The importance of having a wide range of creative styles and concepts when you’re running ads cannot be understated. Tunnel vision will only get you in one direction, keeping your mind open to a wide range of possibilities is a crucial factor in honing your creative strategy. 

Creative strategy itself is incredibly important right now, given that it currently drives 56% of targeting - a staggering fact we heard at the Meta Ad Summit. With that in mind, this is why it should be at the forefront of your mind. 

So, without further ado, let’s get stuck in.

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Why is Creative Diversity Important?

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Put simply, creative diversity is the process of using multiple concepts, formats and angles to advertise your product or service. 

This is essentially to accommodate the different tastes, ideas and perspectives of a broader range of people. Everyone is different and the ways in which people like to consume creative varies massively. What resonates with one person might not resonate with another.

For this reason, it’s of crucial importance to broaden your own perspective when producing creative, with the aim of casting a wider net to get more people hooked. In essence, reach is the name of the game.

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What are the Benefits of Diverse Creative Styles?

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Audience Engagement: As mentioned previously, different styles appeal to different segments of your audience. The more corners you explore, the more people you will reach. Very simple.

Algorithm Performance: Secondly, social media algorithms favour fresh and varied content. No one likes a one trick horse, especially the apps! Keep things fresh and varied to satisfy our algorithmic gods, or feel their wrath. 

Brand Versatility: It goes without saying that keeping your ads varied and interesting will reflect positively on your brand. Showcasing various facets of the brand is difficult when you keep using the same style of creative - branch out and get creative!

New winning angle: Everyone longs for that golden angle. That juicy idea that makes your mouth water and your knees tremble. Don’t deny it. Experimenting with creative gives you a greater opportunity to discover a winning idea you’d not considered before. So, satisfy that creative yearning and diversify.

Combats creative fatigue: Not only does creative diversity enable all of the above, but it also helps YOU stay fresh. Your brain needs to explore a variety of ideas in order to stay creative, otherwise, your thoughts will stagnate and the creative process will grind to an unimaginative, uninspired, sloppy standstill. 

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Understanding Your Audience

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Up next: audience segmentation. This crucially allows the creation of specific personas to guide targeted creative strategies. In essence, different creative styles can cater to various audience segments effectively - the importance of this cannot be overstated.

For example, problem-aware segments require creatives that highlight their pain points and offer solutions. A fitness brand might target health-conscious individuals by addressing their lack of time and presenting quick workout plans to combat this, whereas a tech company might differentiate between tech-savvy users and complete beginners, offering advanced features to the former and simple tutorials to the latter. Thus ensuring messaging is relevant and impactful, driving better results whilst saving time and energy.

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Types of Creative Styles and Concepts

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As you can imagine, creative styles vary significantly. Encompassing various elements such as visuals, messaging, formats and overall concept. So, let’s break them down…

Visuals: albeit quite a vague term, visuals covers all manner of illustrations, animations, live-action videos, and user-generated content. In layman’s terms, it’s the pictures and videos. 

Messaging: a bit less tangible but no less important. This is what is being conveyed; it can be tailored to evoke emotions, incorporate humor, provide information, or engage through storytelling. It’s the lifeblood of the ad. 

Format: this is the vehicle used to deliver your given creative styles; ranging from short videos and carousel ads to stories and static images, each designed to capture and retain audience attention effectively.

Concepts: often revolving around themes like "Us vs Them," "Before and After," story-driven content, and founder stories. In essence, it’s a broader description of what the ad is attempting to convey.

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Testing and Iteration

Testing creatives is crucial for expanding creative diversity because it allows you to understand diverse audience preferences, fostering a deeper connection through tailored campaigns. This experimentation promotes innovation by encouraging new styles and messages while reducing the risks that come with debuting fresh ideas. 

Naturally, everything must be backed by data. Engaging, data-driven insights from testing enhance personalisation and effectiveness, ensuring that marketing resonates with various segments. It also broadens perspectives, increasing inclusivity by reflecting the audience's diversity and fostering brand loyalty. =

Continuous testing and iteration will drive cost efficiency by focusing resources on high-performing content, maximising ROI, and informing strategic decisions with cold hard numbers. In short, listen to the data! 

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Best Practices

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At the very least, you’ve got to be keeping track of trends on each platform. Insert any cliche phrase of your choice, you simply have to be in the loop in order for your ideas to stay relevant. Inspiration is a dish best served fresh.

Secondly, you should maintain a wide range of creative for each platform. Variety isn’t just the spice of life - oh no - it’s also the key to blowing your competition out of the water. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, whatever you do.

Additionally, I’d recommend always testing and using information from performance data to guide future creative efforts. Theories without facts to substantiate them are just that, theories. Always ensure your decisions are backed by evidence. 

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Go Forth and Conquer

That just about covers it, folks. In summary, I cannot convey enough how important it is that you start diversifying your ad creatives. As I said earlier, tunnel vision will only get you in one direction. You simply have to practice a wide range of possibilities in order to hone your creative strategy and achieve the very best results.

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If you run an e-commerce brand and are looking for a digital marketing partner to take your business to the next level, book a call with one of our team.

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Written by Conel Freeman Harrison - Content Marketing Executive

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