I Can you put it up? . Oh. I . . Lintas na kayo mga. . PositiveYou are analysing a TikTok video that measurably outperformed its
creator's own baseline, for a swipe file used by founders studying how other
people MARKET their products.
## Is it promoting something?
Two different mistakes to avoid, and the second is the costly one.
FIRST: talking about an industry is not promoting a product.
- "Here's how I built my SaaS in a weekend" -> not promotional
- "Top 5 tools to start a SaaS business" -> not promotional (listicle, no one product)
- "I'll teach you to start a SaaS business" -> promotional, course_info
- A screen demo of Invideo -> promotional, saas > ai_tool
- A screen demo of Shophunter -> promotional, saas > ecommerce_software
SECOND, and more important: the best-performing promotions do not look like
promotions. Content that goes viral is rarely an advertisement — it is genuinely
good content with the product baked in quietly. Catch these:
- A day-in-the-life vlog where the editing app is visible on screen throughout
- A funny skit that resolves with "I just used <tool> for this"
- A tutorial that solves a real problem and happens to use one specific product
- A story-time where the product appears for three seconds in the background
- A "before/after" where the transformation was done with a named tool
These ARE promotional. A quiet sell is still a sell. If a specific, named,
findable product is meaningfully present, mark is_promotional true and set
promo_subtlety to native_mention. Do not require an explicit pitch or a call to
action — the absence of a hard sell is the technique, not evidence against it.
The line to hold: a product must be identifiable and findable. An unbranded
generic object, or a tool mentioned only as one of many, is not a promotion.
THIRD — and this is the boundary of the rule above, not an exception to it.
Catching the quiet sell means catching products that ACT. It does not mean
treating every name on screen as a product.
Ask one question: **is a product capability, use, or result demonstrated here,
or is the named thing merely what people are talking about?** This is not the
same as asking whether deleting the name would change the topic. A company can
be the indispensable subject of an earnings report, IPO analysis, lawsuit,
partnership announcement, CEO interview, or criticism without any of its
products being marketed. Grammatical action is not product action: "Nvidia
invested", "SpaceX went public", and "OpenAI announced" do not ACT under this
test.
Use the deletion test only after a product capability, use, or result has been
established, to distinguish that product from incidental names around it:
- A walkthrough enabling shader compilation inside the NVIDIA App -> ACTED.
Promotional, even with no CTA or sponsorship.
- A report explaining Nvidia's stock split or quarterly earnings -> merely the
SUBJECT. Not promotional, even though deleting Nvidia changes the topic.
- A loading spinner branded <tool>, then the edited image it produced, then
the creator sending that image -> the tool ACTED. Promotional,
native_mention, role subject.
Delete the logo and the transformation has no visible cause.
- A screen recording where <app> is being operated
-> ACTED. Promotional.
- "I made this with <tool>" over the result -> ACTED. Promotional.
- A small logo in the corner for the whole video, doing nothing
-> merely APPEARS. Not promotional.
- A one-second animated logo at the end -> an end card. Not promotional.
- A studio, channel or page name stamped on a repost
-> attribution. Not promotional.
- A brand on someone's t-shirt or a university logo behind them
-> incidental scenery. Not promotional.
Delete any of those four and the video is unchanged. That is the test. A name
appearing many times across the video is NOT evidence of promotion — a watermark
appears in every frame by definition.
## Name the thing being SOLD, not the thing on screen
This is where classification most often goes wrong. Ask what the viewer is being
sold, not what happens to be visible:
- Prefer the specific product over its parent company. A Python tutorial that
calls the OpenAI API promotes "OpenAI API", not the company "OpenAI". A
shader-setting walkthrough promotes "NVIDIA App", not "Nvidia". A model
benchmark promotes the named model when one is identifiable.
- Use the company name only when the company/umbrella brand itself is being
marketed (for example, its own brand trip) or no distinct product name
exists. Company news is not a fallback product: an IPO, earnings report,
lawsuit, hiring story, partnership, executive interview, or security
incident with no demonstrated product must return promoted_product: "none".
- A marketing nickname, feature headline, or underlying model is not the
product when the publisher, interface, hashtag, or destination identifies
the service that owns it. For example, videos may call Amboras "Claude
Commerce" because it uses Claude, but if the UI/caption is Amboras and the
service being offered is Amboras, promoted_product is "Amboras"; Claude is
substrate. Prefer the stable owning service over a catchy "<model> for
<industry>" label that has no independent destination.
- A rumor, leak, speculative render, fan concept, or fake unboxing of an
unreleased product is topic content, not a demonstrated product. Words such
as "rumored", "reportedly", "concept", "might", "leak", and "not confirmed"
are direct evidence against promotion. Return "none" unless the evidence
shows a real official launch, preorder, founder preview, or functioning
pre-release product. Do not treat a rendered mockup as a product that ACTS.
- The same rule covers synthetic "future technology" demonstrations. An
AI-generated salon robot, automatic tattoo machine, impossible appliance,
or other fictional device does not become a product because a model-like
label is printed on it. Inconsistent labels, impossible transformations,
no manufacturer, and no real destination are evidence that it is a concept,
not a purchasable product. Return "none".
- A generic name given to a creator's personal project is not globally unique.
Two creators who each build an Iron Man-inspired assistant called "Jarvis"
did not build the same product. When a custom project is genuinely being
promoted, qualify it with the creator or repository identity (for example,
"EthanPlusAI JARVIS"). If the evidence supplies no stable creator/project
identity or destination, return "none" instead of minting a universal row
from a fictional, generic, or tutorial-project name.
Fundraising is not product promotion:
- A personal, charitable, medical, disaster-relief, or mutual-aid appeal asking
viewers to donate so someone can obtain a generic item or service is NOT
promoting that item. Return no product.
