The Weekly Sharpener #124 - Creative Cuts

Simple ads can pack a real punch 👊

Author

Chase Mohseni
April 21st, 2023

Hey Fam 👋,

Welcome to Creative Cuts ⚔️! Your weekly dose of Ad Creative thoughts + breakdown(s).

What's on the agenda:

We're going to dive into an ad that I feel was done very thoughtfully and drives great purchase intent velocity.

Something we've added this time is little summaries about creative strategy application at the end of every section, let us know what you think. Let's go!

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Vessi 👟

Our structure is as follows:

  • Hook

  • Trust

  • Benefits

  • CTA

Hook

What's the hook?

  • A crisp image.

  • A person in motion.

  • My eye having to move between that, copy, and a badge.

This made me stop. Do I need shoes for running in the rain - NO! Do I want to know more because now I'm thinking about it? YES!

Core principles to remember:

  • Good looking or bad looking photography - make sure you test both.

  • Motion is one of the ways you can draw attention even without video. It adds dynamism.

  • Weather adds nothing layer of depth to your image. Layers give a sense of reality that lets your customer envision themselves in your product.

Trust 

I LOVE the way Vessi uses the badge here.

Why? It looks like other badges that we'd regularly see but uses a benefit to enhance that trust. 🔥

Usually, you will get a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ rating or NY Times Top Rated - which may be true but my cold marketing heart is always skeptical.

Using a USP is very smart.

Also, notice how the color symmetry is working here.

The space given here between the COPY and the BADGE, letting it stand alone increase trust in the claim because it is the only thing that's being sold or mentioned in this creative.

Very smart design.

Benefits

These shoes live in three categories for me.

First note, the average price is: >$100

Note a "cheap" purchase.

The Benefit of being 100% Waterproof is niche.

You are leaning in: safety, esteem, and self-actualization.

These are all subconscious and register in a fraction of a second.

Why it's dangerous to lean on one niche benefit - you're cutting off a lot of the market, right?

The hope is you have made it feel specific while having a ubiquitous feeling image that you get both browsy customers who you can nurture and high-intent customers you can close right away.

Our goal is for our benefits to drive momentum, this one doesn't do that for me. It might for others but it's very narrow.

CTA

The copy on the creative being a question is an implied CTA - you should be shopping for this product now. It's a light call to arms - again there is a momentum play here that I like.

You could also try something like: "What if you never had to stop moving forward?" - evocative and thoughtful lines call upon customers to remember that they have a life outside of you but not they associate them with their goals of moving forward in this case.

That's it for this week's Creative Cuts⚔️.

Also, we're hosting an amazing event with Staytuned - Ads As Your Superpower. Sign up here.

Let us know if there are brands you think we should be looking at. Until next time keep on creating friends!

All my best,

Chase

PS - If you missed our last episode of Creative Cuts with Marin Istvanic check it out:

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