Sale Promo Video
Make a punchy 6–15s sale spot that announces ONE offer and makes a viewer act now: the discount lands, the price drops from was→now with a strike-through, the promo code and deadline read clean, the CTA closes. This is the offer announcement — not a feature ad, not a testimonial. Energy, accurate numbers, urgency.
When to use
- Discount / percentage-off reveals ("40% OFF", "$20 off").
- was→now price drops with an animated strike-through.
- Black Friday / flash sale / clearance / launch-week / seasonal spots.
- Promo-code reveals with a deadline or countdown.
- One promo template rendered across many products/offers (price table → N videos).
For performance-ad variants use
; for customer quotes use
. Stay on the offer.
The arc
A sale spot is short and ordered. Each beat does one job; never stack two.
| Beat | Job | Budget (of 10s) |
|---|
| Hook | Brand + occasion ("BLACK FRIDAY") snaps in | 0–1.5s |
| Discount reveal | The big number lands ("40% OFF") | 1.5–4s |
| was→now | Old price strikes through, new price counts down | 4–7s |
| Product | One hero shot, the thing on offer | (under price, 4–8s) |
| Code + urgency | Promo code + deadline, held still | 7–9s |
| CTA | "SHOP NOW" + URL, clean hold | 9–10s |
Scale tighter for 6s (cut the product beat) or looser for 15s (let each beat breathe). Never lengthen the hook.
Two non-negotiable rules
- The number is the message — keep it exact. Prices and percentages must be computed, never typed twice. Derive and the from and the discount so they can't disagree. A promo video that shows the wrong price is worse than no video. Round currency to cents, format with , and use so digits don't jitter mid-count.
- One offer, one focus per frame. A single discount, a single code, a single CTA. Competing offers kill the urgency. If there are two deals, make two videos.
The signature move: was→now with a strike-through
Three things animate together and must stay in sync: the strike-through line draws across the old price, the new price counts down to its final value, and a micro-overshoot punctuates the landing. Drive all three from
— never a CSS transition or a JS timer — so a server render never desyncs.
jsx
import { useCurrentFrame, interpolate, spring, useVideoConfig } from "remotion";
const usd = new Intl.NumberFormat("en-US", { style: "currency", currency: "USD" });
export const PriceDrop = ({ was = 79.0, now = 47.4, startAt = 30 }) => {
const frame = useCurrentFrame();
const { fps } = useVideoConfig();
const f = frame - startAt;
// 1. strike-through line draws L→R over ~0.4s
const strike = interpolate(f, [0, 12], [0, 100], { extrapolateLeft: "clamp", extrapolateRight: "clamp" });
// 2. new price counts from `was` down to `now`, eased
const t = spring({ frame: f - 8, fps, config: { damping: 18, mass: 0.6 } });
const shown = was + (now - was) * t;
// 3. landing pop on the final value
const pop = interpolate(t, [0.9, 1], [1.12, 1], { extrapolateLeft: "clamp", extrapolateRight: "clamp" });
return (
<div style={{ fontVariantNumeric: "tabular-nums", textAlign: "center" }}>
<span style={{ position: "relative", opacity: 0.55, fontSize: 48 }}>
{usd.format(was)}
<span style={{ position: "absolute", left: 0, top: "50%", height: 4, background: "#ff3b3b",
width: `${strike}%`, transformOrigin: "left" }} />
</span>
<div style={{ fontSize: 96, fontWeight: 800, transform: `scale(${pop})` }}>
{usd.format(shown)}
</div>
</div>
);
};
Order matters: strike the old price
first, then drop the new one. Striking and counting at the same instant reads as a glitch. See
references/promo-components.md
for the full composition (discount badge, code reveal, countdown, CTA) wired to props.
Discount reveal & promo code
The percentage is the loudest element on screen — bigger than the brand, bigger than the product. Compute it; don't type it.
js
const pct = Math.round((1 - now / was) * 100); // 79 → 47.4 ⇒ 40
const off = was - now; // for "$X off" framing
Choose the framing by price: percentage for higher-priced items ("40% OFF" beats "$32 off"), a flat amount for low-priced items ("$5 off" beats "8% off"). Reveal the code as a tappable-looking chip (mono font, dashed border, light background) and hold it still — a moving code can't be read or screenshotted. Codes that encode urgency convert better:
,
,
.
