Study: Poor Creative Holds Back Online Advertising

New York - Millward Brown's Dynamic Logic, the leader in measuring digital advertising effectiveness, announced today key findings from a new study that identifies creative best practices for driving online ad effectiveness and brand impact. This latest research offers agencies and marketers actionable advice for maximizing creative quality, which, according to Dynamic Logic, is the foremost driver of ad effectiveness even more important than targeting, size or format.

"When it comes to digital advertising, a lot of time is spent choosing Web sites, ad sizes, formats, targeting and other factors," said Ken Mallon, Dynamic Logic's SVP of Custom Solutions. "However, not enough time is spent producing and testing high quality ads. This study offers some basic principles for achieving better results."

In fact, creative quality is not only important in driving critical brand metrics including brand favorability and purchase intent, Dynamic Logic found that the worst performing ads had the ability to negatively impact brand metrics, as seen in the chart below.

"Despite the fact that more advertising is moving online, we still see a shockingly large percentage of creative that falls short of its potential," said Amy Fayer, Research Manager of Custom Solutions at Dynamic Logic. "Our analysis of over 170,000 online creative executions has allowed us to identify simple rules of thumb that can mean the difference between an exceptionally successful online ad versus one that can have an adverse effect on a brand."

During the October 27th Webinar (to be held at 1:30 p.m. ET registration details below), Dynamic Logic will provide examples of the best and worst performing ads by industry and reveal its complete list of Creative Best Practices, five of which are previewed here:

1. Because you often only have a moment to influence a viewer, each frame of an ad should be able to stand on its own: Each frame should work to drive brand awareness, communicate message/ benefits/ differentiation, and provide reasons to purchase and/or a call to action.
2. Reveal ads are almost always ineffective: This is seen across all industries as a key component that differentiates best and worst campaign performers. A few exceptions to this rule are video ads, which are much more likely to succeed in this format but are still risky, as well as ads with high entertainment or comedic value.
3. Keep the messaging very simple: No more than two messages should be conveyed in an online campaign. For example, within financial services campaigns, ads that were cluttered with heavy copy/text tended to underperform on ad awareness. Within the pharmaceutical industry, formats that allow users to roll over or scroll down to see legal information (not conveyed cluttered in frame) perform better on awareness.
4. The use of human imagery is important: Human imagery appears to be a key factor in the success of most online campaigns but in particular, among financial services ads which have traditionally been more text heavy and therefore less effective at building awareness and persuasion.