MarTech: AI can scale ads, but great creatives drive brand impact

This article was written for MarTech by Greg Kihlström. Read the full article here.

Want your ads remembered and acted on? Use these creative levers to boost distinctiveness, emotional impact and profitability.

Great marketers know how to analyze campaign data and pull the right performance levers. However, creative quality often takes a backseat to other factors — even though it shouldn’t. Ads with strong creative deliver roughly 30% higher ROI than average, per The State of Creative Effectiveness report (registration required) from Zappa and VaynerMedia.

That’s a significant opportunity, yet many brands aren’t capitalizing on it. Consider that unaided brand recall averages just 68%, meaning a third of impressions — and the budget behind them — are effectively wasted because viewers can’t remember who the ad was for.

The recall gap is most pronounced among younger audiences, while older viewers tend to retain brand names more easily. Bridging that divide requires creative that works harder to turn impressions into lasting impact.

This article was written for MarTech by Greg Kihlström. Read the full article here.