What a tutorial video is
A tutorial video teaches the viewer how to reach a specific result, such as a braided hairstyle, a budget meal or a tidy spreadsheet, in clear numbered steps. In UGC, the creator is the teacher and the product appears as one tool in the process. Viewers come for the outcome, so the video earns trust by being genuinely useful.
The neighbour people mix it up with is the product demo video. A demo is about the product: what each feature does. A tutorial is about the viewer's goal, and it would still make sense with a competing product swapped in. That is exactly why it feels less like advertising.
How brands brief tutorials
Start from the outcome your customers want, not your feature list. Ask the creator to break it into three to five steps, name the step where your product does the work, and show the finished result at the start as well as the end, so the viewer knows the payoff is worth staying for.
Tutorials do well as organic posts that people save, and they cut into paid ads when the result is visual. Keep versions for the product page and email too, since a how-to helps after purchase as well as before it; that reuse needs to be covered by your usage rights.
Example: a heatless curls tutorial
Brief for a satin curling rod: show the finished curls in the first two seconds, then damp hair, wrap sections around the rod, secure, sleep, unwrap in the morning, finish with fingers. The rod appears in steps two to five. The creator names their hair type and length so viewers can judge whether it will work for them.
Deliverables: a 45 second tutorial with numbered captions, a 15 second before and after cut, and raw clips. Creators who already teach on camera are listed in the beauty creator directory.
Common mistakes
Skipping steps to save time breaks the promise. If a viewer cannot repeat the result, the comment section fills with complaints that then sit under your paid ad.
The opposite error is turning every step into a product mention. A tutorial where the brand name comes up five times reads as a sponsored demo in disguise. One clear naming, plus a caption and a link, is enough.
How it's used
Let's brief this as a tutorial, not a demo: the goal is the meal, the pan is just how she gets there.
Show the finished curls in the first two seconds, then teach the steps.