The D2C Reset: Creative Strategy, Incremental Reach, and What’s Working Now

26:05Loukas:traffic it's a great story usually yeah exactly that's the thing it's layering in those soft ctas throughout the creative to you know enhance the opportunity for click through essentially so we we will always try and have some form of soft cta every 10 seconds obviously we're spending much longer now setting up the problem so it's important that that you know we're let with we're sprinkling in trust building throughout that could be you know maybe it was based off a study that helped us you know create the brand that could be layering in social proof such as no wonder they have x amount of five star reviews before we go into like agitating the problem or or introducing or the after stay um there's lots of different ways that that we can do that pr is another one but you these are just small little layers that that you would build in that don't need to take up full sections of the the messaging framework it's just layered in there to to give more opportunity to click through yeah another one that i saw in our recent like recap was

27:09Olly:and it's like industry exposed and like challenging misconceptions or challenging industries very directly which maybe is more like product aware initially in some ways but

27:21Loukas:it's been pulled up the funnel yeah so i i think that the the industry exposed do a really good job at almost tying together product aware and unaware creative i think it's almost that idea of you're opening and closing a curiosity loop it's almost like the the secret that we're uncovering and by tackling a failed solution we're actually driving incrementality because it's usually something that the that people you know the industry don't want you to know about and that brand is there to to you know replace that in many ways so it's it's an education piece as well

27:57Olly:yeah i think we've seen that with like an example being like skincare multiple harsh products been like the the sort of in just common way of solving a problem and like the misconception around like that's the only way to solve the issue that someone has whereas like we directly call that out and then anchor it into the the solution which is the the skew exactly yeah we worked with a razor

28:23Loukas:brand um last year and again they this was one of their best performing creatives and it was it was tying it to the amount of um you know actually the the you think by buying cheap razors it's it's actually a cheaper solution but they they worked out actually over the course of 12 months due to having to replace those razors it's more expensive than theirs and also less or worse quality yeah makes a lot of sense i think that directness is super powerful for

28:54Olly:capturing attention yeah absolutely i had another another point i've got noted down is which is which is less like specific tactical example more like like common thing that i think people are doing wrong is like not appreciating like change in messaging for demographics um i also just feel like if we take a cohort of like our clients i'd say more and more spend is moving up age groups over time and there's so many reasons probably for that one is like economy income purchasing power but it's a real common thing we see is like brands making too many ads to younger people maybe there's so many reasons why that may be but and then when they're starting to try and change their creative to appeal to an older audience not being intentional enough with the actual approach to doing that how are we how are we like looking at just improving our resonance with that audience i guess to get better cut through and better incremental reach in the

30:01Loukas:audience yeah absolutely so again it i think for example one thing for a lot of research with older demographics they require a lot more trust building to be able to then convert into a customer so for example going back to the menopausal persona through research we uncovered that they really needed that education and they needed social proof and science backing to be able to like validate what we were selling them so therefore the messaging became much more focused around setting up that trust building throughout the creative versus you know really spending the time agitating the problem so actually we found by doing those messaging tests that that we were we were getting better click through by actually spending more time educating around the proof versus the problem which was interesting i think another thing is is format so i think one thing that we're seeing with older demographics is actually they are resonating more with like high production type formats um so that's something to to consider as well and i think the third thing is pace like we with editing pace is massive like if you're going say like younger personas we can be quick we can be uh much more edgy with it with with the way that we're approaching the creative more playful whereas actually older creators we find it's it's better slowing down the pace slightly and extending shots yeah it just makes it makes a lot of sense right in terms of like attention spans in younger demographics i think you have to work harder for for like um to retain those

31:40Olly:those individuals yeah um i think just the other thing on messaging that people need to also be

31:46Loukas:considerate of is like thinking about market sophistication because there may be like one persona but you could be speaking to do two different people based on their market sophistication So for example, someone could be very aware of, okay, let's look at it like a skincare product. Most people that we will be targeting with a skincare product, they have high market sophistication. They know skin products exist. They know what the problem is. they don't need to be we don't need to really sit so much on the agitation of problem potentially because we need to focus on actually agitating failed solutions because everyone would have tried multiple skincare products they really where the agitation lies a lot of the time is through all of the failed solutions that they've gone through that haven't worked yet and they can't uncover the thing that is actually going to solve their problem i think that makes a lot of sense i

32:44Olly:also think there's a human desire consideration for older generation as well because i think as a that's the area where we're finding like a lot of deeper ways to to resonate with an audience because i feel like problems just show up in a more meaningful way as you get older especially is it's around um vanity products or like energy lifestyle um and it's not like surface level right now where we just want more energy or like we're tired it's like someone coming home from work after a long day and not having the energy to spend quality time with the children is such a deeper way to resonate with an audience than someone under 30 which is it's just a very

33:30Loukas:different way of approaching that right but i'll surface yeah more surface versus not um yeah i completely agree you definitely need to go much deeper into into those core human desires as you as you go up in age range i think yeah you you shared a really good example there but i think it's because if and i think an example that we we uncovered through a client recently is almost like when when a woman reaches uh the menopause they almost get to a point where they become almost the lost the the the unsung hero of the family and they still continue doing everything they're doing but they don't necessarily have the energy to do so but that isn't noticed so rather than really sitting on the surface level problem as you say going much deeper into into those deep deep human desires that are going to relate to to you know that before and after yeah i think most

34:26Olly:brands watching will be able to find loads of examples of customers telling them this information if they spend enough time doing the research i think that's like where like brands are treating their customer base too homogeneously they're not looking at like cohorting out or just spending enough time like looking for those um deeper ways to resonate with specific audiences yeah exactly

34:48Loukas:Another thing you can just do there is put all of your reviews into GPT and just say, what are the core human desires and motivators that we aren't uncovering yet through our angles that we could tap into? Yeah, 100%.

