The Weekly Sharpener #87 - 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. 🚀

This week we have an amazing co-pilot, Tamir Vakil (Director of Paid Social @ Power Digital) and he drops 🔥.

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 👇

Open Spaces 📦 

Hook -> 5-6 seconds long with a person talking into the frame and some copy. This would never catch my eye. Especially with the muted tones. 

Trust -> No real social proof here. However, they do show the product, which looks like it's high quality. 

Benefits -> Didn't feel like any of the benefits hit TRUE pain. Underbed storage -> why not focus on the lack of room you have in an apartment? 

I would want to push benefits that solve real pains. 

CTA's -> CTA was long, hard to read, and gone WAY too fast. 

What I would change: 🤪

• A more hooky hook -> show some pain, not having room in your closet for every of stuffing items underneath the bed, showing just how dirty it is.

• I would have shared a quote as one of the "benefits" like this 👇

• Focused on customer pain in the benefits

• More contrasty colors so the product sticks out

• Hold on the CTA + change the color of the text so it lands.

• Overall the add was too monochrome, that might look good in an IG page but not here.

Note: all the elements are there, with a few tweaks...BOOM! 💥

Athletic Greens 🥬🍏🥒

Hook -> A scoop of AG1 with some benefits with the talent speaking. Feels like they could have held a little longer here for it to cut through for the audio-off audience. 

Trust -> this style of ad, with a "real person" is supposed to deliver trust from the jump. Also based on how ubiquitous Athletic Greens has become, there seems to be a small expectation that you will also trust this ad because brand recognition is higher.  

Benefits -> You can see it in the caption at the bottom that is very hard to read. This ad in the copy seems more focused on the offer at the beginning. 

• Immunity

• Energy

• Gut health

Are the core benefits that the ad is having the talent portray. Why this is great is when you click through to the landing page, that feels like it's what you are reading right away.

CTA's -> No CTA visible but the talent says "Support your health today" I like that and the fact that it's in the captions but that text, in particular, could have been bigger to get the point across. 

What I would change: 

• Choose captions or text

• Maybe even use some of the caption text larger for emphasis by itself.

• Have a stronger visual for the CTA

• Hold longer on the hook and don't lean on brand equity to get you through

• If you are going to use captions for a long ad, make sure they are easy to read. I was squinting and I'm viewing on a computer, not a phone.

Feat 🌈

Hook -> Since this is a static ad, I feel the hook is the color selection + the review. It would get me to stop, but not really know why it mattered to me. 

Trust -> Social proof from the customer quote. Don't think this is the best quote they could have used, it doesn't convey something tangible from a customer's life. 

"I have bought 10 of these for my family" "I live in this sweatshirt, it's actually bad" 

Benefits ->  Nothing here - not that it's a bad thing. There could be a small arrow pointing these facts from the landing page 👇 - even 1 or 2 would have been nice.

CTA's -> that's part of the ad unit, which in this case makes sense. 

What I would change: 

• A better quote from the customer base that is tangible for the reader

• Some benefits

• Make this into a gif with the colors changing.

I like this ad, and it makes the landing page experience. 

Want to see those ads in all of their glory, sound, and all? Check out the full ads on Ad Library 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 👇