3 Tips for Creating Innovative Ad Creative That Breaks Through the Clutter

In today’s digital world, consumers are bombarded with ads from all sides. To break through the clutter and capture their attention, brands need to be creative.

Here are a few tips on how to create innovative ad creative:

1. Use creativity to solve marketing challenges

What are the biggest marketing challenges that your brand is facing?

Once you know what your challenges are, you can start to think about how creativity can help you to solve them.

For example, if you’re struggling to reach your target audience, you could create ad campaigns that are more specifically tailored to their interests and needs. You could even call out a problem your target audience may be facing in your ad creative, and how your product/service can solve it.

Or, if you’re trying to increase brand awareness, you could create ad campaigns that are visually appealing and memorable to a wider audience. Think about the creative format you use to do this as well. Video is a great way to appeal to a wide audience, but with the rise of TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts, you need to make sure your video creative is short and engaging. The first 5 seconds of your video are key – so make sure to grab the audience’s attention and include your brand name and product early on in the video. That way, if your audience skips the rest of the video, they won’t have missed the most vital information.

2. Tap into human psychology to create effective ads

Humans are emotional creatures, so it’s important to tap into human psychology when developing ad creative. Ads that evoke emotions, such as happiness, sadness, or anger, are more likely to be remembered and shared.

When devising ad creative, think about the emotions that you want to evoke in your target audience. What are their needs and desires? What are their pain points? Once you understand their emotions, you can create ad creative that resonates with them on a deeper level.

Including people in your creative is the best way to make the audience connect with your ads. If the user sees someone they relate to in an image or video, they’re more likely to resonate with how the person in the ad feels.

3. Use data and insights to inform your creative decisions

Creativity is important, but it’s also important to base your creative decisions on data and insights. Your creative team could make the most innovative images or video they can think of, but it doesn’t necessarily mean your audience will engage with the ad. By implementing an effective creative testing plan, you can take insights on which creative resonates best with your audience and allow these to shape future ads.

If you’re running video ads, look at the average watch time of each video. If most people are watching to the end, the creative clearly resonates with them. Similarly, look out for the creatives with the highest click-through rates and conversion rates. If these numbers are similar for each of your ad creatives, it might mean that your creatives are too similar. Make sure to test enough variations of your creatives to come to a conclusive answer of which works best, but also make sure to continually test different creatives. What worked a year ago in your advertising, might not be as effective now. So, it’s important to switch up your creative regularly.

For more information on creating an effective creative testing plan, download our recent eBook: Innovate, Optimise, Succeed: A Guide to Maximising the Impact of Your Ad Creative.