The best media optimization in the world will not save an ad campaign if the creative misses the mark with viewers. In fact, studies show creative quality has the largest impact on campaign effectiveness, significantly beating out other components such as targeting, brand, and even reach.(1)
Brands often run the risk of putting the wrong ad in front of an audience by not knowing how the creative will perform with said audience. Many marketers are unable to truly understand how effective their video creative is, let alone how to improve in-market performance. As a result, countless creatives are blindly launched, relying solely on media optimizations to drive campaign performance.
This is where creative testing and benchmarking comes in. Knowing if an ad scores below (or above) benchmarks during pre-market creative assessment prevents wasted ad dollars on faulty creative. Moreover, if a pre-market tested ad scores poorly, brands can fine-tune messaging and/or production, such as music choice or visuals, to ultimately boost in-market effectiveness.
To illustrate this, imagine a TV creative is received particularly well with 21-35 year olds but underperforms with people over 50. After seeing this, the creative team could produce an alternative version of the ad that resonates more with the older demographic. Meanwhile, for the original version, the media planner could increase spend on programs, genres and dayparts that skew toward the younger demographic. Download the latest playbook Sharpen Video Ads with Competitive Benchmarking to see how you can leverage iSpot’s Creative Assessment and in-market benchmarking to take your video creative to the next level.
(1) Marketing Charts (October 18th, 2017), Creative Quality Has Biggest Impact on Ad Effectiveness, but Media’s Influence is Growing.