Purdy & Figg run 626 live Meta ads built from just 40 distinct headlines. Four fifths of their running time sits on two arguments, both of them price: urgency and discount. The ten biggest concepts in the account, together 55% of all running time, are every one of them urgency ads, and not one of them appears in Meta's own impression ranking. Meanwhile the ads Meta does rank are the plainer price-and-product statics. A third of their live ads launched in 2025 and still account for 72% of running time, which means the account is coasting on last Christmas. They have no founder creative, no press creative, no partnership ads and nothing at all selling the refill subscription they are built on.
Meta's Ad Library shows which ads are running. It does not show budget, impressions or results for UK commercial ads. Nobody can tell you Purdy & Figg's spend from public data, and any report that puts a pound figure on it is guessing. So this audit uses three separate proxies, kept apart on purpose rather than blended into one score.
Every ad mapped onto the same fixed checklist of 14 arguments used for our own client audits. The checklist is fixed rather than derived from what Purdy & Figg happens to run, because a taxonomy built from an account can only describe it. Empty rows are the finding.
| Lane | Ads | % ads | % ad-days | Concepts | Verified | Verdict | Action |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Urgency / offer | 182 | 29% | 64% | 26 | 3 | SATURATED | Enough coverage. Refresh winners only, no new sub-variants |
| Value / economics | 288 | 46% | 18% | 61 | 27 | SATURATED | Enough coverage. Refresh winners only, no new sub-variants |
| Identity / ritual / aspiration | 31 | 5% | 5% | 17 | 0 | THIN | Under-supplied. Needs more distinct executions |
| Features & benefits | 12 | 2% | 4% | 9 | 0 | THIN | Under-supplied. Needs more distinct executions |
| Sensory / product desire | 54 | 9% | 3% | 17 | 6 | THIN | Under-supplied. Needs more distinct executions |
| Social proof / testimonial | 29 | 5% | 2% | 8 | 3 | THIN | Under-supplied. Needs more distinct executions |
| Gifting / occasion | 6 | 1% | 2% | 5 | 0 | THIN | Under-supplied. Needs more distinct executions |
| Us vs them / anti-category | 11 | 2% | 1% | 10 | 1 | THIN | Under-supplied. Needs more distinct executions |
| Education / how it works | 5 | 1% | 1% | 3 | 1 | THIN | Under-supplied. Needs more distinct executions |
| Problem, solution | 3 | 0% | 0% | 3 | 0 | GAP | Nothing here. Test the lane with distinct executions, not one ad |
| Objection handling | 1 | 0% | 0% | 1 | 1 | GAP | Nothing here. Test the lane with distinct executions, not one ad |
| Press / PR / authority | 0 | 0% | 0% | 0 | 0 | GAP | Nothing here. Test the lane with distinct executions, not one ad |
| Founder / craft / origin story | 0 | 0% | 0% | 0 | 0 | GAP | Nothing here. Test the lane with distinct executions, not one ad |
| Subscription / value ladder | 0 | 0% | 0% | 0 | 0 | GAP | Nothing here. Test the lane with distinct executions, not one ad |
The same treatment for the 24 canonical content types. This is the axis that answers what they actually shoot, and it is classified from the creative itself rather than from ad copy.
