"What would you choose - a strategic approach to paid marketing or a creative one?"
Marketers often face this dilemma. Read below to understand what goes into making this choice. With the organic reach of the digital platforms taking a back-seat, marketers often turn to paid advertising. Let us understand what is relevance does strategy and creativity have in advertising.
Creativity is largely subjective. However, scientists overtime came up with five factors that affect creativity in advertising.
Originality: It is not just with respect to the originality of the idea of the ad, but also takes into account how different is it from the usual advertisements.
Flexibility: How well is the idea looping into many of the previously known perspectives without losing context. Associative memory can kick in, but when the result is far from usual, it sticks.
Elaboration: The more the idea is layered, the more intricate it is, the better it can be remembered. But it changes a lot when it comes to ease of access.
Synthesis: Being different in terms of putting in elements that usually don't go well together secures attention.
Artistic Value: This measures how aesthetically/artistically the advertisement is. Many marketers are of the view that, if an ad is looking like art, it loses its ability to make a sale.
Where these ads are put on conveys the creativity of the marketer. How different they are from other generic content one sees there. The more unique the ad is in a particular medium, to that target audience, the memorable it becomes.
In the case of strategy, it involves taking into account how to go about executing the ad
These can give important insight to how the marketer allocates his budget.
It is a two-pronged approach
Will the product or service in question be considered as a need. If the product is a need, then people would be looking at the usability or the adaptability factors. In that case, the ingredients or quality takes predominance, and a creative ad won't be of help to them. In the current world, what needs to be looked at very keenly is what defines a need. Depending on where and who your target audience is – this would massively change
If your product is a want/luxury, then go that extra mile on advertising. Allocate a greater percentage of the budget in making the ad creative. This creative aspect pushes the sale this advertisement goes live.
If your product or service is essential, then make the ad stay longer in platforms where people get to see it a lot.
One of the best practices before advertising is to understand the cultural, social and economic make-up of your target audience. What works with one segment might not work with another – this holds good across age, gender, countries, and cultures.
Usually, when a 'needed' product is marketed, Millennials tend to research it a lot. For those cases, native advertising would be useful. With that said, often people buy things off the shelf without a second thought or research. This offsets the previous premise.
Understanding consumer behaviour is vital; learning by doing works better since it equips one with incredible working knowledge. The choice of platform starts with the conceptualization of the idea for the ad. The market and the end-consumer drives this decision. The more one puts the ear and listens to, the easier this choice would become.