If you asked your advertisers which has more impact on sales — advertising creative or targeting, they’d probably say the latter. It’s part of an overall misconception about advertising’s ability to drive sales. Most businesses believe that precise targeting allows them to reach the right people, leading to more conversions.
Targeting Matters, Creative Creates Connection
Targeting is critical. Companies don’t want to waste ad dollars on the wrong crowd. There’s also this perspective on advertising that inflates the effect of zeroing in on an audience in the market for their product or service.
All the emphasis on refining targeting takes attention away from whether the ad resonates with the viewer who is in the desired audience. It makes creative sound like a commodity and not the driver of performance. The creative story is what creates connections.
Both are important, but creative isn’t getting the respect it deserves, and this misconception was validated in a recent study. Brands and agencies were asked what factors contribute to effectiveness the most: brand, creative, reach, recency and targeting.
Their responses were then juxtaposed with the science of advertising effectiveness. Let’s look at the gap between perception and reality.
What Marketers Think Drives Sales vs. What Actually Does
The marketers attributed the sales effect to advertising creative only 21% of the time. The science says otherwise, at 49%.
This 21% remained largely unchanged over the last five years. In 2020, it was 20%. That’s a substantial gap and likely a leading reason why many advertisers are simply phoning it in on the creative side. They may stick with a template they have and create some variations or rarely change it, except for some wording related to promotions or seasonality.
Foundational advertising best practices are very clear about making people feel something. Most buying decisions are emotional in nature and come from a place of trusting or thinking favorably of a brand. Even in times of waning loyalty and price sensitivity, consumers still want to do business with companies that make them feel good.
No amount of expert targeting will ever make a customer conjure up feelings. It always has to come from the story the ad tells.
What Happens When Advertising Creative Quality Is High
Another data point for inflection is how audiences rate the quality of advertising. Is there a quantifiable relationship between quality and market share?
A creative testing specialty firm demonstrated there is. The better people perceive the ad content to be, the more likely the brand will capture market share. In other words, if people feel good about what they see, they’ll be more inclined to buy.
All this points to one conclusion. Creative is the leading factor in understanding ad performance. That’s the kind of point you want to bring to advertisers.
Owning the Creative to Win Deals and Boost Ad Performance
Owning the creative has been a foundational differentiator that we’ve championed with our digital sales customers. Our senior manager of onboarding and development, Travis Cartier, recently reflected on this in a post for the RAB’s Radio Matters.
He gave this advice:
- Understand each vertical and leverage trends: By being tuned in, you can find angles for creative that will resonate with audiences.
- Combine industry insights with the advertiser’s desires: Doing this ensures you’re developing unique pitches.
- Take advantage of resources: If you’re in need of inspiration, look at research from the RAB or our microsite, Aspire.
Creative Drives Performance and Can Be Your Differentiator
At the heart of the data is the fact that the creative plays a dominant role in the performance of ads. If it’s not in tune with the audience or lacks quality, it will usually fail.
Getting the creative right is a perfect opportunity for you to step in with ideas and best practices. For more thoughts on creative and emotions, read our post on fusing the two for connection.
