indranilbanerjee /digital-marketing-pro:video-packaging
Packaging decides whether a video gets watched; the content only decides whether it deserved to be. On every video surface the viewer sees two elements at once — the title and the thumbnail text — and the craft is that they must do different jobs:
- The title carries context and keywords — what the video is, phrased the way people search and the way the platform's systems read it.
- The thumbnail text carries the tension — the number, the contradiction, the "wait, what?" that a human reacts to in half a second.
- Overlap is wasted real estate. A thumb word that already appears in the title bought nothing with the scarcest pixels the brand owns.
Discovery intent — tag every package
A video idea earns discovery one of two ways, and the packaging differs:
| Intent | How it is found | Packaging consequence |
|---|---|---|
| Search | Typed queries; ranks over months | Title leads with the query phrasing (front-load the keyword); thumb adds the differentiator vs the other results |
| Browse | Suggested/home feeds; spikes on click-through | Title can spend more of its length on intrigue; thumb carries the pattern-break |
| Both | Rare; usually a search topic with a browse-worthy angle | Package for search, let the thumb do the browse work |
No search or browse logic → not a video idea yet. Route it back through topic development before spending packaging effort on it. For search-intent videos, pull the real query phrasing from /digital-marketing-pro:keyword-research rather than guessing it.
Generate mode
Input: the topic or concept, the brand, target platform, intent if known.
# Video packaging — [topic]
**Discovery intent:** Search / Browse / Both — [the reasoning in one line]
## Pair 1 — [angle: curiosity / benefit / identity]
**Title:** [≤60 chars where possible — what survives truncation comes first]
**Thumb text:** [1-3 words]
**Why they pair:** [the different jobs, and how they combine into one click decision]
## Pair 2 — [different angle]
## Pair 3 — [different angle]
## Recommendation
[Which pair leads and why — grounded in the intent tag, not taste]
## A/B note
[Which single element to vary if testing — never both at once]
Critique mode
Input: an existing title and/or thumbnail text (works from a screenshot description too).
# Packaging critique — [the draft]
## Verdict: PASS / FIX / FAIL
## The pairing check
[Do title and thumb do different jobs? Quote any echoed words — each is the
finding, verbatim.]
## Working
[What earns its place]
## Not working
[Specific, quotable problems — vague titles, buried keywords, thumb text
restating the title, curiosity with no clarity]
## 3 fixed pairs
[Revised packages, same content, same claims — packaging never promises what
the video does not deliver]
Critical rules
- Reject any pair where a thumb word appears in the title. This is the countable core rule — check it word by word, not by impression.
- Titles ≤60 characters where possible; when longer, everything that matters sits before the truncation point.
- Thumb text: 1–3 words. Four is a caption, not a thumbnail.
- Clarity beats curiosity. A pair that intrigues but does not say what the viewer gets fails — curiosity-gap packaging that the content cannot pay off is churn, and on regulated brands it is a compliance finding.
- Packaging never outpromises the video. The claims in a title pass the same brand guardrails as any other copy; run /digital-marketing-pro:check before anything ships.
- Three pairs minimum in Generate; three fixes minimum in Critique. One option is a decision already made; the client gets choices with reasoning.
- Tag the intent every time. An untagged package is a guess about how the video will be found — and search and browse reward different structures.
Pairs with
- /digital-marketing-pro:video-script — the script this packaging fronts; its thumbnail-concept step follows the same pairing rule
- /digital-marketing-pro:keyword-research — real query phrasing for search-intent titles
- /digital-marketing-pro:check — claims and compliance gate before publishing