Communication channels in digital marketing confront you with a multitude of indicators and often follow short-term goals, however, in this space, there is an opportunity for self-expression and creativity for many brands; Only if they integrate and align these programs with their branding principles.
Of course, digital marketing with its indicators and metrics can give the impression that its activity does not require much creative understanding of art and emotions that are common in classic advertising and mass media; However, by the way, the ability to count the number of clicks on a particular link or the number of advertisement views, although it helps you measure the effectiveness of your programs, it does not make you need to be creative in this space.
With these descriptions, how does creativity appear in the digital space? Fixing the defects of internet pages that do not establish a proper relationship with the user or producing content that brings the user to taste, really needs creativity.
Perhaps this is why Beverly DuCruz, the marketing manager of Pizza Hut England, acknowledges the existence of creativity in digital marketing and says: “Measurability in digital marketing does not mean that it is dry and boring. In fact, in the case of pizza delivery, eighty percent of brand interactions with Customers are found through the online space. He used Pizza Hut as an example and continued: “Of course, we at Pizza Hut emphasize storytelling for the brand, but don’t forget that this story must create a certain value for the customer.” He adds: “Although the digital world is a world of quantifiable indicators, it is equally a place for entertaining and attracting customers by interacting with them. It is a space that helps to reduce stress and relieve their fatigue.”
In his speech, Ducruz gives himself as an example and says: “For me, my cell phone is a tool to reduce stress, a defense shield that separates me from every unfortunate thing that happens in the world. Yes! Of course, a company can indeed be sold through such a tool, but in the first place, proper interaction and communication with the buyer must be established.”
A weak story will not be transmitted well through any channel, even if many efforts are made for this purpose…
With all these words, the ways that marketers find to convey the desired experience to the audience through digital communication channels are related to their level of creativity. It means that when we talk about creativity in digital marketing, we are not necessarily talking about something like creating beauty, but we are talking about reaching the target audience at the right time with an effective message.
Although in the digital world there are a certain number of communication channels and certain technical methods to use them, Zoe Harris, Marketing Manager of GoCompare, believes that these special features in digital marketing should not affect you, and in other words, should be of secondary importance.
It can be guessed that Harris gives the main priority to a creative idea, where the phrase “a weak story is not transmitted well by any channel, even if many efforts are made for this purpose”, is exemplified.
Harris claims: “Promoting digital advertising along with classic advertising in mass media will give you the most efficiency, but the main issue is the integration and compatibility of these activities, which should be coherent and should not contradict each other and convey different messages.” The output of these efforts should convey a stable and authentic message from you to the audience.
Regardless of the creativity, a person like DuCruz, the marketing manager of Pizza Hut England, emphasizes that the world of digital marketing is not a world of robots, and behind every computer advertisement there is a purpose, and that purpose is a real audience that must be communicated with effectively.
DuCruz stated that such a philosophy is behind Pizza Hut’s digital campaign titled Now it’s time for delivery! has existed, believes that the purpose of this campaign was to express and highlight the advantages and differentiation of the Pizza Hut brand in this way.
Ducruz adds that Pizza Hut’s relatable advertisement, which was created to outpace competitors, was to inform the audience of the addition of a delivery service to Pizza Hut, and it should convey loyalty, honesty, and guarantee of speed (in delivery) from our side to the audience.
This combination of transparency, simplicity, and humor created a good connection with the audience. Acknowledging that he was surprised by the results of the campaign, Ducruz says: “In the end, three million and nine hundred thousand people watched our ninety-second video on YouTube…”
Docruz also says about not selling if you don’t have an idea: “In advertising, the whole creative idea was to be able to put pressure on the competitors at the same time and indirectly convey our message to the audience understandably and memorably by creating a relatively fun atmosphere. »
“Yes! There are many openings for creativity in digital marketing. The truth of the matter is that if a business is to survive in a very crowded and demanding environment of different markets, it must use the capacities and potentials available in digital marketing.
