123: When "Native" Tries Too Hard

The best disguise is the one you don't notice. This one, you notice.

Hey everyone, Chase here.

If you've scrolled Instagram in the last year, you've seen the "Notes app screenshot" ad format.

It works because it doesn't look like an ad. It looks like something a friend texted you. Something someone screenshotted from their own phone. It feels personal.

Graza — the olive oil brand with the squeeze bottles — is running one right now.

And on first glance, it's smart.

On second glance, it breaks its own trick.

In this issue:

• Why the Notes app format works (and when it stops working)

• The line between "native" and "trying to look native"

• How one too many details can kill the whole illusion

Take a look:

The format is the hook.

Let's give credit first.

The Notes app screenshot is one of the most effective ad formats in paid social right now. It works because it triggers pattern recognition — your brain sees the familiar Notes UI and processes it as content, not advertising.

No headline competing with the product. No branded template. No "SHOP NOW" button screaming at you.

Just a note. From someone. About something.

That's the promise of the format: intimacy at scale.

And Graza is a smart brand to try it. Their whole identity is built on being the approachable olive oil. The squeeze bottle. The fun labels. The grocery store energy. A Notes app screenshot fits the vibe.

So what went wrong?

Too many personalizations break the spell.

Here's the problem with faking casual: the more details you add, the more obvious it becomes that someone designed this.

Look at this ad closely:

• Product names with trademark-level branding: "Sizzle," "Drizzle," "Frizzle"

• Emoji bullets that are just curated enough

• Clean product descriptions with semicolons and parallel structure

• A polished product photo at the bottom

Nobody's Notes app looks like this.

Real notes are messy. Real notes have typos. Real notes don't use semicolons and parallel sentence structure across three bullet points.

The format says "I jotted this down for myself."

The copy says "a copywriter spent 45 minutes on this."

That gap is where the illusion dies.

The "LAST CALL" headline kills the native feel instantly.

The very first thing you read is: "LAST CALL for a FREE Frizzle Spray with 'The Trio'"

That's not a note. That's a promotion.

The entire point of the Notes format is to delay the moment the reader realizes they're looking at an ad. You want them to read the content first, feel the value, and then discover it's a brand speaking.

Leading with "LAST CALL" and "FREE" is like wearing a disguise and then introducing yourself by your real name.

If the note opened with something like:

"finally figured out which olive oil to use for what —"

…and THEN walked through the three products, the format would actually work. The reader discovers Graza through what feels like someone else's grocery revelation.

Instead, they hit "LAST CALL" and the scroll continues.

Your ads bring them in. Your website closes the deal.

We spend all this time getting the creative right — the hook, the headline, the scroll-stopper.

Then we send traffic to a website that undoes all of it.

That's why we're bringing the team from Oddit to the next Creative Playbook to break down how to build websites that actually convert — with less pain, less guessing, and more discipline.

📅 Today @ 11am PST on Zoom.

Bring your questions. Bring your URLs. We're fixing sites live.

Reserve your seat →

The product photo is the final tell.

At the bottom of the "note," there's a clean, professionally shot product lineup of all four Graza bottles.

This is where the format completely collapses.

Nobody pastes a studio product shot into their Notes app. If this were real — if someone actually made this note for themselves — the image would be a shaky photo of the bottles on their kitchen counter. Maybe a screenshot from the website. Maybe nothing at all.

The professional product photo turns the whole thing from "personal recommendation" into "branded content pretending to be personal."

And that's worse than just running a normal ad. Because now you've broken trust and missed the sale.

What Graza actually got right.

The product naming is genuinely clever. Sizzle, Drizzle, Frizzle — it's memorable, it's functional, and it solves a real problem: most people don't know which olive oil to use for what.

The use case framing is strong too. "Made for everyday roasting and sautéing" is clearer than any feature spec. It answers the question before you ask it.

And the brand itself is perfectly suited for this format. Graza's whole thing is being the un-fancy olive oil. The Notes app should be their playground.

They just overproduced the note.

What this teaches us about Creative Discipline

The Notes app format works because of what it lacks — branding, polish, design.

The moment you add those things back in, you're not running a native ad anymore. You're running a regular ad wearing a costume.

Disciplined native creative means committing to the bit:

If the format is messy, the content has to be messy. Semicolons and parallel structure don't belong in Notes. Short, choppy, imperfect text does.

If the format is personal, the voice has to be personal. "LAST CALL for a FREE Frizzle Spray" is brand voice. "ok so I finally tried all three and here's the deal —" is personal voice.

If the format is lo-fi, the imagery has to be lo-fi. A studio product shot in a Notes screenshot is like wearing a tuxedo to a bonfire. It doesn't match.

The best disguise is the one nobody notices you're wearing.

This one, you notice.

Until next time,

Chase

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