Dear advertiser, what misunderstanding do you have about advertising creativity?

A few days ago, a colleague sent me an App screenshot and H5 link of an information flow advertisement .

When I clicked the link, I saw a blank screen . I thought the page didn't load because of bad signal, so I waited quietly for a while, but no content appeared for a long time... I closed it and reopened it again, and found an inconspicuous icon that prompted a pull-down at the bottom of the page. I tried it, and found that it was still a white screen after pulling down. After the same white screen repeated twice , a crudely made brand poster (let's call it a poster) suddenly popped up . When I pulled it down again, it was: white screen-white screen-poster-white screen-white screen-poster-...infinite loop.

Okay, let me show you some screenshots to experience it~

From left to right are the first screen, the second screen, and the third screen

I probably went through this cycle several times before I came to my senses. Information flow advertising practitioners in the circle of friends have already started chatting enthusiastically about this advertisement... To sum it up: I didn’t understand it at first, but I got it later. This advertisement is funny! Be creative!

But I beg to differ. With 17 years of experience in the industry, what I saw through this advertisement is that the person who handled this advertisement had a deep misunderstanding of "creativity".

What is creativity?

Creativity is a method of further exploring and activating resource combinations and thus enhancing resource value through innovative thinking .

Therefore, creativity is a process of innovation + resource reorganization = value .

However, in the eyes of most people, as long as it is different from others, it is creativity.

So, from this perspective, some of the things we did or thought about when we were young that broke the secular rules are also creative?

You will definitely say of course not: children do this to prove that they are not ordinary children, to rebel against adults, and just for the sake of doing it. It has no value in itself, so how can it be called creativity? No, no!

So what about the advertisement above that is placed on the information flow advertising platform? Is there any difference between this and what children do to prove that they are different?

I don't think there is any difference. Just because "other people's ads" had full images, the creative staff went against the grain and made the cleanest/blankest ad in history, just for the sake of being different. Afterwards, I couldn’t help but think, “You guys would never have thought of such a special idea of ​​mine.” wrong! It’s easy to think that people don’t use such “creativity” simply because it has major flaws.

Some people may say that cleanliness is indeed the message that this product wants to convey, so there is nothing wrong with doing this, but you have to match the perception of the target users . Clean advertising and clean faces are two different things...

Therefore, this kind of advertising that does not make reasonable arrangements for resources and does not realize value cannot be called creative. We can call it wishful thinking. Instead , only your thoughts

Only when something is different and valuable can it be called creativity.

In practice, it is possible that some people, with their childhood imaginations supplemented by professional knowledge after growth, form particularly good ideas, but the premise of such creativity must be the comprehensive balance after considering users, human nature, and advertiser goals . If you do not consider users, human nature, and advertiser goals, and create wild and imaginative advertisements like a child, it is just chaos.

So let's try to figure out the idea behind this self-proclaimed "cleanest ad in history":

The first time I saw it, I thought the headlines couldn't load this screen, so I scrolled past it.

1. His goal: It seems to be to spread the brand and strengthen awareness ( Does anyone in the industry think that the purpose of this advertisement is conversion ? )

2. His target audience: Maybe people with acne, people with internal heat, people with constipation... ( So I am curious, would such people be interested in a white screen? Or would they be interested in a clean and flawless face? )

3. His delivery strategy: It takes advantage of the curiosity, rebellion, and visual differences in the minds of users ( so I am curious, how many users attracted by this contrasting white screen are the target audience mentioned in the previous paragraph? )

In the huge and complex information flow, advertisers try to use visual differences, using the sudden appearance of a blank space to attract users' attention and arouse their curiosity, and use a method that goes against user cognition to bring users down... Well, ideals are all beautiful.

Although visual differentiation can indeed attract users' attention, the degree of attention varies. There is attention from target groups and there is attention from non-target groups. You can't help but take a second look at a beggar with a broken leg on the roadside... But if one of you can squat there and understand his tragedy of life and cry with him, I lose. Therefore, visual differentiation is a "skill", and it should be a "skill" at the auxiliary level. When other aspects are done well, playing a visual difference should have a surprising effect. However, it is unrealistic to rely on visual differentiation, the king, to bring out a hand full of bad cards that are not right, smooth, or explosive.

Secondly, curiosity and attention are closely related. Everyone is curious, but the action that curiosity can trigger is limited, especially on information flow advertising platforms. Users lack the patience to guess riddles, let alone trust in advertisements. She is curious about you for a moment, and that's it. There is nothing else. If you don’t believe me, just look at the performance art on the street. Apart from those who want to take photos, how many people will stop to appreciate, watch and admire, and immediately become fans of this “artist”? (Of course, if the artist looks like Daniel Wu, that’s another story.)

Third, going against user perception is a risky move. Anti-cognition can give users a playful feeling, or it can give people an unpleasant feeling of being teased by an idiot. The difference between the two emotions lies in whether you touch the user's heart before they become emotional. If you impress users, and do so in an "unconventional" way, it is equivalent to reinforcing the user's inner pain points, which can effectively increase the user's favorability towards you; but if you fail to impress users, users will feel fooled after they understand, and their favorability will drop faster than you think... or even worse, they will develop a dislike for the brand.

So, how should an information flow advertisement accurately guide the emotions of relevant users step by step?

1. Attract relevant users’ attention

In order to make users notice advertisements among the vast amount of information, you can use the following mental methods: visual weight and visual contrast.

2. Stimulate users’ potential needs

Those who always think about selling combs to bald people are basically brainwashed. In most cases, the product itself does not have so many topics and the target audience is ordinary people, so please guide them in a way that stimulates the emotions of ordinary people. I don't see where he does any inspiration in this ad, and that's the biggest flaw. Remember, curiosity without need is worthless .

3. Build trust

For example, brand elements, detailed data, real scenarios, third-party credit transfer...

4. Inspire users to take action

For example, yearning for stimulation, avoiding stimulation, instant access...

So, among the many things that an advertisement needs to do, this advertisement only does one of them: attract attention. All the stimuli designed by the advertiser are to make users see themselves, but it does not specify what to do after seeing them.

You know, even Durex , which believes that "everyone here is garbage", will also associate the contrast with its own products.

Yet this ad thinks that just being eye-catching is enough... Brave.

Okay, after talking about this advertisement, let’s talk seriously about creativity ( really, if you still want to do communication well, you must not misunderstand creativity anymore ).

What is creativity? Creativity requires at least the following two abilities:

First, have the ability to not be constrained by your thoughts. As the Buddha said, nothing in the world is impermanent. This means that what we think is "normal" is often not always correct. It is just the "inertial thinking" of most people. Once we break out of this inertia, there is a high probability of discovering new ideas.

Second, be logical. On one end are the needs of users, and on the other end are the needs of Party A. How to connect them in a fresh way depends on logical evolution, not eighteen fallacies.

As the old saying goes, there is no construction without destruction. To destroy in order to establish is to break free from constraints and create new things. Breaking for the sake of breaking, tell me, what is that called?