Matt Stockbridge, the manager of business growth analysis at Mandolz Company, says these things and continues: “The applications of digital marketing are increasing day by day, as a result, the complications and subtleties in the use of digital marketing capabilities are also increasing. Which digital channel and how to use it now requires more experience than before.”
Referring to the flexibility of digital marketing, he continues: “With digital marketing, every business not only has the choice to convey its advertising message to the audience at a low cost, it can also show itself in this way. »
Stockbridge simply sees creativity in digital marketing as something that makes waves and gets people talking about it. Referring to the advertising campaign of the Oreo company, which advertised the biscuits and cookies of this company using and inspired by the credits of the Game of Thrones series, he says: “The video of this company with the hashtag gamesofcookies, since it was shown on April 2nd, has more than 900 views on YouTube alone. It has been seen a thousand times.”
Stockbridge talks about his belief in digital marketing and considers it as a field for branding and storytelling of business and profits.
Now, many brands are aware of this issue and have an active online life, and even if their field of work does not have much in common with the digital space, they can use the presence of people in the online space to expand their communication network with them.
In this context, he states: “You must invest your time, energy, and money to create effective relationships with a sufficient number of your audience, eventually you will get hundreds and maybe thousands of such audiences for yourself to somehow Spontaneously promote the story of your brand and be your representative and well! I recommend this work.”
Digital marketing and impressive content
For the audience to stop an advertisement while surfing the web with a mobile phone, there must be a really special case. This is an excuse for the comment of Carly O’Brien, a performance marketing manager, and she believes that although the basic principles of creativity are the same in any case, the digital environment demands its own needs. He points to two major differences: “In the world of digital marketing, there is a shorter deadline to attract the attention of the audience, and message transmission formats are inherently faster in digital marketing. For example, consider that there are thirty seconds in a television advertisement, while in social networks we only have a few seconds to influence the audience. This limitation constantly challenges our creative thinking, so that by increasing creativity in a short time and minimal space, the most effective advertising message and attention can be obtained from it.
From another angle, Ayin Neel, one of the managers of the famous Ikea company, announces more and more sales as the ultimate and main goal of his company and considers creativity as a means to increase the audience and, as a result, increase sales. For this reason, the behavior of these audiences should be properly analyzed and analyzed and the right message should be sent to them.
Digital marketing does not have the limitations and restrictions of classic marketing, gamification, various special techniques of visual animation, filters, and augmented reality are techniques and facilities that are formed in the digital platform and help to increase our creativity in the digital space.
The same creativity came with the help of Carly O’Brien at Christmas this year, who designed a campaign for very.co.uk for online sales at Christmas, for the company’s Facebook messenger, a robot with the cartoon character Elsie for automatic and effective communication with customers. They used
The said robot was prepared in such a way that it could show different combinations of 744 products to customers in fifty different user interfaces and even suggest products to customers if requested.
“If at one time television was considered the hero of storytelling among other media, now it is digital media that have improved this field and brought it to a new level by designing games and interactions, targeted content, and choosing a specific audience.”
Elsie is the character included in the Facebook messenger chatbot.
This claim is made by Carly O’Brien, but it is not just a claim and there is solid evidence behind it. Even behind the success of a giant like Ikea, digital marketing activities can be seen remarkably, these activities penetrate and are observed at different levels of the marketing behaviors of this company, from micro to macro, from branding to short-term advertising tactics.
Iain Neal, the marketing manager of this company in Britain, believes that the creative use of digital marketing at different levels of marketing of this company has enabled Ikea to get the necessary results in the different commercial fields that it has entered. He says: “Our main expectation from the result of digital marketing is to increase sales, and creative activity in this space achieves such a goal by reaching new audiences, analyzing their behavior, and sending the right message at the right place and time.” For any brand activity in the digital space and depending on the relationships you have with customers, you must make sure that every step you take creates the most value; This is so that you can sell your various current and future products to them in the right way and at the right time.