| Lane | Ads | % ads | % ad-days | Concepts | Verified | Verdict | Action |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UGC demo / first use | 98 | 16% | 17% | 25 | 5 | SATURATED | Enough coverage. Refresh winners only, no new sub-variants |
| UGC testimonial | 79 | 13% | 15% | 20 | 3 | SATURATED | Enough coverage. Refresh winners only, no new sub-variants |
| B-roll + voiceover | 99 | 16% | 15% | 20 | 5 | SATURATED | Enough coverage. Refresh winners only, no new sub-variants |
| How-to / tutorial | 58 | 9% | 14% | 9 | 3 | SATURATED | Enough coverage. Refresh winners only, no new sub-variants |
| Product / studio static | 114 | 18% | 11% | 31 | 19 | SATURATED | Enough coverage. Refresh winners only, no new sub-variants |
| Unboxing | 79 | 13% | 8% | 18 | 3 | SATURATED | Enough coverage. Refresh winners only, no new sub-variants |
| Other / unclassified | 46 | 7% | 8% | 12 | 0 | SATURATED | Enough coverage. Refresh winners only, no new sub-variants |
| Social-native / story style | 23 | 4% | 6% | 8 | 2 | SATURATED | Enough coverage. Refresh winners only, no new sub-variants |
| Before / after / side-by-side | 4 | 1% | 1% | 2 | 1 | THIN | Under-supplied. Needs more distinct executions |
| Problem-solution video | 6 | 1% | 1% | 5 | 0 | THIN | Under-supplied. Needs more distinct executions |
| Green screen / reaction | 2 | 0% | 1% | 1 | 0 | THIN | Under-supplied. Needs more distinct executions |
| Skit / humour / relatable | 3 | 0% | 1% | 3 | 2 | THIN | Under-supplied. Needs more distinct executions |
| Stats / facts card | 6 | 1% | 0% | 3 | 1 | GAP | Nothing here. Test the lane with distinct executions, not one ad |
| Text-led / listicle static | 3 | 0% | 0% | 1 | 0 | GAP | Nothing here. Test the lane with distinct executions, not one ad |
| Brand film / hero manifesto | 1 | 0% | 0% | 1 | 0 | GAP | Nothing here. Test the lane with distinct executions, not one ad |
| Behind the scenes / making-of | 2 | 0% | 0% | 1 | 0 | GAP | Nothing here. Test the lane with distinct executions, not one ad |
| Review / press screenshot graphic | 1 | 0% | 0% | 1 | 0 | GAP | Nothing here. Test the lane with distinct executions, not one ad |
| Lifestyle static | 1 | 0% | 0% | 1 | 1 | GAP | Nothing here. Test the lane with distinct executions, not one ad |
| Whitelisted / partnership ad | 0 | 0% | 0% | 0 | 0 | GAP | Nothing here. Test the lane with distinct executions, not one ad |
| Founder video / talking head | 0 | 0% | 0% | 0 | 0 | GAP | Nothing here. Test the lane with distinct executions, not one ad |
| Longform explainer / VSL | 0 | 0% | 0% | 0 | 0 | PARK | A sub-£15 trial kit does not need a long-form sales letter. Correctly absent. |
| Podcast / interview style | 0 | 0% | 0% | 0 | 0 | PARK | No podcast or long-form interview asset exists for the brand; not a realistic near-term lane for a £12 impulse trial kit. |
| Meme / lo-fi native | 0 | 0% | 0% | 0 | 0 | GAP | Nothing here. Test the lane with distinct executions, not one ad |
| Carousel (lineup / steps / styling) | 0 | 0% | 0% | 0 | 0 | GAP | Nothing here. Test the lane with distinct executions, not one ad |
The messenger dimension: who is actually in the ad. This is the axis that tells you whether a brand is buying creator content, using its founder, or shipping product-only graphics.
| Messenger | Ads | % ads | % ad-days | Concepts | Verified |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Founder / brand voice on camera | 0 | 0% | 0% | 0 | 0 |
| Customer or creator (UGC) | 252 | 40% | 44% | 73 | 14 |
| Whitelisted / partnership ad | 0 | 0% | 0% | 0 | 0 |
| Staff or in-house cast | 3 | 0% | 1% | 3 | 2 |
| No human. Product, text or graphic only | 370 | 59% | 55% | 104 | 29 |
| Check | Result | Measured | Target |
|---|---|---|---|
| Live concept count | PASS | 162 | 6 to 10+ distinct concepts |
| Concept concentration | PASS | 44% | Top 5 concepts under 70% of ad-days |
| Argument coverage | FAIL | 5 of 14 lanes empty | No essential argument lane empty |
| Style spread | PASS | 18 types live, top 17% | 5+ content types live, top under 40% of ad-days |
| Messenger mix | PASS | 3 live, 45% of ad-days person-led | 2+ messenger types live |
Concepts, not ads. Recuts of one script with a different creator collapse into a single row under the two-axis rule, which is what stops a wall of near-identical variants reading as variety.
