# Pain → Agitate → Solve (PAS)

## Core Logic

Define a problem the audience already feels → amplify the emotional weight until inaction becomes unbearable → introduce the product as the inevitable remedy. The product earns its entrance by arriving only after the viewer is primed to want it.

## Emotional Arc Pattern

```
Anxiety/Frustration ──▶ Peak Tension ──▶ Relief ──▶ Confidence ──▶ Empowerment
     (hook)            (agitation)     (reveal)    (demo)          (CTA)
```

Canonical PAS samples verbalize this as: "Overwhelm and frustration transition into relief, control, and triumphant success" (Zeliq), "Frustration with manual processes shifting to relief and excitement" (JustCall), "Intense frustration and anxiety → relief and clarity → empowerment and control" (HRS). The common pattern is a **V-curve**: dip into a named negative beat → product arrives as the pivot → sustained ascent through control / confidence / empowerment.

## Typical Section Sequence

| Order | Type              | Role                                                                   | Approx % |
| ----- | ----------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------- |
| 1     | hook              | Establish the problem with data or scenario                            | 5-15%    |
| 2     | pain_point        | Amplify: show emotional/financial cost                                 | 10-20%   |
| 3     | benefit_highlight | Tease the solution concept (not the product yet)                       | 5-10%    |
| 4     | product_intro     | Reveal the product as the vehicle for the solution                     | 10-15%   |
| 5     | feature_showcase  | Demo the product solving the pain (UI sequence — 3+ scenes; see below) | 25-50%   |
| 6     | cta               | Inspire action                                                         | 10-15%   |

**Reveal timing** — PAS is the late-reveal archetype; product reveal lands at 33–71% across samples. Don't reveal early — you'd be solving a problem the audience hasn't felt yet. Longer agitation builds investment and increases relief contrast.

## When to Use

- The audience already experiences the pain (B2B broken workflows, operational friction)
- You have strong data points (industry stats, cost figures) to quantify the problem
- The product is a direct remedy to a specific frustration
- You need to build urgency before the reveal

## When NOT to Use

- The product creates a new category nobody knows they need yet (→ use Future Pacing or BAB)
- The product's UI demo is the strongest selling point (→ use Demo Loop)
- The audience has no existing pain awareness
- The product is desire-driven (NFTs, collectibles, luxury) rather than relief-driven (→ use Feature-Benefit Cascade)

## Common compound

PAS very often runs Feature-Benefit Cascade as its inner rhythm during the showcase phase. Write as `"Problem-Agitate-Solution (PAS) with Feature-Benefit progression"` (see guide.md).

## Hook strategies that work for PAS

- **Shocking statistic**, **Pain validation**, **Direct address / character hail**, **Visceral metaphor**, **Relatable scenario** — any hook that leads the audience to feel the problem before seeing the product.

Don't open PAS with "Imagine..." or visual-spectacle hooks — those belong to Future Pacing and Feature-Benefit Cascade respectively.

## Persuasion techniques that recur

**Pain agitation**, **Contrast (chaos → clean)**, **Friction reduction**, **Risk reversal (free trial)**, **Statistical proof / authority by association with logos**, **Demonstrated efficiency**, **Empowerment & control**.

Two pinned moves:

- **Overwhelm Cloud + Invoice Shock** (Madison): visually stack floating task bubbles around the protagonist → cut to ticking financial counter → snap to product. Pain in two registers (mental + financial) before reveal.
- **Tribal-Vocabulary Saturation + Cultural-Ritual Climax** (Alpha): every script line uses audience-native terms; then elevate a community-bonding ritual to climax position over utilitarian features. Insider fluency proves the brand belongs in the tribe.

## Variants (Golden Samples)

Two distinct approaches to PAS — same underlying logic, different emotional levers:

<alpha path="alpha.md">
**Alpha — Culture/Identity-Driven PAS** (~56s, Web3 Browser Extension)
Opens with crypto-speed baseline pain ("The world of crypto is moving fast"), runs 3 short pain scenes accumulating cognitive fatigue ("signal in a world full of noise"), then reveals the product as a frictionless solution ("whenever you open a new tab"). Elevates a community-bonding ritual (the GM button) to climax position over utilitarian features — the 12-second GM-button scene is the longest in the video.
Key technique: Tribal-vocabulary saturation, founder-voice product intro, passive-solution positioning, cultural-ritual climax over utility climax.
</alpha>

<madison path="madison.md">
**Madison — Character-Driven PAS + Feature-Benefit Cascade compound** (~113s, AI Marketing SaaS for local businesses)
Opens with a sentence-completion recruitment ("...like / yours."), stacks dual-register pain (mental load via Overwhelm Cloud + financial cost via Invoice Shock), reveals Madison as a *person* ("your new AI-powered digital marketing specialist"), anchors price immediately after cost-pain ("$99/month"), then runs the longest sustained Feature-Benefit Cascade in the archive (9 scenes) with consistent verb-anthropomorphization ("Madison goes to work", "she's driving more customers"). Reserves the "Triumph" emotional beat for the analytics scene.
Key technique: Continuous-sentence recruitment, dual-register pain stack, specialist personification chain (noun → verb → pronoun), price-anchor after cost-pain, analytics-as-triumph.
</madison>
