The Importance of Creativity in the Advertising Industry

Creativity in Advertising

Ever wondered how many ads we see in a day?

Data indicates that an average person is exposed to between 6,000 and 10,000 advertisements per day. 

Google’s parent company Alphabet’s advertising revenue stood at $61.24 billion in Q4 2021. At the same time, Meta generated a staggering $32 billion via advertising in Q4 2021.  

The world of advertising has changed like nothing we’ve ever seen before. With businesses now being able to get their ads up and running in no time, we’re finding ourselves bombarded with ads every time we open our browsers, turn on the TV, or try to watch a YouTube video.

All this competition has resulted in advertisers struggling to capture their audience’s attention. With advertising being such a major part of the business world today, it’s essential to stand out from the competition and make yourself memorable to consumers with short attention spans for advertisements. You’ll have no more than three seconds to catch your audience’s attention. If your ads aren’t interesting, engaging, and creative, it’s game over.

The “we should run advertising campaigns just because our competitors or other businesses are doing it” mindset will restrict you from being creative. No matter the platform you’re looking to run your ads on, if you want your advertising campaigns to be successful and deliver an impressive ROI, you should be laser-focused on crafting and running creative ad campaigns that don’t get lost in the shuffle of mediocre advertisements.

According to a Nielsen study, one of the key drivers of effective advertising campaigns is (to no surprise) “creativity.” Advertising without creativity is similar to SpongeBob without Patrick or Tom without Jerry – BORING.

To help you better understand the importance of creativity in the advertising industry, we’ve put together the three BIG reasons why you should focus on crafting and running creative ad campaigns.

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The Three BIG Reasons Why Your Ad Campaigns MUST Be Creative

The following are the three BIG reasons why your ad campaigns MUST be creative:

1. Creativity Helps Achieve the Desired Results
2. Creativity Helps Capture the Audience's Attention
3. Creativity Makes it Memorable Long Term

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Creative ad campaigns have been consistently shown to deliver better results than non-creative alternatives. So, whether your aim is to get your prospects to book a strategy call with you or just simply sell your products, creativity should be your primary focus.

According to Author James Hurman, upon studying and analyzing the results of three decades of ad campaigns, found out that creative ad campaigns deliver up to 11x the ROI when compared with non-creative ad campaigns.

One of the key reasons for this is that creative ads are more likely to pique the viewers interest by showing them something they haven’t seen before. Making your audience wonder just how far your advertisement will go without crossing the line is a balance that advertisers are constantly striving to achieve. By making the audience wonder “Uh oh where are they going with this” but then delivering a fun and harmless result can be a highly effective strategy.

When you creatively show your audience that you’re willing to be unique but at the same time are careful not to come across as offensive, you create an immediate intrigue around the product or service you are offering. On top of this, if you deliver a meaningful solution to a problem your target customer is likely facing, you’ve now hit the advertising jackpot!

It is commonplace for businesses to be afraid of being unique with their advertising efforts. However, if you want to achieve the desired results, that shouldn’t be the case. Showcasing creativity in your ad campaigns is what will help you achieve your desired results.

Helps Capture Audience’s Attention

We’ve likely all shared the experience of scrolling through Facebook or Instagram and coming across a bunch of boring and forgettable advertisements from brands you have never ever heard of with products you don’t care about. 

As we mentioned before, you have no more than three seconds to catch your audience’s attention. With an average person being flooded by 6,000 – 10,000 ads each day, if your ads aren’t creative and engaging right from the start, then you’ll have a hard time capturing your audience’s attention.

Adding creative elements to the beginning of your ads will help your ad cut through the constant onslaught of content, allowing you to not only pique your audiences interest, but also capture their attention to continue watching the rest of the ad.

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Some great ways to make the beginning of your ad interesting are:

1. Include a shocking (but not offensive) image to start the ad
2. Include a thought-provoking image or statement to start the ad
3. Make a bold claim or statement that makes the audience wonder “where are they going with this?”
4. Begin with a trip down memory lane by making your target audience remember a meaningful event from their past.

There are a multitude of ways in which you can get your advertisement noticed. Whichever you route you decide to go, the point remains that running creative ad campaigns is the best way to gain traction with consumers and make your ad campaigns memorable. 

Makes it Memorable Long Term

Unfortunately, most ad campaigns are not memorable long term.

Once you figure out how to capture your audience’s attention from the start, you still need to be able to retain that attention and make the advertisement memorable long term.

In today’s world, there’s just too much noise.

Unless you are re-targeting existing customers, your advertisement may be the first image of your brand that you’re putting in front of potential customers. If your ad is similar to ads they see all day, they’ll forget about it in no time. 

One example of an advertisement that was not forgettable, but rather, was able to effectively capture their audience’s attention and generate meaningful long term “buzz” is Coinbase.

Brands have been trying to create memorable superbowl ads since 1967, but in 2022, one brand was able to demonstrate the value in being unique. The most talked about ad during Super Bowl 56 was created by cryptocurrency juggernaut, Coinbase. The advertisement Coinbase aired featured a bouncing QR code, similar to old fashioned TV’s. Viewers were left tempted to scan the QR code to see what it was advertising on behalf of. Once scanned, they were directed to the Coinbase website.

Shortly after airing, Coinbase’s landing page was subject to more than 20 million hits - which according to them is “more traffic than we’ve ever encountered.” This ultimately resulted in the site crashing - which in itself is proof of how effective creative ads can be.

Conclusion

You can get your ads up and running in no time. Literally, anyone can. But if you don’t focus on creativity and engaging your audience, your ad campaign will just be another one of the ad campaigns in the advertising world.

To achieve the best possible results, you need to make sure that your ads stand out from the rest. And if you want your ads to stand out, you need to make sure that you are being creative.

Crafting and running creative ad campaigns will not only help you make a great impression but also get your audience to take the desired action.

So, the next time your prospects are scrolling their Facebook or LinkedIn feeds, they shouldn’t miss out on your ads. Make sure that your ads are so creative that your prospects have no other choice but to stop scrolling and check out what you have to offer.