Why Creative is the Catalyst For Advertising Effectiveness

How Teads is measuring creative ad effectiveness in a cookie-free way

With the sunsetting of third-party cookies and stricter privacy regulations, traditional targeting methods are losing their bite. This shift, however, presents a golden opportunity: the rediscovery of Creativity as the driving force behind successful digital marketing campaigns.

Last year Analytic Partners released the ‘ROI Genome Intelligence Report: The Rules Of Recession-Proofing’, and unearthed a powerful truth: creative quality is the game-changer for advertising effectiveness. 

Consolidating findings from studies involving 750 brands across 45 countries, they discovered that two-thirds (66%) of video advertising success stems from how compelling the creative is, outweighing factors like targeting, placement, and timing.

 

Source: Analytic Partners ROI Genome Intelligence Report: The Rules Of Recession-Proofing 2023

The beauty of creativity is that it isn’t tethered to the constraints of third-party cookies, and neither are the measurement practices we use to evaluate its effectiveness.

Here at Teads, we’ve developed a comprehensive set of tools to measure the effectiveness of a client’s creative both now and post the depreciation of 3rd party cookies:

Data driven creative optimization to boost media effectiveness

Initially, we collaborate closely with our clients to identify the potential assets that can be used in their digital and CTV marketing. Through our partnerships with research suppliers such as RealEyes, Lumen, and Neurons we gain detailed, second-by-second analyses of attention, emotional response and visual appeal of the creative assets.

Next, we engage in  L’Atelier, a collaborative creative workshop led by our Teads Studio team. Drawing from over 15 years of expertise, we explore what truly resonates on our platforms, ensuring that the adapted assets meet both the campaign core KPIs and shine within the Teads environment.

Leveraging Visual AI and Machine Learning, Neurons Predict generates visual impact heatmaps within seconds, predicting cognitive responses with an impressive 95% accuracy rate based on a vast global database of over 120,000 individuals. This enhances our understanding of the visual impact of ads, complementing the storytelling assessments provided by Realeyes.

Pre-testing video assets with AI

By analysing the heatmap, we obtain important insights about attention on individual elements. We can then formulate optimization proposals, shift the focus and narrow down the hierarchy of the messaging. In addition, this graph gives us an understanding of how focus and cognitive demand change over time. 

We are able to bolster the creative learning further, by running forced exposure AB Tests in context. Here optimized assets go head-to-head against original ads to assess brand performance, ad perception, message understanding/recall, and intent. These tests directly align with the campaign’s core KPIs, enriching our understanding of creative effectiveness.

This approach isn’t just theory – it drives real results. Take a major quick service restaurant brand, for example. Through our collaborative work, they saw a significant boost in attention and brand lift scores.

Through the addition branded dynamic headers and an end screen to the assets not only increased attention scores, but also drove strong brand lift scores.

Optimized creative and an attentive audience lead to greater brand outcomes

 

 

In fact, when we look at the performance of the 23,000 ad assets we tested last year alone, Teads Studio optimized assets showed significant positive improvements in ad recall and brand attributes including informative, relevant and eye-catching when compared to the original assets  (at a 95% confidence level).  Additionally, we observed that scores for brand opinion, enjoyment and clarity all averaged at over 80%.

Optimized assets show significant improvements in the performance of ad recall and brand attribution

Source: Kantar Brand Lift Norms for Teads Optimized Vs Un-Optimized Assets 2023, n=23,072. All parameters show significant lifts at a 95% confidence level vs. un-optimized assets.

In essence, creativity remains the cornerstone of marketing success, especially in a cookieless world. With AI and 3rd party cookieless measurement methodologies at our disposal, Teads is strategically positioned to comprehensively assess the impact of our client’s creative content—the primary catalyst of ad effectiveness—with confidence and innovation.

Interested in learning more about our cookieless solutions or great creative? Contact us to learn more, or check out Teads Studio’s Creative Showcase.

Written By Anita Caras, International Vice President of Insights and Measurement