> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://academy.uagenius.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Competitor Research
> Browse hooks, gameplays, texts and audio from live competitor ads, and recreate the ones worth using.
**Research & recreate** is a searchable library of ad assets, pulled apart from live mobile game ads. Rather than whole ads, you browse the pieces: hooks, gameplay bodies, texts and audio, each one filterable on its own.
You can take a hook from one game, gameplay from another and a text angle from a third, then combine them in [Video Studio](/video-studio).
The screen has two tabs, **Competitor Research** and [Saved assets](/saved-assets), and within each, sub-tabs for the asset types:
| Sub-tab | What you are browsing |
| --------- | ---------------------------------------------- |
| **Hook** | Opening seconds from competitor ads. |
| **Body** | Gameplay footage. |
| **Text** | Text overlays and the copy angles behind them. |
| **Audio** | Soundtracks. |
Every section shares the same card signals and the same filter and sort controls, with **Hook** carrying the fullest set. [Working with each section](#working-with-each-section) at the end of this page covers what is specific to each.
End cards are the one asset type you bring yourself. Upload your own into a board under [Saved assets](/saved-assets), then add them as a column in [Video Studio](/video-studio).
## Filters
The **Hook** tab carries the full set, and other tabs show the subset that applies to them.
Tracks what your team has already done with each ad, so two people can work in parallel without covering the same ground.
* **Recreated Hooks**, already recreated assets. Drills down by the user who did it.
* **New Hooks**, ones nobody on your team has picked up yet to create variations.
* **Used Hooks**, already used in a variation.
Start at **New Hooks** for fresh ideas, and glance at **Recreated Hooks** before requesting anything to build on work that has already done.
The creative idea behind the ad, independent of which game made it. Examples include *No wifi No ads*, *ASMR*, *Brain*, *Relax*, *Cozy World* and *Animals*.
This is the most useful filter for finding a proven angle you have not tried yet. Filter by a concept rather than by a competitor and you will surface the same idea executed across many games.
Groups the source games into four buckets, each expanding to the individual app packages/games inside it:
| Group | Where the games come from |
| ------------------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Direct Competitors** | The competitors you give us during onboarding, so this list is yours. |
| **Indirect competitors** | Games adjacent to your genre or gameplay that UAG sources for you. |
| **Top Trending games** | The most downloaded games in your category. |
| **Top Grossing Games** | The highest earning games in your category. |
Direct competitors show you what you are up against. Top grossing games show you which creative strategies are earning at scale, which often makes them the richer source of ideas.
Your **Direct Competitors** list comes from you. You name the titles you compete with during onboarding, and that is what this bucket filters to. If a competitor is missing, or one you named is no longer relevant, ask your UAG contact to update it.
Where the ad was seen, in two groups:
* **Social Media Platforms**: Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, Threads, YouTube
* **Ad Networks**
Match this to where you intend to run. A hook built for an Instagram feed and a hook built for a rewarded video placement are doing different jobs.
**Android** or **iOS**. Useful when your creative strategy or store assets differ between the two.
Narrows by continent, then by country within it. Use it to confirm that an ad you like is running in the markets you actually buy in.
* **Vertical**: 9:16, 4:5, 2:3, 3:4, 5:6
* **Horizontal**
* **Square**
Filter to the ratio you intend to ship. In Video Studio the output ratio comes from the body, so this filter earns its keep most when you are browsing bodies.
Last **7**, **30**, **180** or **365** days, or **All time**.
Last 7 days is your new-creative feed. All time is your reference library of proven concepts.
* **Latest**, newest first
* **Impression**, most shown first
* **Active days**, longest running first
**Active days** is the strongest signal of the three. An ad a competitor has kept live for months is one that is working for them.
## Reading a card
Each result is a card with inline video playback, so you can watch without leaving the grid. The card also shows:
| Signal | How to read it |
| --------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **Ad network** | Where this creative was observed running. |
| **Impressions** | The total number of times this creative has been shown to people. Large numbers usually mean real spend behind it. |
| **Active days** | How long it has been live. High numbers mean a winner. |
| **Last seen** | Whether it is still running today. |
High impressions with low active days is a new test. High active days is a proven performer. Sort by active days when you want reliability, and by latest when you want novelty.
### Acting on a card
Once you have found something worth using, the card itself is where you start:
| Action | What it does |
| -------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Recreate with AI** | Opens the [Recreate studio](/recreate-hook) for that asset and rebuilds it in your own art. Available on hooks straight away. |
| **View templates** | On bodies, shows the original alongside any templates that exist for it. See [Recreate a body](/recreate-body). |
| **Bookmark** | Saves the asset to a board under [Saved assets](/saved-assets). |
| **Select** | Ticking the checkbox lets you work on several at once, which brings up the bulk action bar below. |
Recreating from the card is the shortest path from spotting a hook to owning your own version of it. You do not need to bookmark it first.