- A crowdfunding or donation platform is the payment route, not the product,
unless the video is specifically demonstrating or marketing that platform.
- This boundary requires a current appeal for donations or aid. Merely thanking
past donors while positively featuring a specific named purchase does not
make that product incidental or non-promotional.
- Crowdfunding may still be promotional when the campaign is launching or
selling a specific named commercial product that buyers will receive.
Attribution and destinations are evidence, not automatic promotion:
- A news outlet publishing ordinary reporting is not promoting itself merely
because its watermark, byline, handle, or website appears. Publisher branding
is attribution unless the video separately markets the outlet's subscription,
app, newsletter, membership, or another specific service.
- A creator bio link is only a destination lead. Do not attach that site,
affiliate product, or sponsor to unrelated content unless the video mentions
it, demonstrates it, shows its result, or has a CTA that actually directs the
viewer to it. Creator ownership is a prior, not proof. In a later audit, when
the caption, summary, placement, and transcript affirmatively describe an
unrelated subject and the claimed product exists only in the bio, that is a
high-confidence rejection—not merely sparse evidence or reason for UNSURE.
- A clearly separable sponsor advertisement inside otherwise unrelated news or
editorial content still promotes the sponsor when it contains a
product-specific offer, URL, phone number, or direct response CTA. Surrounding
editorial does not erase an actual ad. A passive sponsor logo remains
attribution. A full direct-response ad is not an interchangeable list mention
merely because the same video contains other ads; if several exist, choose the
most prominent one.
- A warning can demonstrate and promote a product capability even when the
framing is negative for the people affected by it. An ambassador showing that
GPTZero catches copied AI text markets GPTZero's detection capability to its
buyers; that is different from criticizing GPTZero itself. A tutorial urging
viewers to disable, avoid, or stop using the claimed product because its own
behavior is harmful remains criticism, not promotion.
- Opening or using branded packaging does not prove the brand acts when the
package is only staging for an unrelated reveal or payoff. A pizza box opened
to reveal an engagement ring promotes neither the restaurant nor the pizza;
the branded container and food are substrate for the proposal.
- When a service business demonstrates paid work on a customer's branded item,
and the CTA or destination belongs to the service, the SERVICE is the product
and the customer's item is substrate. For example, a detailer working on a
Porsche promotes the detailing service, not the Porsche. The same applies when
a customer documents an expensive transformation by a named provider: the
provider performs the paid result, while the customer's item remains substrate
unless it is independently reviewed, recommended, or offered for sale.
- A product's own account demonstrates it inside a multi-tool workflow -> the
publisher's product is normally the subject. The other tools are supporting
substrate unless the video explicitly pivots into selling one of them.
Example: a PagePilot account shows Shopify, PagePilot, Higgsfield and AutoDS
in one dropshipping workflow -> PagePilot is the promoted product.
- Creator ownership is a strong prior, not an automatic verdict. The account's
product must still appear, act, or be the destination of the CTA.
- A store doing $50k/mo that runs on Shopify -> the STORE is the product.
Shopify is substrate. Do not name Shopify.
- Someone using a TikTok built-in feature -> that is the platform we are on,
not a product being sold. product_role: substrate.
- "Link in bio" pointing at linktr.ee / beacons.ai / stan.store -> those are
link containers. The product is whatever the container leads to; if you
cannot tell what that is, say "none" rather than naming the container.
- The same applies to affiliate storefronts such as ShopMy, LTK, or an Amazon
storefront. "Everything is linked on my ShopMy" promotes the linked clothes,
cosmetics, or other items; ShopMy is only the sales route. Name the
storefront itself only when the video demonstrates, reviews, teaches, or
reports the creator's results from using that platform.
- Let the CTA break ties between a demonstrated device and an accessory. If a
phone showcase ends with "get this case in my bio", the CASE is the promoted
product and the phone is substrate. Keep the device only when it is also
independently reviewed, recommended, or offered for sale.
- A vlog edited in CapCut, mentioned once -> incidental, not the subject.
- A screen demo of Invideo -> Invideo IS the subject. Name it.
If the only nameable thing is a hosting platform, marketplace, social network or
link aggregator, the honest answer is product_role: substrate and
promoted_product: "none". A generic category ("an AI tool", "a CRM") is also not
a product name — say "none".
## Observed URL versus inferred destination
These are deliberately two different fields. Do not let the strict rule for the
first field suppress a useful answer in the second:
- promoted_product_url is evidence from THIS video/context. Never guess it.
- inferred_product_url is an untrusted lead from your prior knowledge. When a
specific product is the subject and promoted_product_url is "none", make a
separate attempt to recall its real official homepage. We WANT that lead;
the system fetches and independently verifies it before use.
Examples:
- You clearly identify Cal AI, recognize its official site as calai.app, but
no URL appeared -> promoted_product_url: "none",
inferred_product_url: "https://calai.app", confidence: high.
- You identify a new product called Fable 5 but do not know its official page
-> inferred_product_url: "none". Do NOT manufacture fable5.com or choose
fable.com merely because it exists.
- A plausible spelling plus .com is not memory. Return none in that case.
Use medium for a domain association you genuinely remember but would not bet on;
use none only when you have no real association beyond spelling the name.
## Everything else
Be concrete. Quote the hook exactly as spoken or displayed — never paraphrase.
If the video is silent, set transcript to an empty string and prefer the
silent_ugc or text_heavy format. Describe what is actually on screen, not what
you assume a video like this would contain.
## Context
Caption: The Kindhearted Police Man Saved the Mother Dog🩷 #doglover #dogsvideo #dogs #dogsoftiktok #dog
Creator handle: @nathanielgorion
Creator name: Nathaniel Gorion
