content with disclosure. Meta's 2024 policy requires advertisers to label AI-altered or AI-generated content depicting real people or events; TikTok requires AI-generated-content tags for realistic synthetic media. We bake the required disclosure into every asset at delivery so the campaign is platform-policy clean from day one. Generated talent is non-identifiable and never impersonates a real public figure.
What does AI UGC for e-commerce actually cost?
Industry pricing for traditional UGC creator content sits at roughly $200–$500 per finished spot on the major UGC marketplaces. Fully-managed AI UGC pipelines like ours come in below that for matched volume, with the cost advantage growing as the campaign scales. We scope per project based on hook count, platform cutdowns, and ongoing iteration cadence — contact us for a tailored quote.
Why use AI UGC over a real influencer for a launch?
Real influencers bring audience trust; AI UGC brings creative volume and consistency. For a launch, the right answer is often both — a real influencer for top-of-funnel credibility, and AI UGC for the test-and-scale layer underneath. Same brand voice, same visual identity, same product framing — with the creative throughput a launch actually needs. We design the AI UGC system to live alongside, not replace, your influencer roster.
Why show a concept project instead of real client work?
Every studio starts somewhere. We built these concept projects to prove the full pipeline — from strategy to delivery — with complete transparency. No NDAs, no redactions, no "we can't show you that part." When we work with real clients, they'll see exactly what they're getting because it's all documented here. We're actively taking on new projects — if you'd like to be our next case study, let's talk.