Colruyt Group
Boosting ad performance through creativity
More and more brands have found their way to social media. As the competition on social channels increases, it becomes less evident to grab the attention of potential customers. Users get an endless stream of content to choose from and second by second users decide where their attention goes. Click through or swipe away? How can you convince your target audience to interact and engage with your content? The answer is clear: with attractive high-quality creatives!
Creatives: a key factor in determining campaign performance
Constantly evolving technology allows us to gather more data on our campaign performance than ever before. That data gives us a better understanding of our customers’ behaviour so we can optimise our advertising accordingly.
Although these mechanisms are an important factor for success, the creative remains the main driver of performance. We are talking about content, aiming to provide the audience with value at every stage of the funnel. Content that creates an emotional bond with its audience, plays a crucial role in engagement and, ultimately, conversion.
Keywords, for instance, are the basis in a search strategy, but they don’t guarantee conversion. If content writers do not write in an authentic and engaging way for their audience, we will not see optimal results. The same is true for creative concepts in bannering and social media ads.
Research has shown that creative is the single most important element to the performance of your ads in digital. 56% of your ad sales lift can be directly attributed to the quality of the creative*.
Facebook is very aware of this. In its quest to provide its users with the most relevant content, Facebook’s auction algorithm increases the value of high-quality creatives. This means that if we provide an engaging creative that shapes a good user experience, and our competitors do not, our creative wins and gets shown to users, even if we bid less. The audience demands it and Social Networks favour them: high-quality creatives, but how do you craft them? Let’s dive into some best practices for creative digital advertising, illustrated by 3 campaign we made for Colruyt Group.
Boni, an authentic message wrapped in a creative concept
The most important advice to stand out on social media is simply “be yourself”. Use your Brand Voice and tell your story. Authenticity is the key for building trust. Keep it real and show what you stand for. It will make the relationship with your target audience stronger, and it will increase engagement. Boni, Colruyt's private brand, can certainly put a good story on the table. Their message: 'Boni selection makes sustainable consumption accessible to the customer'. The goals: create awareness & brand preference.
We started off with a nice awareness video, picking out 1 example of how Boni supports sustainable consumption: by giving Belgian farmers a respectful compensation for their milk. Using a clear message and staying single-minded is key for a creative to perform well. We designed the video for ‘sound off’ and made sure everyone could capture the message by adding graphic text. Those who watch the video with 'sound on' get to hear music and lyrics, which is definitely an added value.
Another best practice for good ads is to create visual impact. Work with bold visuals or use a unique editing to grab attention. The timeline manipulation we made for Boni is certainly a nice example of this.
Step by step. Small bits with big (thumb-stopping) impact
Another nice campaign we worked on for Colruyt Group was ‘Stap voor stap’. The message: Together we contribute to a better world. Step by step. Because every little bit helps. Our goal: creating awareness and inspiring the consumer. “We are already doing well, and we can do more. You as a consumer, we as Colruyt Group."
Again, we like to keep the message clear, so we made 4 videos around 4 different themes: health, society, animal welfare and environment. The videos were given a thumb-stopping background colour and the story was spotlighted in an original and noticeable way. Did we already mention the importance of highlighting your brand? Showing your logo and other brand elements builds trust and recognition. In this campaign, we managed to seamlessly integrate the brand logo and story. Try to display brand association within 3 seconds of a video’s start.
be action-oriented!
Boni enVie soups. A campaign with a warm story.
Boni enVie is the result of a cooperation between Colruyt Group / Boni and the local Belgian company enVie. By recuperating vegetables and processing them into delicious soups, long-term unemployed people get employed. The goals?
- Phase 1: creating qualitative awareness around this project;
- phase 2: consideration. In the awareness phase we made an eye-catching campaign video. In phase 2, we went for a carousel.
A no-brainer for good creatives: choose your format and adapt your message, keeping the funnel in mind. Carousel Ads are great in a consideration phase. They allow us to elaborate on our story and we can link through to provide more information. Avoid the one size fits all approach. Design in function of the format, as this series of Instagram Stories illustrates very nicely.
These stories are also a good example of our last tip: be action-oriented! Use directive copy and visual calls-to-action to guide your audience: Tap, swipe up and discover… Curious about how we can unlock performance through creativity for your Social Media Ads? You know what to do… ?
