Study shows creative is more important than placement for effective online advertising.

A study conducted by Dynamic Logic has determined that creative is the most influential factor in determining effectiveness in online advertising.  Marketers spend a great amount of time determining the right placement, the optimal target and web measurements and analytics but perhaps give too little consideration to the most important factor – the creative.

Kunur Patel reports the findings of the Dynamic Logic study in the October 20, 2009 issue of Advertising Age and states that bad creative is what makes online advertising ineffective.  Over 170,000 online ads were included in the study and the company determined that creative factors such as persistent branding, strong calls to action and human faces make for better ad recall, brand awareness and purchase intent.  The recent study supported Dynamic Logic’s past research that found creative quality is 50-75% responsible for the campaign’s success or failure.  “But media people spend most of their time trying to optimize and measure campaigns”, stated Ken Mallon, Senior VP-custom solutions for Dynamic Logic.

While it seems the study’s conclusions are obvious, Amy Taylor, research manager of custom solutions for Dynamic Logic stated the firm still sees a “shockingly large percentage of creative that falls short of it\s potential”.

Based on the study, Dynamic logic, offers some recommendations for better-performing digital creative:

• Highlight the brand prominently throughout the ad.  Logos should be omnipresent.
• Make each second count.  Ad should support the message at all times.
• Reveal ads don’t work.  Get straight to the point.
• Stay simple.  No more than two messages per ad.
• Use people.  People imagery works very well.

Of course it’s important to place your ad on the right site to reach a highly targeted audience.  But it’s only effective if the creative is right too!