Ikea’s latest campaign, designed by London Proximity, used creativity to break the barriers of a balanced life and used it for this purpose. Based on a kind of Swedish philosophy called league, which means using neither too little nor too much of one thing, this campaign found its slogan, and to implement it, a sequence of content was published and sent to the audience on social networks and email. So that they are exposed to the message of this company. were targeted Also, the amount of their orders for products in line with this view and their past communications with the company were carefully considered. Similarly, the messages were personalized for these customers and designed in such a way that the durability of their meaning for the company creates long-term value.
Factors affecting the effectiveness of creativity in digital marketing
When it comes to measuring the effectiveness of creativity in digital marketing activities, it is important to examine the positive and negative aspects of each creative activity. Stockbridge emphasizes this and states that despite considering the default baseline and trends and comparisons that help to make better decisions, there is no algorithm and formula for the effective use of creativity in the digital space.
In this regard, O’Brien proposes an always-on framework for monitoring effectiveness and providing real-time feedback. Creative changes, such as changes in the design and elements of a website, require such a mechanism to achieve the best results; As the preparation of the wireframe and gradual changes in it according to the feedback, it comes from here.
Even in search engine ads (translator’s explanation: click ads are considered in systems such as Google Ads, in these ads you are displayed on the first page of Google with the Ad brand based on searching for specific words in different ranks and each click on The link will be deducted from your account at the specified rate.) In exchange for paying money, it seems less possible for creativity to emerge, from this problem appears. There, several ads are used for the same keyword and different extensions are used to get the best result through a process of trial and error combined with creativity.
O’Brien adds: “The growing benefits of performance testing is a trend that has become common in performance marketing and will continue to grow over time.” (Translator’s explanation: In digital marketing terminology, there is a term called A/B Testing, and it indicates that when in doubt in choosing between two items, for example, two colors, two email titles, two advertising texts, both on a part of The audience is tested, then the option that gives the best answer is finally chosen as the final option.)
While pragmatic metrics put the effectiveness of digital advertising campaigns and their amount under the microscope and thus improve the performance and form of campaigns with short-term goals, companies still believe that measuring all activities for a better understanding of the overall effectiveness of these programs The action that should ultimately lead to building, expanding and strengthening the brand, it is better to be more precise and more, and this general trend in finding the importance of measurement shows its effectiveness.
In such a situation, the narrow-minded and detailed indicators make it possible to see the performance of marketing activities more relativistically and gray, in fact, here, beyond a zero or hundred and black and white view, everything is not limited to the two states of failure or overall success of the programs, and this view of goes away
“The insight gained from different campaigns and their analysis plays an influential role in improving your creativity and refining your strategic direction in your plans of action,” says O’Brien.
Although the roadmap is defined by digital channels and campaign objectives, Zoe Harris, GoCompare’s marketing director, continues to place the main emphasis on creativity. “In the end, what drives traffic to your site is creativity,” he says. If this creativity is combined with the right use of digital channels in a campaign, the best return on efforts and spent advertising budget will be achieved.
He adds: “It is always possible that there are pleasures such as increasing interaction with the audience and receiving positive emotions from them, but note that this creativity is aimed at increasing sales and bringing the audience as close as possible to the final stage of the sales funnel. , that means a purchase is made.”
For a company like Pizza Hut, the problem is even simpler: “If you can’t measure something, you won’t be successful at it.” This statistical fact that 3.9 million people watched their videos through YouTube is the only evidence that can show their success in interacting with the audience and not necessarily increasing sales.
This number is considered a key indicator of success for them, but its effectiveness can be finally evaluated when the amount of increase in their sales is determined from this place and their competitive advantage is maintained by increasing income.
Ducruz has done detailed studies to understand how each channel has performed compared to other channels and what income and efficiency they have received, but improving these ratios and combinations and making better decisions requires creativity. Now, by analyzing the results of past campaigns, he works with the campaign agency to ensure that their programs have the best returns and returns for them within the next twelve to eighteen months.
In any case, for a company like Pizza Hut, designing a creative idea and implementing it in the digital space in such a way that it conveys their message to the audience most effectively and productively in the channels used, such as content marketing, search engine financial advertising, is considered a success. It can happen, and for this to happen, this creative idea must have the potential, strength, and traction necessary to go through such a path.