| # | Argument / content | Ads | Ad-days | Verified |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | urgency-offer / how-to | 31 | 8,692 | 0 |
| 2 | urgency-offer / ugc-demo | 30 | 8,392 | 0 |
| 3 | urgency-offer / ugc-testimonial | 29 | 8,164 | 0 |
| 4 | urgency-offer / broll-vo | 20 | 5,570 | 0 |
| 5 | urgency-offer / unboxing | 9 | 2,514 | 0 |
| 6 | urgency-offer / other-video | 8 | 2,080 | 0 |
| 7 | urgency-offer / social-native | 7 | 1,976 | 0 |
| 8 | urgency-offer / other-video | 7 | 1,933 | 0 |
| 9 | urgency-offer / product-static | 6 | 1,672 | 0 |
| 10 | urgency-offer / social-native | 5 | 1,298 | 0 |
| 11 | value-economics / product-static | 20 | 1,229 | 2 |
| 12 | value-economics / broll-vo | 20 | 1,043 | 2 |
This is a competitor teardown, so the plan is not what Purdy & Figg should build. It is what their creative tells us about where they are strong, where they are exposed, and which lanes are sitting completely empty in the UK natural-cleaning category.
Purdy & Figg sell a refillable system, and across 626 live ads there is not a single one arguing the refill economics or the subscription. Every ad sells the first purchase at a discount. That is the single largest strategic hole in the account: they buy a trial-kit customer at 65 to 70% off and then run no creative that explains why the second, third and fourth purchase are worth it. Any competitor selling a refill or subscription model can own this lane uncontested, and any brand of ours in a consumable category should treat the refill maths as a creative argument rather than a post-purchase email.
Both the founder argument and the founder-video content type are completely empty, and so is whitelisted partnership. Purdy & Figg use a lot of creator faces, 252 ads worth, but every one runs from the brand handle. Nobody in this account speaks as the person who made the product. For a natural-cleaning brand whose whole premise is what is not in the bottle, that is a large amount of trust left on the table, and it is the cheapest lane for a challenger to take because it needs one person and a phone, not a creator budget.
The press and authority lane is empty and the review-graphic content type has exactly one ad in 626. Their only third-party proof is a single reposted social clip. They lean on volume claims in copy instead, such as one million kits sold, but never show an outside voice saying it. Third-party proof is the standard counter to a discount-led competitor, because it argues on a dimension price cannot answer.
Us-vs-them holds 11 ads and 1.4% of running time, spread across 10 near-separate concepts, which means it is being tested and never scaled. The executions that do exist are the sharpest creative in the account: the supermarket-bottle comparisons, the before and after card, and the WANTED static aimed at people cutting back on chemical cleaners. For a brand whose entire product reason-to-exist is displacing chemical cleaners, running that argument on 1.4% of delivery is a strategic under-investment and the most exploitable gap here.
Identity and ritual carries 31 ads and 17 concepts on only 4.6% of running time. This is where their most distinctive work sits, the cosy-reset-routine and the day-four-of-cleaning-my-home series, creative that sells a feeling rather than a price. It is under-fed relative to how much of it they have made, which suggests the delivery system is being handed a price-led library and choosing from it accordingly.
Two things they do well enough to lift. First, one script recut across many creators and edit lengths: the SOLD OUT script runs across 179 ads with a median 278 days live, which is a serious durability result from a single idea. Second, they film ordinary homes rather than studio sets, and 40% of their ads carry a real person. The lesson is not to make more ads, it is to make one argument work across many faces before moving on.
Source: Meta Ad Library, public UK listing for Purdy & Figg, captured 2026-08-18. Active ads only, so creative they have already tested and switched off is not visible here. Ads were harvested by slicing the page-scoped listing into start-date windows and scrolling each to exhaustion; a window was re-split only when the number of cards retrieved fell short of Meta's own reported count for it, and the coverage log records any window that stayed short. Start dates come from the start_date field inside each ad's own archive record. Days-live is the gap between that date and the capture date. Every ad's content type, messenger and person-led flag was classified from the actual creative still rather than inferred from ad copy; arguments were classified from copy and corrected against the creative where the two disagreed. Meta publishes no spend or impression figures for UK commercial ads, so no pound figure, budget split or results claim appears anywhere in this report, and the three proxies described in section 01 are labelled as proxies throughout. No customer quotes, reviews or performance claims beyond what is visible in Purdy & Figg's own public ad copy are used.