In 2023, quality of creative will prove to be the determining factor as to whether your campaigns perform strongly or not. Targeting is losing its effectiveness and audiences themselves have become more discerning towards digital ads. This landscape demands more from brands, with creative needing to be authentic, unique, relatable and engaging.
This list highlights ten examples of digital ad creative that have achieved this, breaking down the techniques that each uses to deliver impact.
1. Lemon Perfect
When it comes to short-form video placements such as TikTok or Instagram Reels, your creative should strive to fit in rather than stand out. Matching your creative with the style of organic content will give it the best chance of connecting with fast-scrolling audiences. The Lemon Perfect example above does exactly that. It uses "low-fi" production featuring UGC footage supported by playful text and stickers that help give the creative a platform-native, authentic feel.
2. Catalina Crunch
One of the best ways to keep audiences engaged and improve completed view rates is by using dynamic visual transitions throughout the creative. Doing so ensures that your ad doesn’t remain static for too long, helping it to maintain attention and deliver a stronger message. Catalina Crunch does this effectively by having items coming in and out of the frame during transitions. This is a simple, yet effective technique that any brand can utilize.
3. New Yorker
In order for your creative to hit the mark with younger demographics, it needs to understand and tap into the shared visual language that is playing out in short-form video spaces. Identifying techniques—such as the cutout/montage editing method used by New Yorker—and using them within your creative will mean that the creative is speaking your audience’s language, allowing it to resonate more powerfully.
4. Clear Start by Dermalogica
A great way to show off the utility and benefits of your product is to show real people interacting with it. Clear Start by Dermologica does this by featuring the product up front in the video, followed by raw, unpolished UGC footage of someone using the product. Mixing brand footage and UGC like this is an effective way to showcase your product in an authentic way.
5. Boston Market
On TikTok, hashtag challenges are a powerful way to get audiences involved and spread a branded message throughout the platform. The good news is that they don’t need to be overly complicated. Boston Market’s #BMChickenNuggets challenge proves this. They put out a simple, fun challenge that audiences could participate in, building brand awareness in the process.
6. Nutribullet
Featuring a poll within your ad is a simple, yet effective way of garnering stronger engagement through a touch of interactivity. It involves audiences in the viewing experience in an active way which helps boost engagement. If you’re going to feature a poll, make sure that the design of your creative is centered around the poll. The Nutribullet example does this by splitting the screen into two whilst also having simple copy that speaks directly to the viewer encouraging them to participate.
7. Chido
When building video creative, the copy is one of the areas where things go wrong. Brands will either try to fit in too many words, or they will make the size barely readable. A good example of how to approach copy in a mobile-optimized ad can be seen in the Chido example above. They only use 8 words in the ad to convey their message, with the text itself being bold and using eye-catching animation.
8. Wonder Melon
In 2023, having video creative is a must. Luckily, video is no longer the time-consuming, expensive thing to produce that it used to be. Take the Wonder Melon example above. This creative was built using a selection of static images featuring the product—the type of photos that the brand shares on their Instagram. Through animation and motion effects, these photos are brought to life as an effective video ad. This process of using existing brand assets helps you to save time and money.
9. Porsche
At the end of the day, good creative is all about creativity. This means being experimental and presenting viewers with something unique. Porsche set out to do this, working with artist Peter Tarka to showcase their electric Taycan model with a spatial, abstract video.
10. MILKRUN
Optimizing ads for mobile viewing experiences means using a vertical aspect ratio to maximize screen real estate. When confronted with this, brands will often simply trim/resize horizontal creative in order to get by—this is the wrong mentality. In order to capture the attention of mobile audiences you need creative that is designed with a vertical frame of mind. The MILKRUN example above is a great example of this, it really plays around with the vertical framing; using techniques such as split screen, a repeated text border and having visuals coming in and out of frame.
Engage online audiences with impactful video creative
Each of the creative examples featured in this list was produced by Shuttlerock. If you’d like to learn more about how Shuttlerock can help your brand to create impactful video ads in 2023, please feel free to request a demo of our solution, or get in touch with one of our team members.
.png?width=159&height=159&name=Group%201000001080%20(1).png)
