The Holy Grail of AI Video: Consistent Characters with MNTN QuickFrame

January 29, 2026

For the last two years, the promise of AI video has come with a significant asterisk. We've all seen the stunning demos—cinematic drone shots, surreal dreamscapes, and perfectly lit product close-ups. But for small businesses and brands, there was always a catch: Consistency.

You could generate a beautiful mascot in one shot, but in the next, they'd be wearing different clothes, have a different haircut, or simply look like a completely different person. For a brand trying to tell a cohesive story, this randomness was a dealbreaker. You can't build brand equity on a shapeshifter.

That changed today.

MNTN, the performance TV platform, has announced a major update to its QuickFrame AI suite, introducing what might be the most requested feature in the history of generative video: Consistent Characters, Products, and Locations.

The "Brand Block" Breakthrough

The core of this update is the concept of "Reusable Brand Blocks." Instead of prompting a video from scratch every time, brands can now upload reference assets—images of their product, a character sheet for their mascot, or photos of their storefront—and QuickFrame AI locks onto these elements.

This means you can generate a 30-second spot where your mascot walks through your actual store, holding your actual product, without the AI hallucinating a new reality every few seconds.

For the small business owner, this is transformative.

Why Consistency Was the Hardest Problem

To understand why this is such a big deal, we have to look at how video models work. Models like Sora and Runway are probabilistic—they predict the next pixel based on the previous ones. They don't have a permanent memory of "who" a character is.

MNTN has solved this by creating a layer of persistent memory (likely using a technique similar to LoRA adapters or specialized reference control nets) that forces the model to adhere to specific visual guidelines.

3 Ways Small Businesses Can Use This Now

1. The "Always-On" Spokesperson: Create a digital brand ambassador who looks and sounds exactly the same in every Instagram Reel, TikTok, and CTV ad. You no longer need to schedule expensive shoot days; you just need a script.

2. Product Placement at Scale: Have a new coffee blend? You can now generate videos of that specific bag being brewed in a kitchen, enjoyed on a hike, or served in a café, with the packaging remaining 100% accurate in every shot.

3. Localized Ads: If you have multiple locations, you can swap out the background "Location Block" to show the specific storefront of your Leesburg vs. Ashburn location, while keeping the rest of the ad identical.

The CTV Connection

It's important to note who built this. MNTN isn't just an AI research lab; they are a TV advertising platform. This technology is built specifically for Connected TV (CTV). This means the output isn't just meant for a phone screen—it's designed to look good on a 65-inch TV in a living room.

This bridges the gap between "social media content" and "TV commercials." With consistent assets, a small business can now produce a campaign that feels like a national brand spot.

A Note on Authenticity

At BaristaLabs, we always advise a "Hybrid Approach." While Consistent Characters allow for amazing flexibility, they shouldn't replace the human element entirely. The most effective campaigns will likely blend real footage of your team with AI-generated scenarios that would be too expensive or impossible to shoot physically.

Conclusion

The era of the "shimmering," inconsistent AI video is effectively over. With MNTN's latest update, generative video graduates from a novelty act to a reliable business tool.

For the small business owner, the barrier to entry for high-end, narrative storytelling just dropped to zero. The question is no longer "Can I afford a commercial?" It's "What story do I want to tell?"