What does the term ‘creative advertising’ mean to you? Do you think of a show like Mad Men? Does your mind picture a room of execs, brainstorming innovative ideas to promote a new service? Maybe you think of young artists conjuring quirky designs to make a tired product appear more exciting? You might picture entrepreneurs who are looking to ‘disrupt’ the industry with progressive campaigns.
The problem is that these examples are elitist. The term can be an exclusive one, creating the impression that marketing has to be inaccessible and pretentious. The truth is that the best advertising is always creative. And any business can do it. In many ways, ‘creative advertising’ is a superfluous term. It can be unnecessarily off-putting.
So let’s break down this buzz term and ask what it’s all about.
Creative advertising is when a group of people comes together to make a campaign that tells a brand’s story. Simple, right? It’s a way of talking about your business in a different way from how you’ve done it before. No unnecessary bells and whistles are needed. Just a simple and honest look at how you’re sharing your brand message and thinking about reaching your audience more compellingly. You don’t have to be an inventor to innovate, you just have to be open-minded about new ideas. You just have to embrace a fun twist on the tried and tested ways to reach your customer.
Rethinking Old Strategies
The harsh reality is that most advertising gets forgotten. Only 4% of advertising is remembered positively, 7% is remembered negatively, and 89% doesn’t get noticed. If the likelihood is that most of your advertising budget is going to waste, you may not want to bother. However, the benefits that come with standing out in the desired way are worth the effort of trying.
There’s an easy mistake to make when you advertise on social media. You’re eager to get your money’s worth, spending ungodly amounts of money on PPC campaigns. As a result, you pad your ads with details of your latest products or endless info about your key services, hoping that they land. Given the sheer amount of time people spend online, you may think that your ads are bound to resonate with at least someone. Wrong. The reality is that you have just under 5 seconds to grab someone’s attention. If your ad doesn’t inspire them to stick around, then it’s money down the drain.
This is where creative advertising comes in handy. It’s designed to compel your audience to find out more about your business. It uses dynamic content and clean ideas to persuade them to click on your inbound links. The best creative ads will affirm your brand’s identity with consistent visuals and tone of voice. Even if a single ad doesn’t result in mass conversions, if it’s designed creatively, it will do a successful job of cementing your brand identity.
How to Use Creative Advertising to Attract Clients
The internet is full of disruptions. We’re inundated with annoying, try-hard ads every time we pick up our phones, tablets, and computers. Just think of the autoplay ads that dare us not to hit the skip button every time we watch a video on YouTube. As a result, audiences are becoming increasingly savvy, more aware of the tone-deaf adverts that fail to hide their money-grabbing intentions.
Just think of all the banks that use advertising to make a falsely poignant message about how we’re all suffering as a result of a national lockdown. The next thing, they’re championing their new mortgage deals as if they are in any way relevant to the pandemic.
So let’s take a moment to think about how you can capture interest without annoying your audience? As always, be honest. A company that tries to bury the lead attempts to mislead its customers will only come off as insincere. You’re more likely to stand out with candor and humor.
Pardon the Puns
They may be occasionally cringe-inducing, but a well-utilized pun can be memorable and endearing. A clever play on words can stay in your audience’s mind. Just think of the way certain lyrics linger in your brain, popping to the forefront completely out of the blue. Our minds love to ruminate over the clever wordplay we’re exposed to.
If you offer a particular service, say if you’re working in manufacturing, go back to the drawing board and hone in on the core of what you do. This can be as simple as making a list of the raw materials, parts, and components you specialize in. Grab a group of trusted colleagues and laugh. That’s right, make a joke of the funny puns, rhymes, and innuendos that link to the service that you provide. Creative ads often use puns and humor to create the impression of having a shared inside joke with their prospective customers.
Understand Pop-Culture
We’ve all seen examples of brands that use social media to react to trending topics. Sometimes it's through an anthropomorphic Twitter account, as if a brand has a personality, quoting catch-phrases or moments in pop culture. Just think of the countless brands that tweet out a ‘yasss queen’ when Rupaul’s Drag Race is trending. Depending on your audience, you could refer to a popular film, celebrity, or cultural moment to grab their attention.
Let’s say you work in professional services. You work B2B and offer specialized business support. You understand the struggles that many businesses are currently facing, particularly in the light of the pandemic. Offices have closed, revenue is down, the staff is furloughed. Coincidentally, Keeping up with the Kardashians has also closed production with its final 20th season. You may want to make a fun link, a comment about how everyone is closing their doors.
Cute Animals Please
The old saying is that sex sells. That’s not necessarily true. What’s true is that cute animals sell. In fact, according to Bloomberg, cats drive almost 15% of all web traffic. It may not be the most novel approach, but you’re more likely to grab attention if you take advantage of our visceral reaction to seeing cute animals. Use this as an opportunity to forge a relationship with your customer. It may take creativity to conceive a concept that can link cute animals to your business’ services. Creative advertising is how you bridge that gap.
Understand Apps
Brands that fail to optimize their marketing strategy for mobile devices will themselves fail. A significant part of your mobile advertising strategy should be spent on content marketing for social media. This extends beyond promoted posts on Instagram. We’re all bored of the stock posts that are made with the same template tool. Successful social media advertising understands that the platforms are largely visual.
You don’t necessarily need to hire an artist to stand out. However, it’s important to reframe your approach to mobile advertising. The goal is to produce an ad that is so visually appealing that people want to go back to it. An engaging post may use exciting graphics or illustrations that cause a user to stop and take a screenshot. It goes without saying that if your brand’s image hangs around on your customer’s phone, you’re constantly reinforcing brand awareness.
Think Outside the Box
This is a given. It’s the idea that sits at the core of creative advertising. Even if you’re used to more traditional marketing campaigns, there’s no reason you shouldn’t utilize your team and schedule a brainstorming session.
On the extreme end - and it’s one for a post-lockdown world - there’s creative street art. It’s often called guerrilla marketing and uses three-dimensional installations and billboards with a dynamic relationship with their physical environment. On a subtler level, you may think about stickers with your brand logo on, put up in fun (and legal) ways around your local area.
Implementing Your Creative Ad Strategy
Of course, it’s one thing to have ideas for your creative advertising strategy. It's another thing to know how to implement it. The truth is, to achieve better brand awareness, you’re going to have to commit to a consistent content schedule. You’re going to need to research when your customer is most likely to be active, and you’re going to need to post enough content so that you stay relevant but not too much that you appear spammy.
Creative advertising is all about engaging your audience. The aim is to reframe the way that they perceive your brand. This isn’t achieved with infrequent posts and campaigns. You’re best positioned to reshape your brand with a trickle of fun content that leaves a smile on your customer’s face. You have 5 seconds to engage someone’s attention. Use that time to develop an association between your brand and a fun message, joke, or captivating visual. With persistence, you’ll create a connection between your company and an authentic, original brand message.
Creative advertising doesn’t have to be alienating. A creative agency can help refine your marketing strategy, content, and brand identity in a way that’s fresh and clear. In essence, creative advertising helps businesses stand out in a meaningful way.
Just remember - you don’t have to be affected to be creative. Creative advertising is for every business.
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