Proven Video Creative Techniques For Food & Beverage Brands

When discussing digital creative, we often talk about the differences between platforms, the need to design for mobile, or which ad format will help you to meet a certain business objective. 

Whilst these factors are central to creating effective ads across the board, we also need to isolate industry verticals and product categories in order to narrow-in on the proven video techniques that can help brands to maximize their creative potential. 

This article takes this approach and applies it to the Food & Beverage vertical. The following sections will discuss five techniques that have been identified as being highly effective for brands within the Food & Beverage industry. These techniques have been gleaned from data-backed creative performance insights provided by leading digital platforms, along with Shuttlerock’s experience working with leading Food & Beverage brands to build best-in-class video ads. 

1. Be playful with your packaging

One of the biggest challenges for a video ad placed on an online platform—whether it be Facebook, TikTok, or YouTube—is to first gain, and then hold audience attention. This challenge arises due to the fact that when you advertise through these online channels, you no longer have the “forced-view” luxury that is afforded to channels such as traditional TV. 

The majority of online ad inventory can be skipped or scrolled past—meaning that in order for people to watch your ad, you need to grab attention through high-impact, interesting visuals. 

For Food & Beverage brands, a great way to engage audiences is by getting playful with your packaging. Have your product dance across the screen, burst open, spin around, or duplicate—get experimental, break the laws of physics, and make it fun. 

Not only will this dynamic movement help to capture and maintain attention, it can also give personality to your product or drive home specific messages you wish to communicate.

2. Showcase your raw ingredients

Today’s Food & Beverage shoppers are extremely conscious in regard to which products they choose to place in their shopping carts. Fuelled by growing interest in sustainability and healthy eating, this leads consumers to move “beyond the label”—investigating which ingredients have been used in order to inform their purchase decisions. 

With this knowledge, Food & Beverage brands should consider giving their raw ingredients a key role to play within their video ads. This will help your creatives to resonate with audiences by speaking to their conscious-consumption mindset.  

Take the Beetology ad above for example. Throughout the creative the product itself is surrounded by images of beets, cherries, and apples—the core ingredients that go into the juice. The strong presence of these visuals within the ad helps it to drive home the ad’s organic messaging, whilst also providing the video with some engaging visual elements. 

This creative technique may be most applicable to brands that fall within the healthy or organic foods category, but it can also be used more widely in order to be transparent, or highlight product flavors.

3. Get up close and personal with your product

When advertising via online/social channels, the majority of your ad watch time will occur on a mobile device. This means that your key visual elements need to be framed tightly in order for them to be large and impactful when displayed on a small screen. 

Food & Beverage brands should see this as an opportunity to really get up close and personal with their products. 

The use of extreme close-ups within your creative can help you to communicate your unique product characteristics—whether it be the crunchiness of a corn chip, the coldness of a soda, or in the case of the Snickers example above, the bar’s crisp inside and smooth chocolate outer-layer.

4. Highlight real-life usage

One of the biggest video advertising trends for 2021 has been the mixing of user-generated content (UGC) with branded content. This trend has largely come about due to the rise of TikTok and its focus on creating ad experiences that are less polished, and more authentic—aligning creatives with the platform’s organic video content. 

Food & Beverage brands can adopt this approach by utilizing visuals that highlight their products being used in real-life scenarios. For instance, the TikTok example above for Dorot Gardens includes raw UGC-style footage to show the product in action, being used to cook with. 

This unpolished aesthetic will help your ads to resonate with audiences on social platforms as they will be able to see the product in a more realistic, relatable environment. 

5. Amplify visuals through sound-effects

High-quality sound design should always be used to accompany a video ad. However, for Food & Beverage brands, this is even more important due to the strong role that sound can play in communicating product attributes. 

The crack of a can opening, the crunch of a potato chip, the peeling of a wrapper, or the sizzle of something cooking on a stove. Each of these sounds have powerful associations in the mind of the viewer and help to amplify the message being communicated through the visuals. 

When possible, we encourage Food & Beverage brands to really dial these sounds up—think along the lines of ASMR—as it helps to grab initial attention whilst also leaving a lasting impression on the viewer.

Take your Food & Beverage creative to the next level

Utilizing either (ideally multiple) of these five video ad techniques will help to take your Food & Beverage creatives to new heights. 

The Food & Beverage vertical is obviously very diverse in terms of the types of products that it encompasses, which will mean that some of the techniques mentioned in this article may be more relevant to your brand than others. That being said, try to think how you could adapt or evolve some of these techniques to fit your brand and your business objectives.