Urgency that's honest
Urgency lifts conversion only when it's real. Show a concrete deadline ("Ends Sun 11:59pm") or a live-looking countdown — never a fake timer. Viewers need ~2s to read a time-sensitive offer, so hold the deadline beat; don't flash it. Keep the countdown on its own line near the code, not racing the price.
js
// frame → mm:ss remaining, derived from a deadline prop (deterministic per frame)
const remaining = Math.max(0, deadlineSec - frame / fps);
const mm = String(Math.floor(remaining / 60)).padStart(2, "0");
const ss = String(Math.floor(remaining % 60)).padStart(2, "0");
Motion language: energetic, not chaotic
Sale spots earn their punch from snappy, consistent motion: fast spring entrances (
, overshoot), hard cuts on accents, one accent color for savings (a hot red/green) reused everywhere. Keep ONE enter curve across all beats so speed reads as confidence. Avoid drift/parallax that softens urgency. Land the discount reveal on the strongest audio beat if scored.
Template × data — many products, one template
The payoff of code-driven promos: a price/offer table renders a video per product, with prices guaranteed accurate because they come from the data, not a designer retyping. Make the offer an input prop; hardcode nothing.
jsx
// one composition, different offer → different video
export const Promo = ({ offer }) => { /* reads offer.was/now/code/deadline/img — no constants */ };
bash
# render the promo for every offer row in /offers
for f in offers/*.json; do
npx remotion render Promo "out/$(basename "$f" .json).mp4" --props="$f"
done
Validate each row before render (now < was, code present, image exists) so a bad row fails loud instead of shipping a wrong price. Keep colors/fonts/CTA in one theme object so 200 promos stay brand-locked and only the numbers change. See
references/promo-components.md
for the offer schema, validation, and batch script.
Output checklist
- and are computed from — never typed twice; rounded and -formatted with .
- Strike draws first, new price drops second; both pure functions of .
- One offer, one code, one CTA per video; discount is the loudest element.
- Urgency is a real deadline/countdown, held ≥2s, not a fake flashing timer.
- One enter curve and one savings accent color across all beats.
- Offer is an input prop; each data row is validated (now < was) before batch render.
Deliver & verify (rendered stills → MP4)
Packaged helper (
): tile your stills with
scripts/contact-sheet.sh sheet.png f-hook.png f-mid.png f-end.png
, then assert the encode with
scripts/probe-mp4.sh out.mp4 [WxH] [fps]
. See
.
This is heavy-tier: the deliverable is an MP4, not a live page. A promo carries exact money — the verify pass is mostly are the numbers right and is the product image actually there.
Output contract:
- A Remotion project with the composition registered ( + zod + ); discount reveal, strike-through, count-down and CTA all pure functions of (no CSS transitions, timers, ).
- Product image loaded via , gated with / so the hero shot (and brand font) is present before the frame renders — / computed from , never typed twice.
- Deliverable = the rendered plus the project (re-render per offer row).
Verify loop — render stills → inspect → encode. Cheap PNGs first, video only once the numbers and image are right.
bash
# Frame-exact stills WITH THE OFFER PROPS YOU'LL SHIP, not defaultProps
npx remotion still Promo out/f-discount.png --frame=60 --props=offer.json # "40% OFF" big number landed
npx remotion still Promo out/f-price.png --frame=120 --props=offer.json # was struck through, now settled
npx remotion still Promo out/f-cta.png --frame=270 --props=offer.json # code + deadline + CTA end-card
# end frame = durationInFrames - 1 (npx remotion compositions reads it)
Inspect each PNG for
fidelity (exact
/
/
; was→now strike-through drawn over the old price; promo code spelled right; product image is the right one) AND
artifacts (image blank/not loaded, digits jittering or wrong, price overflow/off-canvas, strike on the wrong line, CTA/code outside the title-safe area, wrong aspect/letterboxing).
bash
# Only after stills are clean:
npx remotion render Promo out/promo.mp4 --props=offer.json
npx remotion render Promo out/promo.gif --props=offer.json --codec=gif # README first-screen proof
Batch (one template, many products): when rendering the price table → N videos, verify ONE representative offer's props via stills before batch-rendering the catalog — a wrong price or blank image caught once beats shipping it N times.
Before you finish:
- Stills render cleanly at discount / price / CTA — no errors, product image actually loaded (not blank).
- // are exact (computed from ); strike-through over the old price, new price settled, code/deadline correct.
- All motion frame-driven — no CSS transitions / timers / / .
- The shipped offer props render correctly, not just .
- Full MP4 encoded and plays; (optional) GIF rendered for the README.
Reference files
references/promo-components.md
— a complete runnable Remotion promo composition driven by an offer prop: discount badge, was→now strike-through + count-down, promo-code chip, live countdown, and CTA end-card — plus the offer schema, per-row validation, the theme object, and the template×data batch render script for N products.