Astrid Salas, Senior Creative Developer at InMobi
The industry is transitioning from just performance to more data-driven creative strategies, but often the collision of data, content and technology surfaces huge challenges – and opportunities – for brands that hope to connect meaningfully with the humans that form their audiences.
Behaviour is the medium that we work in; it is not about type of devices, or the technology or in what way they are enabled, but about the fact that we are influencing behaviour. Mobile Creativity is to design for influence.
I believe it is critical to put only the most relevant messages in front of consumers, as this is even more imperative in the highly personal, emotional mobile medium. We have gathered and tested engagement rules for achieving Meaningful Mobile Creativity.
- Create bite-size visually engaging content
Our brain processes images faster than text. Heavy multi-screeners find it difficult to filter out irrelevant stimuli, and get more easily distracted by multiple streams of media. Provide quick, digestible content that is impactful and easy to consume: for instance, embrace short-form video served in a vertical format that feels native to the user. Limit the length to between eight to fifteen seconds: if they’re hooked from the start they’re going to keep watching. It just makes sense.
- Take advantage of the medium
Campaigns that are customised to mobile, rather than using the same creative in every channel, tend to perform better. First, develop an understanding of what is the purpose of the campaign, then which solution suits best with varying potential in mobile.
- Touch creates deeper emotional connections
Our touch (haptic) sense is such an integral part of our everyday experience that few of us really notice it. The phone is a hand-held device, used for the manipulation of virtual objects with visual components. Haptic feedback creates the illusion of substance and force within the virtual world. Although vision is predominant, touch seems more reassuring because it is associated with verification. When used properly, it can inject emotion and meaning into those digital experiences. Here are two examples of different sensory mobile experiences: Touch and Feel.
- Amplify the Brand story
Harness the power of storytelling to communicate brand values and purpose in a memorable way, by using digital techniques to enhance and amplify the brand story. Create narratives about the product, without actually making your product the focal point. For instance, use immersive 360° videos so that the footage moves around the user as they move their device. All of a sudden, with the use of sound, location, and participation, the user feels like they’re inside that story.
- Tailor real-time moments – context is key
The closer technology is to us – physically – the more it becomes about us. Bring the story into the user’s environment, and think about what type of touch-points are relevant to the audience, organizing the context in which people make decisions. If at the heart of an effective campaign is good creative, then the heart of good creative is relevancy. Brands need to show that they are genuinely meeting a need and when people reveal their location, the value exchange is not all one way.
How to implement this? Make it personal
Data, Creative and Technology work as a hybrid entity. By implementing optimisation and refinement, we test different types of triggers to deepen our understanding of consumer behaviour. Using subtle tweaks such as different copy and different imagery, based on time of the day, location and even weather. A/B Testing also helps us to divide ad sets into different interests or behaviours. Brands could position themselves entirely differently to excite teenagers in contrast to the parental audience who might actually be the ultimate purchasers.
Why this is important?
While often neglected in the digital advertising conversation, creative is, in fact, the essential ingredient to ad performance – no digital ad strategy will work if the creative isn’t there to back it up.
It’s about giving users the best experience that we can, but ultimately thinking about the story. What is it that’s going to entertain them? What it is that they are going to latch onto and care about?
No one really can predict the unfolding impact of today’s disruptive digital technology. So how do we move forward in these uncertain times? Embrace more creativity, but keep it human.
MMA UK Blog 
Excellent!
Excelente, muy buen enfoque.