Creative Quality: The Not-So-Secret Sauce for Boosting Ad Performance

It’s nothing new – high-quality creative accounts for better ad performance results. According to Google’s Media Lab, creative quality makes up for 70% of ad performance. But what about more specific performance markers? In today’s attention economy, new research helps us better understand ad performance by indicating a clear correlation between an increase in creative quality and a boost in returns on investment.

What is creative quality?

How does one even measure the creative quality of an ad? Communications researchers at Indiana University defined creativity in advertising as a divergence from the ordinary. According to their research, the degree to which an ad is divergent and, in turn, creative can be estimated by evaluating the following five dimensions.

The creative quality of an ad is measured in originality, flexibility, elaboration, synthesis, and artistic value. 

In other words, a very highly creative ad:

• should be in some way unique
• should contain ideas that can move from one subject to another
• should further expand a basic idea
• should connect two surprising items, and last but definitely not least
• should offer artistic value in terms of color, sound, and design.

Put your money on great creative 

Creativity is not just a purpose in itself in advertising. It’s a hardly surprising fact that highly creative ads perform better, but data suggests that as much as a stunning creative can positively impact the ad’s performance, a suboptimal creative harms it. A poorly executed creative that doesn’t respect the five dimensions above, lacks proper branding, or fails to adapt to the appropriate format, is bound to cost you money. According to a study by CreativeX, 55% of media budgets were wasted on sub-par creatives in 2022.

These numbers shouldn’t be too shocking to media and marketing experts who’ve been well aware for some time that great creative bears the lion’s share in driving sales.

What we’re only beginning to understand now, however, is how exactly the difference in creative quality impacts specific markers such as ROI and ROMI.

Make your ROI touch the sky

New numbers show that a powerhouse creative directly impacts an ad’s returns on investment. In recent WARC research, 304 ads were monitored in terms of creative quality, which was then matched to relevant ROI figures from WARC’s ROI database. The key takeaways were very clear – creative quality strongly correlates with return on investment.

Based on creative quality, the ads were rated in two categories. Derived from measuring the emotional response, the first rating predicted long-term brand share of market (SOM). On the other hand, the second rating was based on the strength of branding and the intensity of emotional response, predicting short-term sales effects over the 8-10 weeks after airing the ad.

Ads with a high score in the first rating correlated with very high revenue ROI, while the second group scored very high in ROMI figures or profit-based ROI.

These findings from WARC’s new research can help media teams better understand why creative should remain high on their priority list to deliver strong short- and long-term results in today’s attention economy.

Celtra helps you produce higher-impact creatives 

It used to be so much simpler to produce great creatives to satisfy demand – a few channels, some different formats, a couple of campaigns per year. As the complexity of the advertising landscape grows, the more opportunities there are to be seized, but creative production methods need to change to keep up with demand without sacrificing creativity.

Celtra offers a state-of-the-art platform that enables creativity for media and performance teams. Providing you with a complete selection of ad formats and ready–to–use units with proven performance track records, Celtra’s Creative Enablement solution enables high-quality creativity for leading media teams by easily and quickly producing first-class creatives that stand out in a saturated advertising landscape. 

If you lack resources in-house, Celtra’s Creative Services can build amazing creatives for your ads on top of providing consulting, best practices, and invaluable industry insights to drive performance toward your goals.

Get in touch and learn more about how fast Celtra brings high-quality creatives to your fingertips and boosts returns on ad investment both in the short- and long term.