Key takeaways
- Use storytelling-driven video that feels authentic. Video alone isn’t enough, it must entertain or move the viewer.
- Apply the Three T’s: Targeting (reach people who care), Timing (match seasons/days and historical data) and Tale (tell a compelling story).
- Determine your buyer persona and fuse their interests into ad content to reduce annoyance and improve ROI.
- Schedule ads around relevant seasons, days or proven high-performance times, use historical performance to guide timing.
- Place your brand late in the story (the “eleventh-hour”) and focus on emotional impact rather than product features.
- Poor targeting or timing can annoy users, lower ROI and create negative brand perception.
- “Gladvertising” = making ads feel like emotional value rather than overt selling.
Introduction
“Just because people spend hours flipping through their feeds with their fingertips, doesn’t mean your ad has to stick out like a sore thumb.”
In the world of digital marketing, content is king. No matter what product or service you are advertising, it will be difficult to generate any interest without first captivating or intriguing your audience, all without overdoing it or outright annoying them. This is especially true in an age where social media channels are more saturated with ads than ever; users may feel barraged by ads, products, and messages to the point where some people have started to avoid social media altogether. As an advertiser, your goal should be to ensure that ads feel authentic, captivating, and entertaining. If you’re going to advertise, maximizing your ROI means ensuring your ad is ultimately an enjoyable experience for the user. Your social media ads are forever at the mercy of one simple scroll or swipe. Unless you can catch someone’s attention, draw them in, make them shed a tear, or crack a smile, your ad, and all of the resources used to bring it to life will waste away in their feed.
So how can you make your brand stand out? After years of experience, we’ve got the inside scoop.
Many business and agencies alike have ditched the simple “image-centric”, “sleazy car salesman” ad format, and have instead turned to storytelling, short film, and other captivating video content styles as a means to promote their products on social media platforms. This is evident in the rise of video content populating the feeds of Facebook and Instagram and is especially visible in the explosive success of YouTube. This adaptation likely stems from market research that has proven that video content is widely coveted as the most engaging media format, which does a great job bringing users to their channel, using the hypnotic ability of video to ensure they stay there; this is why most platforms themselves are pushing video content to the forefront of their digital strategies. However, simply using video content alone isn’t enough. A video in itself can be boring. Whether you’re using a photo or a video, entertaining or captivating your audience is single-handedly the most important part of advertising on social media. You should use your video to lead them down a fun or emotional trail that seems authentic, and popping your brand in at the eleventh-hour, regardless if there is a direct connection between the story you are telling and the product you are selling. It’s a modern spin on the classic bait and switch. If you nail down the targeting, you can successfully weave your ad into their feed in a way that blends perfectly into the expectations of a user’s ‘daily scroll’ activities. How can this be achieved? The process consists of a fusion between The Three T’s
The Three T’s Of Storytelling and Social Media AdsThe Targeting:
You need to make sure your ad is reaching someone who cares. Otherwise, you’re only increasing the chances that they will be annoyed with your ad, which results in poor ROI for media spend, and may even create a negative perception of your brand from the outset. Most importantly, take the time to determine your buyer persona, research your ideal customer’s interests, and fusing this information into the content of your advertisement itself.
The Timing:
The world and the people in it operate in seasons, and in days of the week. The fact is, certain seasons bring with them certain buying habits, interests, and activities; even certain days signify different things. (i.e New Coffee Ad scheduled on Mondays to cure the Monday Blues, or a vacation ad pushed at high travel season). Timing is as important as targeting. Some products, such as food, aren’t so time sensitive since people eat all sorts of things, all of the time – unless you’re advertising a Thanksgiving turkey, of course. It is also useful to look at historical data and determine the times and days of the week that have proven to perform best for your business and adjust your advertising to match these insights.
The Tale:
Culture, history, media, entertainment and all of the fundamental aspects of our reality are centered around storytelling. It is an indisputable fact that human beings crave stories and respond to narratives found in things like music, film, books, drama, and more. As the most predominant media formats of our age, all great advertisements should tell a story, too. Who’s to say advertising can’t be a modern art form? If the desire to consume stories and products alike are two fundamental human desires, the primary focus of your ad should be to captivate your audience.
The Result:
When you put the three T’s into practice, you’ve got the perfect formula for an effective ad, provided that you are approaching the three T’s with the proper mindset: don’t simply focus on the product or service, but rather, focus on how it positively impacts your target audience. Advertising a grocery service? Focus on the ideal shopping experience: convenience, bliss, simplicity, and fun. Focus on the emotions surrounding food itself: fun, love, family, and companionship. At the end of the day, people don’t care so much about the food they buy, but more about the people around the table. So don’t ‘advertise’ in the traditional sense. If audiences are uncomfortable with an oversaturation of social media ads, make them comfortable with the fact that they are seeing an ad, by subverting the idea of what an ad actually is. If you can get your audience to focus less on what you’re selling and more on how it fulfills important aspects of their life, all while making them feel something in the process…Then you aren’t advertising. You’re Gladvertising.
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FAQ
The Three T’s are Targeting (reach people who care by defining buyer personas and fusing their interests into the ad), Timing (align ads with seasons, days and proven high-performance times) and Tale (use storytelling to captivate and evoke emotion).
Determine your buyer persona, research their interests and weave that information into your ad content so it reaches people who care, otherwise you risk annoying users, poor ROI and a negative brand perception.
Schedule around relevant seasons and days (e.g., coffee ads on Mondays, travel ads during peak travel season) and use your historical performance data to identify the times and days that perform best for your business.
Use storytelling and short-film styles that lead viewers down an authentic, emotional or entertaining trail, then introduce your brand near the end. This helps the ad match users’ expectations during their daily scroll.
‘Gladvertising’ describes ads that focus less on overt selling and more on how a product fulfils important aspects of life and makes people feel, turning an ad into an enjoyable experience rather than a hard sell.
Focus on how the product or service positively impacts your target audience and the emotions around it (convenience, family, joy), rather than just listing product features.
Ignoring targeting or timing increases the chance your ad will annoy users, deliver poor ROI on media spend and potentially create a negative perception of your brand.
