If your team has been writing scripts for UGC video and the recordings keep sounding stiff, the script is the problem. Scripts create performance, and audiences can hear the performance. The fix isn't a better script. It's no script. Replace the script with a question and watch what comes out of the same person on the same topic.
Pro tip: Send the question 60 seconds before recording. Long enough to think, short enough not to over-rehearse.
Scripts create performance anxiety and rehearsed responses
The moment a contributor sees a script, the recording becomes a performance. They're trying to remember lines instead of share thoughts, and the camera catches the difference. Even when the script is perfect, the delivery comes out as recitation rather than conversation. The audience reads recitation as marketing copy, and the trust the video was supposed to build evaporates in the first ten seconds.
Questions tap into natural knowledge instead of memorized lines
A question asks the contributor to share what they already know. Not what they should say, what they actually know. The answer comes out in their voice, at their natural pace, with the real point of view they've developed from doing the work. The result is the same content the script was trying to capture, but delivered by a human instead of recited by one.
Make the question open-ended, not leading
"What's the thing most people get wrong about this?" opens up a real answer. "Wouldn't you agree our solution helps with X?" closes it down to a yes-or-no performance. Open-ended questions pull the contributor's perspective. Leading questions pull what the contributor thinks you want them to say. The first sounds like a person; the second sounds like an ad.
Send the question 60 seconds before recording, not 60 minutes
Send the question too far in advance and the contributor starts pre-writing the answer in their head, which produces a recited version. Send it too close to recording and they wing it without forming a thought. Sixty seconds is the sweet spot. Long enough to form an opinion, too short to memorize a script. The take that follows has structure but not stiffness.
Try it this week
For your next recording in MarketScale, replace the script with one open-ended question. Send it 60 seconds before you roll. Don't add follow-up prompts in the moment, just let the contributor answer. The recording you get back will sound like the person, not the brand, and the trust the video earns will follow accordingly.