## Working in bulk
Selecting more than one card reveals an action bar:
* **Recreate**, recreate the whole selection in one go
* **Generate Ads**, take the selection into [Video Studio](/video-studio) and start composing
* **Download**, pull the original files down
* **Delete**, remove the recreated assets from the console.(original videos will not be affected)
* **Clear selection,** cancels the selection
### Recreating in bulk
**Recreate** is the action worth knowing about, because it turns a research session into a set of your own assets in one pass.
Tick every asset you want your own version of.
Any exceptions in your selection are listed before anything runs, so you can see exactly what will be included and what will not.
Everything remaining is recreated in a single click. There is no need to set each asset up one by one.
Recreated hooks draw on your [brand assets](/brand-assets), so they match your art, and everything that comes back is copyright free.
This is the quickest way to build a library of your own hooks. Filter to what is working in the market, select the lot, and recreate them together rather than one at a time.
### Building a batch from research
You do not have to pick everything from one place. Move between the **Hook**, **Body**, **Text** and **Audio** sections, selecting what you want as you go, and your picks are held across all of them.
When you have your ingredients, select **Generate Ads**. You land in [Video Studio](/video-studio) with everything you chose already placed in its columns, ready to render every combination.
Assembling the selection here rather than in Video Studio means you choose while you can still see the market data on each card, with impressions and active days in front of you.
## Saved assets
Bookmarking an asset sends it to a **board** under the **Saved assets** tab, the second tab on this screen. Boards are also where you upload your own footage into the library, splitting a single video into a hook, a body and an end card as you go.
See [Saved assets](/saved-assets) for boards and the upload flow.
## Working with each section
The four sections behave the same way in most respects. The differences below are what is worth knowing when you are working in each one.
### Hook
The opening seconds of competitor ads, and the section most cycles start in.
**Recreate with AI** is available directly on a hook card, so you can go from spotting one to owning your own version with no intermediate step. Sort by **Active days** to surface the hooks that have earned their place in the market.
Once you set a recreation as final in the studio, the card carries a **recreations** tag. Selecting it fans the card out into **Original + N recreations**, so you can compare your versions against the hook they came from. See [Recreate a hook](/recreate-hook).
### Body
Gameplay footage from competitor ads.
Boards can hold your own footage as well as bookmarked competitor ads. Inside a board, the button in the top right uploads from your machine, labelled for the sub-tab you are on, so on **Hook** it reads **Upload own hook**.
Anything you upload sits in the same grid as your bookmarks, and answers to the same filters and sorting.
Each asset type has its own card with a toggle: **Upload Hook?**, **Upload Body?** and **Upload End Card?**. Turn on the ones you want out of this video. Anything left off stays at 0.0s and is not uploaded.
Each part you switch on appears as a section on the timeline under **Set video sections**. Drag the handles to set where it starts and ends, with a minimum of 1 second per section, and its card shows the length as you adjust it. A preview player sits alongside, so you can watch the video while you place the marks.
Under **Save asset for reuse**, tick the boards the assets should go into. Search finds a board by name, and the folder button creates a new one without leaving the modal. You can tick more than one board, so a single upload can serve two test cycles at once.
Select **Upload**. Every section you toggled on arrives as its own asset, filed under its own sub-tab in each board you ticked.
A body moves through three states, and the action on the card tells you which one it is in.
Where every body starts. Requesting it sends the gameplay to the UAG team to be turned into a template you can recreate.
You have two ways to ask, **Use as is** for a faithful rebuild or **Customise with references** to steer it yourself.
See [Request a body template](/request-body-template) for what each option does and what to send with it.
Once the team delivers, the action on the card changes to **View templates**. It shows the original alongside every template that now exists for that body.
After you recreate a template and save a final video, a **Recreations** tag appears at the top of the card. Select it and the card fans out to show every final recreation of that gameplay, so you can compare your versions side by side.
Aspect ratio is worth filtering on here more than anywhere else, because the body sets the output ratio for every video built around it in [Video Studio](/video-studio).
See [Request a body template](/request-body-template) for the request flow, and [Recreate a body](/recreate-body) for what to do once one is delivered.
### Texts
The text overlays running on competitor ads, carrying both the copy angle and the styling it originally used.
Text is the cheapest variable to test, since another line costs nothing to render. Pull several into a batch and Video Studio pairs each one with every hook. You can restyle and reposition any of them in the Video Studio text editor.
### Audio
The music and sound running on competitor ads, and everything here is yours to use.
Each track is recreated to hold the feel of the original while being fully copyright free, so you can take any of them straight into a published ad.
You can preview a track before committing to it.
## What to do next
Rebuild a competitor hook in your game's art.
Turn a competitor's gameplay into a template you can recreate.