A UGC product demo is a short video of a real person using your product, filmed on a phone, delivered as a file for you to use. It looks like something a customer made. It is not: it was commissioned, scripted to a brief, and paid for.
That distinction is the whole job. The reason most demos come back unusable is that the brief described the vibe instead of the shots.
What to put in the public brief
The public brief is what a worker reads before deciding whether to reserve a spot. It has to be enough to self-select on, and nothing more.
- The product category, not the brand — "a stainless steel water bottle", not the SKU
- Video length and orientation
- Whether they must appear on camera
- Whether they need to own or receive the product
- The licence you are buying
Anything that identifies the campaign, links to assets, or gives away the launch stays private until the spot is reserved.
What to put in the private instructions
This is the part that decides whether the footage is usable.
Name the shots
"Open on the closed product in hand, then the lid coming off, then a two-second pour." Three named shots beats a paragraph of description.
Give one line to say, and permission to reword it
A script read verbatim by a non-actor is the single most recognisable failure mode in UGC.
State the lighting minimum in plain terms
"Filmed facing a window during the day" gets you further than "well lit".
Say what must not appear
Other brands, faces of people who did not consent, and anything that dates the footage.
Proof worth requiring
Ask for
The raw file, unedited, at native resolution. One still frame you specify after they reserve the spot — a particular moment, in their own environment.
Do not ask for
A public post. That is a different transaction with a different price and a disclosure obligation, and bundling it into a demo brief is how brands end up with undisclosed advertising.
When this task type is the wrong tool
If you need one video from a specific creator whose style you already know, this is the expensive way to get it — go to them directly. If you need thirty variations to test a hook, this is exactly right, and the variance you get is the point rather than a defect.
If the product needs explanation before it can be demonstrated, a demo will not carry it. Test the onboarding flow first and find out where the confusion actually starts.