High-quality advertising creative attracts attention to the product and makes people want to buy it. We tell you how to create selling advertising and show cool examples.
What are advertising creatives?
Types of creatives for advertising
Examples of creatives
Algorithm for creating advertising creatives
What is important to consider when creating creatives for advertising
Expert advice
What are advertising creatives?
Table of Contents
Advertising creative is an ad with an advertisement of a product or service in the form of a static image, video, audio or animation. Creative is a visual, a title, text, an image, a button – everything that the user sees.
The main goal of advertising creative is to encourage the user to perform a target action, for example, click on a button, go to a website, subscribe, or participate in a drawing.
User interaction with creative is one of the stages of the sales funnel. It leads to a result that the company must be prepared for. For example, if after clicking on a banner the user gets to a landing page, you need to check whether he will be able to place an order there.
If a customer clicks on a banner and sees something that doesn’t meet their expectations, they will most likely not perform the target action and leave the page. Therefore, the call to action and the click result must match, otherwise trust in the company will be undermined, and the desire to continue interaction will disappear.
You can learn how to create creatives and launch advertising campaigns on the course “Traffic Manager”. Students adopt the experience of practicing Yandex marketers, analyze real cases and prepare for basic certification in Yandex Direct. The course also has a free introductory part.
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Types of creatives for advertising
Advertising creatives can be systematized into three categories: format, display concept, and triggers . Let’s take a closer look at each category:
1. Format.
Advertising creatives can be of several formats:
● Static
photographs, illustrations, cards, banners. Can be horizontal, vertical, square, single or collected in a carousel – a selection of several images that can be scrolled through.
● Video
short videos or mini-films.
● Audio
sound advertising of a product .
● Animated
for example, a GIF or a screen recording.
● Gamified
for example, tests, surveys and other game mechanisms with which the user can directly interact.
2. Display concept
The concept of creative is the general idea that needs to be conveyed: for example, focusing on the appearance of the product or how it is used. Examples of conceptual creatives:
● Isolated image of the product
Attracts attention due to the lack of additional details – especially if the product is located on a neutral background.
● Options for using the product
For example, with a person in the frame who shows how to implement the product in everyday life.
● Emotions associated with the use of the product
For example, mountains and an atmosphere of drive for advertising snowboards.
3. Triggers
The purpose of trigger creatives is to evoke a specific user reaction. Such creatives can be:
● Rational
That is, based on facts and logic, for example: “Buy our refrigerator, it will serve you for 25 years without repair.”
● Emotional
These creatives play on emotions and feelings, for example: “Buy our refrigerator to change your life forever and forget about the gray everyday life.”
When creating creatives for advertising products, it is important not to get carried away with different concepts: such an approach can force the creative idea into a framework. It is better not to stick labels, but to come up with as many different concepts as possible, test them and see what brings the best result.
Examples of creatives
We have collected ideas and examples of bright creatives from different categories.
Algorithm for creating advertising creatives
Let’s look at the algorithm for creating advertising creatives for targeting step by step:
1. Study the target audience and product
The content manager must have a good idea of the brand’s target audience: who these people are, what their needs are, what platforms they visit, how to communicate with them.
For example, to advertise English courses, you need to study who studies it and why, and reflect this message in the advertising creative. Audience analysis shows that some of the audience studies English for travel, some for exams or work in foreign companies. Then, when creating creatives for advertising, you need to focus on the fact that the courses will help you travel freely, get a certificate of language proficiency, or communicate on business topics.
Before creating creatives, you need to study the product that you are going to advertise. It is important not to deceive users’ expectations: if language courses do not prepare for the IELTS exam, you should not mention it in the creative.
2. Analyze previous creatives of the brand and competitors
This is necessary in order to understand what results past advertising campaigns brought. For example, if creatives with images of people did not bring coverage, you should abandon them and not waste resources on their creation.
Competitor analysis will help you understand which creatives are used most often and come up with a new approach. For example, in a juice ad, instead of depicting a happy family, as the competitor did, try a new association: “juice = vacation, sea, freshness, happiness.” This will help attract users who are tired of monotonous pictures.
3. Select a platform and study its technical limitations
You need to choose based on the information you have collected about the target audience , product, and results of previous advertising placements. It is important to remember that each platform has technical limitations on the format of creatives for advertising .
4. Think through the idea
The goal of this step is to create a creative that will definitely resonate with consumers. You need to rely on the same analysis of the target audience: what is it interested in, what pain points will the brand’s product help to address.
5. Draw the creative
You can do the creative yourself or prepare a technical task for the designer.
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What is important to consider when creating creatives for advertising
When creating creatives for advertising, it is important:
✅ Remember about the corporate style
Little-known brands often use the same corporate colors, visual elements and identity. Well-known brands can afford to experiment. For example, leave your logo, and use new colors in creatives. Such deliberate dissonance arouses interest and attracts the attention of users.
✅ Clearly convey information
Do not overload the viewer. For example, do not put information about a discount, free delivery, product certification, store contacts on one banner. All this data can be placed on different advertising creatives and see which ones work better.
✅ Place accents
In any advertising creative – banner, animation or video – it is necessary to place accents, that is, to highlight the message, emotion, detail. It is important not to overdo it. For example, if you need to show that dairy products are made in an ecologically clean area, it is not necessary to put a dozen happy cows in a meadow in the background, one is enough.
✅ Use provocations in moderation
Sharp triggers in creatives can bring additional coverage, but you need to be careful with them so as not to offend users and push them away from the brand. This will lead to reputational and financial losses.
✅ Consider the requirements and rules of moderation of different advertising platforms
For example, VK advertising has very strict requirements: if the advertising creative does not meet them, it will not be possible to publish it. It is better to familiarize yourself with the rules of placement before developing the creative, so as not to waste time on reworking it later.
Often, simple creatives work best, especially with product ads: a simple image on a white background can bring in more applications than fancy graphics. So even those creative concepts that initially seem unpromising are worth testing.
