Why Brands Are Reaching New Creative Heights in Digital Advertising

Steven Filler, UK Country Manager at ShowHeroes, looks at why advertisers are beginning to push the limits of creativity in their digital campaigns

Having spent a large chunk of my career working at the creative end of ad tech, I’ve seen how digital creativity has evolved through the programmatic era. Looking at the current state of creativity today, and the digital campaigns we’re seeing from leading advertisers and agencies, I see many reasons to be optimistic.

Video has always been at the heart of our business at ShowHeroes and so far in 2024 we’re witnessing a significant increase in the number of advertisers utilising advanced features and content to enhance the creative experience in their digital campaigns. We’ve seen more campaigns running branded interactive players, applying the intelligent use of QR codes and utilising custom editorial content to create the perfect contextual environment and user mindset for brands to deliver their message.

There is a growing sense that agencies and brands want to produce great work, and importantly, great work that runs on and supports great publishers. It sounds simple right? Of course we’d want to deliver the best creative experience possible, but unfortunately this hasn’t always been the reality. In the past, cost, speed and ease were prioritised. Now, however, it really feels that the creative experience for the user is front and centre as brands want to deliver campaigns that generate a meaningful connection to consumers.

So what’s really driving this change?

My first thought was that it might be down to the industry’s increased shift towards attention measurement. In the past couple of years, there’s been a growing focus on using Attention as a measure of success for campaign impact. This has helped to reinforce the fact that buying cheap doesn’t always result in getting good value and re-educated the market that quality placements on quality sites deliver real results.

But this only tells half the story. Attention only measures media / placement quality and doesn’t factor in the quality of the creative execution, or if the site attracts the right audience for the campaign. That’s why combining Attention with Brand Uplift is becoming the gold standard in brand measurement. The best creative in the world will struggle if the placement and audience isn’t right, but at the same time the best placement in the world will fail to deliver real results if the creative doesn’t catch the user’s eye. It’s like hanging a Picasso in the toilets at West Ham’s London stadium. The creative is great, but the placement and audience won’t deliver interest or attention for this work of art.

But by applying Attention Measurement combined with Brand Uplift, advertisers get the full picture: Attention indicates the opportunity to capture Attention, and then Brand Uplift measurement tells us if the creative has really engaged the user and helped the brand tell their story effectively.

Another factor driving this increased focus on creativity is the push to challenge the status quo of brands investing too heavily on the platforms such as YouTube by providing a genuine scaled and inspiring alternative. We’ve seen the ongoing rise of companies like The Ozone project that can match the reach of the tech giants through the intelligent aggregation of premium publishers. At ShowHeroes, we’re taking a similar approach of providing video at scale outside of the walled gardens, on premium publishers but with an additional focus on delivering enhanced, tailored creative.

The reality is that while genuine scaled alternatives can deliver equal or often better campaign performance, we still have to fight harder to convince brands to diversify their investment – this is another reason why creativity is thriving, as we look to go the extra mile to deliver value and impact for our customers.