Ad copy & creative

What it is

Two Claude skills produce advertising for the HB Plastics Group brands — Perspex Online, Plastic Online, P&M Plastics and Holland Plastics:

Ad copy — the words. Paid-ad and marketing text for Google Search (RSA), Meta (Facebook/Instagram), Google Performance Max, Pinterest, and email/SMS subject lines.
Ad creative — the picture. The finished, ready-to-upload ad image (banner, social graphic, promo tile, product ad) at the exact pixel size the platform wants.

They pair up: copy is the words, creative is the picture. For a full ad you run both — ad copy for the headline and CTA, ad creative to lay it out visually. You kick either off by asking Claude in plain English (for example, “write me some Perspex Online search ads” or “design me a Meta ad for clear acrylic sheet”).

flowchart LR
  A[You ask Claude] --> B{Words or picture?}
  B -->|Words| C[Ad copy skill]
  B -->|Picture| D[Ad creative skill]
  C --> E[Channel-ready copy, in-lane, ex-GST, ACCC-safe]
  D --> F[Pixel-exact PNG with real product photo]

How to generate ad copy

Ask Claude for the copy and give it three things so it can pick the right settings:

Which brand — Perspex Online, Plastic Online, P&M Plastics or Holland Plastics. Claude loads that brand’s voice kit.
Which channel — Google Search RSA, Meta, Performance Max, Pinterest, or email/SMS subject lines. Claude loads that channel’s format and character limits.
The subject — the product, category, offer or campaign being advertised.

If you leave one out and Claude can’t work it out, it will ask once, then get on with it. Claude grounds the copy in live PIM product and pricing data (and optionally Ahrefs keyword data), then returns copy ready to paste into the ad platform.

💡 Tip

By default Claude gives you the channel’s maximum number of assets (for example 15 RSA headlines), grouped by angle — price, speed, trust, use-case — so you have a good spread to A/B test. Ask for fewer if you only want a couple.

How to generate ad creative

Ask Claude for the image. It will:

Load the brand’s design tokens (logo, colours, fonts).
Look up the exact pixel size for the platform you named and render every size you ask for.
Pull the real product photo and pricing from PIM.
Lay it out in HTML/CSS and render it to a pixel-exact PNG.
Send you the finished PNG(s).

The default and recommended approach is a real-product composite: the actual catalogue photo is the hero, with the brand background, logo, headline, price and CTA laid over it crisply.

⚠️ The product is ALWAYS a real photo — never AI-invented

The number-one failure of AI ad images for this business is the model inventing a fake product — a generic acrylic or plastic item that isn’t the real catalogue item (wrong finish, form or colour). The hero product is always a real photo from PIM. If a lifestyle setting is used, the AI only paints the background scene behind the product — never the product itself.

Stay in the brand’s lane

Each brand owns a keyword lane, and ad copy must stay in it. This is decided policy, not a preference — crossing lanes makes the group bid against itself.

Brand	Lane
Perspex Online	Acrylic / Perspex — cut-to-size sheet, tube, rod. National ecommerce.
Plastic Online	Engineering / industrial plastics — PVC, HDPE, polycarbonate, polypropylene, nylon, acetal. Everything non-acrylic. National ecommerce.
P&M Plastics	Fabrication, tanks and custom work, geo-targeted Cairns → Newcastle. Local, quote-based, made-to-order.
Holland Plastics	Quote-driven reseller/supply. Confirm positioning with Daniel before a first campaign.

Do not write “acrylic” ads for Plastic Online, “PVC sheet” ads for Perspex Online, or national cut-to-size ads for P&M.

The rules every ad must follow

Claude runs a compliance pass on every line, and creative follows the same rules:

Australian English — colour, optimise, specialise, metre, catalogue. Never US spelling.
Prices are always ex-GST and labelled ex GST — this is a group-wide rule. Every price must be real and current; “From $X ex GST” only if $X is a genuine live minimum.
No fake urgency or scarcity — no “only 3 left” or “ends tonight” unless it’s literally true and dated.
No unsubstantiated superlatives — no “cheapest”, “best in Australia” or “#1” without evidence on file. Prefer specific, provable claims.
Honest delivery claims — only promise what the brand actually does. P&M and Holland are quote-driven, so don’t imply instant online purchase.
No competitor names in ad text (Google/Meta trademark policy).

⚠️ Gotcha — if the data can’t be reached, the number is flagged, not guessed

If Claude can’t reach PIM for a price or size, it won’t make one up — it marks the claim [VERIFY: price/size] (copy) or [VERIFY] (creative) so you know to check it before the ad goes live. Never publish an ad still carrying a VERIFY tag.

Common questions

Do I need to give the brand and channel every time? — Give both if you can; it’s faster. If you don’t, Claude asks once, then proceeds. See How to generate ad copy.
Copy or creative — which do I ask for? — Copy is the words, creative is the picture. For a complete ad, ask for both. See What it is.
Can Plastic Online run an acrylic ad? — No. Acrylic is Perspex Online’s lane. See Stay in the brand’s lane.
Why do the prices say ex GST? — Group rule: all browse/ad prices are shown ex-GST and labelled. Only cart/checkout shows inc-GST.

Who to tell if it breaks

Tell Daniel or flag in #whats-new. If an ad has gone out with a wrong price, a made-up product, or the wrong brand’s keywords, stop and escalate.

TODO: confirm the exact per-brand voice, offers and banned claims, and the per-channel character limits — these live in the brand-kits/ and channels/ files under the ad-copy skill and were not read for this guide.

Derived from: skills/ad-copy/SKILL.md and skills/ad-creative/SKILL.md. If this looks wrong, the source changed — update the source and re-generate, don’t just patch this page.