The Weekly Sharpener #84 - Creative Cuts

Hey Fam 👋,

Welcome to the Creative Cuts Edition of the Weekly Sharpener where you'll get three of our favorite ads in the game 🔥.

We'll break down why they work or don't with the goal that you'll have some actionable takeaways on how to improve your creatives and grow your business. 🚀

Pencil - Creative AI

Pencil allows you to scale your creative testing on paid ads by automating the creative production process. All you need are your assets, branding, and performance data then in minutes you'll have your new ads ready to go. 🚀

You can either check out the episode if you want to spend some time really digging into creative with us or read the TLDL below!

Also in this episode, we go through the landing pages that the ads lead to, and breakdown that experience, so be sure to check it out 👇

Hydrant 🥤

Hook -> It's too short. This is where you set up everything about WHY this product is important. There is 12X more sugar in Gatorade than Hydrant 😱. Let's hold on that just a little bit longer.

Also, it's hard to read the text which is communicating the MOST important thing you want to get across to the customer. So let's change the color of the text as well.

Trust -> this one is interesting because it dovetails directly into the next piece. I trust it because it has REAL people not because it has social proof or someone talking about their experience with the product.

Benefits -> they do a great job of this.

• Natural Energy

• Backed by Science

• Longer Hydration

• Made with real juice powder

CTA's -> this has no CTA - now you could say it's done enough throughout the ad to convince people to click through.

What I would change: A longer hook + changing text colors. Add a CTA at the end. This is a great ad. Those simple things would make a lot of difference.

lululemon 🏃‍♀️

Hook -> No real effort to create an engaging hook, except that there is a person in motion which is engaging + the music (link to the ads at the end). Although I don't LOVE leaning on music for momentum.

Trust -> the brand is relying on the fact that they are a household name and we have associations with their quality.

The quality of the creative is also supposed to foster trust as the brand wants us to associate that with their materials and products.

Benefits -> "get more out of every mile" "lightweight designs" -> since this is focused on runners specifically and their running collection, this makes sense.

The big issue - because of the location, some of the copy is rendered useless, a color change would help us lock into these quick benefits and associate them with what we're watching.

CTA's -> the brand is the CTA + him finishing his run - it's almost as if they're saying: "we're done here, now go shop". Don't mind this - but would have loved if they had a CTA tying back to the idea of getting more out of every mile.

I tried to write something catchy but it didn't come to me and I didn't want to hurt your souls.

What I would change: We get into this more in detail in the episode but since we are landing on a category page, I would love to see multiple products in that side view so it feels like he is running on multiple days.

That would add dimension to the motion and feel like a deeper story that makes lululemon feel more a part of this man's life and fitness journey.

The Ridge 🏔

Hook -> The side-by-side comparison is a show stopper always and its own version of a hook, even in a static ad.

Trust -> Lifetime Guarantee is a huge value add in terms of building trust with a prospect. That gets someone to let their guard down VERY quickly.

Benefits -> They are on the ad. So it does a lot very quickly.

CTA's -> The image of the old wallet is a CTA unto itself. If this is you, we can help 🔥

What I would change: I would streamline the benefits to three so it's similar and punchier than the old wallet. WHY you make ask? Because in a scroll, how quickly can they understand and click to my site.

Some ads don't have this issue but I think the landing page after some quick benefits will do the trick.

Want to see those ads in all of their glory, sound, and all? Check out the full ads here.

That's it for this week's edition of The Weekly Sharpener - Creative Cuts. Let us know if there are brands you think we should be looking at. Until next time!

All my best,

Chase

PS - ICYMI 🤖 - here is our most recent episode of ADD CREATIVE 👇