The importance of creative evaluation for effective campaign messaging

Launching a new campaign is sometimes daunting. Gone are the days of broad messaging and winning formulas that get recycled to fit each campaign objective. Today, it is all about hyper-targeted messaging that speaks to Millennials, Gen-Z, Zillennials, and Gen X – this complicates even the most well-thought-out ideas. Proper planning, product or service performance tracking, and market reviews become essential in every campaign journey.   

A critical evaluation of components that make up an advertising creative is essential when determining the value of a campaign. Some of the variables to consider are:  

Branding elements  

Have you ever watched an ad that left you scratching your head and wondering what brand produced it? It is hard to believe that a company would invest in a campaign and forget to identify itself, but it happens. Elements of a brand are its identifying and differentiating aspects; these include the brand name, logo, colour palette, tone of voice and even vocabulary. They create a recognisable and cohesive image for the business and should extend to all marketing campaigns and ad creatives.  

Target audience  

Business 101. Every business needs a who, what, why, and where. By answering the W questions, the brand can effectively identify the needs, problems, and expectations of the consumers it serves. Moreover, it ensures that its products or services have a lasting impact in the marketplace. The same applies to advertising. By understanding the audience, the campaign strategy can ensure that the creative conveys the right message, with the appropriate tonality and is delivered at the right time.   

Brand positioning   

Even the most cleverly composed advertising campaign can leave a bitter taste in the mouth of customers if it does not align with the overall brand positioning. Businesses operating in the same industry often work towards satisfying similar human needs – it’s through the essence of the brand that a company can differentiate itself from competitors, justify its pricing and have the right of creative passage. Brand positioning defines how customers perceive the business and the benefits derived from its products and services. Marketers must strategies how ad campaigns are positioned and ensure the creative appeals to the right audience.   

Brand Benefits  

We mentioned earlier that one of the purposes of starting a business is to satisfy human/business needs; this is achieved primarily through the benefits delivered by products or services. Every advertising campaign presents an opportunity for the business to inform consumers about its products and persuade consumers to make a purchase. By communicating product or service benefits in advertising, marketers can set the overall tone for the brand, and create awareness and enthusiasm. This will, in turn, motivate prospective consumers to give the brand a trial and ultimately switch from the competitor’s product.  

Clutter/ Noise / Message  

An overly saturated marketing message and concept will eventually breed indifference in consumers, and obscurity can frustrate and confuse them. Let’s be honest; companies often sell similar products and services hence the need for differentiation; brands can easily fall into the trap of replicating and recycling marketing campaigns because they work. But advertising fatigue can quickly set in, leaving the audience bored, and ultimately making your brand less memorable.  

Once campaign creatives have been optimised, one can consider the introduction of appeal mapping. This will enable you to quickly identify the saturation of messaging and creative elements to develop strategies to cut through the advertising clutter. With the help of independent measurement and evaluation of advertisements, you can obtain an average view to minimising individual biases as much as possible. The employment of a sliding scale of various creative elements identified in an advertisement can be juxtaposed against other brands in the category.  

What is appeal mapping 

Appeal mapping (perceptual mapping) can help marketers understand how their brand or product is viewed by the target audience. It is also a useful tool to help determine brand or product positioning as, in most cases, the positioning of a brand is influenced by customer perceptions rather than by those of the business. 

Each map consists of four axis points which relates to the map’s evaluation category. Knowing where your advertising creative lies on each map enables you to quickly identify saturation of messaging and creative elements to develop strategies that cut through advertising clutter. Maps can be categorised as follows: 

Advertising Appeal 

Advertising appeals are the persuasive pressures that drive a person to purchase a product or service by speaking to their needs, wants or interests. Brands produce advertisements to educate and persuade customers, and it is through advertising appeals that brands create just the right hook to facilitate that persuasion. Advertising appeals are essential because they help relay the brands message about the product or service in a way that the consumers can understand and respond to it. Ultimately leading to a purchase. There are various types of advertising appeal, including functionality, emotional, creativity and lifestyle.  

• FUNCTIONALITY: This defines the perception of rationality and efficiency through product usage. 
• EMOTIONAL: The ability of the ad to provoke feelings in order to maintain attention. 
• CREATIVITY: Uniqueness of execution that commands praise or admiration. 
• LIFESTYLE: The use of situations, circumstances or characters to create certain connotations for the product. 

Central Theme Conveyed in Advertising 

An advertisement’s central theme is an idea or message that is reflected in all elements that make up the ad campaign. By having an advertisement theme, the brand can create sound positioning of the product or service in the minds of its target audience. To solidify the product positioning, marketers can create a series of different ads under the ad campaign so the message can be registered in the consumers mind in different ways. This has proved to be more effective than playing around with different themes for the same product. 

• NECESSITY: Evoking a feeling of obligation to own the product. 
• DESIRE: Creating an emotional longing to own the product. 
• OPPORTUNITY: Creating a sense of exclusivity or a sense of urgency surrounding the product. 

• BEYOND BRAND / PRODUCT: Highlighting the associated benefits that the product will bring to the consumer. 

Source of the ad’s influence 

This can be defined as the approach, style, tone, words, and format used for executing an advertising message to achieve a desired response or evoke a certain emotion. 

• ENTERTAIN: Attaining the interest of the viewer through non-typical content. 
• SHOCK: The use of unexpected elements. 

• BLATANT PERSUASION: Vivid use of facts, comparisons and stats to tell consumers what to do.       
• EDUCATE: Empowering the viewer with knowledge surrounding a product in order to justify a purchase. 

Brand appeal

Brand appeal reinforces the reason to buy and differentiates the brands products and services from that of its competitors. Even though brand appeal commonly works on customers or people who are inclined towards a specific brand, it also has the power to spark interest in prospects and convert users. An excellent brand is great motivation for consumers to make a purchase. 

• ASSOCIATIONS: Evoking positive feelings or emotions towards the brand 

• RANGE: Demonstrating extensive variations in product offerings or features 
• LOYALTY: Nurturing a prolonged dedication to the brand derived from continued satisfaction 
• DIFFERENTIATION: Stand-out or uniqueness of features of the brand 

This type of competitive analysis framework focuses on utilizing customer input to understand your brand, product, or service from the customer’s perspective.  

Advertising Creative Evaluation provides insights into target market perception, new market segment identification, saturation of messaging as well as measuring brand positioning, so that you can have a complete understanding of your industry’s competitive landscape.