35:06Olly:So back onto formats, AI mashups, how are we approaching this at the moment?

35:12Loukas:Yeah, so again, this is a good example of that is through the lens of founder stories, is one of them using AI voiceover to be able to drive mashups. I think another way that we're doing mashups is through timelines. So we're seeing timeline-based messaging working well,

35:33Olly:which obviously is slightly more solution aware. That's like listicle format, day one, day seven. Exactly, so this is what happened to my skin

35:42Loukas:after using this product for three months, as an example. and again what that does it really opens and closes the curiosity loop because we're creating that intrigue because we're not saying it's good, we're not saying it's bad, we're kind of holding before we release the punchline almost

36:00Olly:It's also somewhat good to it's like a management of expectation as well it's like quite real, it's like we're not promising that this is an overlight solution but which may I haven't done the analysis and I'd love to do some creative analysis on LTV by message but I imagine that would probably help a hundred percent of customer yeah and i think the other way that you can be

36:18Loukas:approaching that is and again this is through your if you've got an angle that's working really well like for example we had one that was working well for a client which was um if you struggle it was if you use this product for three months here's what will happen to your ex we literally took that but then flipped it to if your daughter if your dad if your mum struggles with x and just seeing how the audience resonates slightly differently we're doing that a lot right now where you know for example if you're trying to target an older persona doing it from the perspective of a young of their relative their daughter their son talking about their parents

36:58Olly:problems we're seeing that work yeah i think that like direct call out of persona from someone else in the hook works surprisingly well like you'd expect like you've you've made an ad where it's like you talking about your mum on the hook and it's very effectively delivered to 45 plus women

37:14Loukas:yeah i would say that is the type of hook right now that is working best those direct persona

37:18Olly:call outs yeah makes sense and that's like easy it's easy as a brand to sort of map those out on a piece of paper and be like right how do we just if you're starting from a diversity perspective like just doing that exercise like age well persona how can we make really direct hook call outs in UGC yeah it's probably a really quick win to try and solve some incremental reach problems if you're at like a really poor place right now going to Q4 yeah 100 % any other like key key call outs from a um tactical what's working right now perspective I think yeah I I would say like we

37:57Loukas:definitely the comeback of secret filming is like a a means of just pulling more more eyeballs in I think especially because now what you can do with Sora and just how good the quality is of almost like CCTV cameras showing something happening like the secret filming example, I think is a really, really good one. I'm still like we're still very bullish on how we're continuing to evolve like the podcast format because we're just still seeing that working incredibly well. um so again as we know we're doing like the agree to disagree concepts which are now working across multiple accounts which essentially is like an outlandish statement and again this is where we're bringing objection handling higher in the funnel such as x product or x industry is a scam x product doesn't work and the two people are essentially debating the topic yeah and it's a good way to educate around it um we're doing other versions of that which is like um um the lie detectors yeah so again someone being quizzed on certain things and and whether they're lying or not uh but i think as well we are seeing real success with podcast setups with founders that are just objection handling first so it's almost a presenter that is calling them out directly for lots of you know things within their brand and again that comes back to the industry exposed piece and then it uses it as a potential you know they're they're the failed solutions and he's introducing the reason why their product isn't the same as that yeah mate so i think podcast is

39:38Olly:another one it sits there next to find a story is things i think every brand can do it's just execution and you do the script and the setup right for your products yeah from a low prob

39:49Loukas:perspective i think there's a few one is like metaphor ads so essentially how can you create a visual metaphor that represents something else say for example if you're talking about the gut and you're pouring water into it and it's just a creator in front of a camera say holding a piece like a tupperware box and they've like poked holes into it and they're now saying matt this is your gut before pouring the water in and it's dripping out this is your gut now and it's not doing that or the other one that um i know caden did recently that's performing really well was showing that through is a product for testosterone and it was showing what your testosterone should be in in the form of sugar and then what it what it what it actually uh what it should be versus what it is to show that very clear before and after in a simple way and that comes back to we need our messaging needs to be so simple that a five-year-old will understand it and the best way to do that is through creating some form of visual metaphor um in in that way two others that

40:54Olly:come to mind is the the written paper hooks and walkthroughs of like the actual visuals a lot of the time is just centered around the paper and it but the narrative and the the written word follows the narrative of the asset and they're they're very like native and it is consistently

41:13Loukas:they've been working for nearly six months now i'd say yeah and second to that is customer interviews

41:19Olly:i think that's just an amazing format if you can get it right it takes a bit i think it takes a bit of tech like setup and again it's it's about it's the execution it's the how you join those together but interviewing customers on zoom or a phone call making it into a concept is working really well i saw a really good one from humanity yesterday um that yeah just was them in the office is just calling customers.

41:42Loukas:Yeah, exactly. I think one thing that we're doing a lot of as well, and this is that idea of like creative diversification, taking winning messaging and applying it to a different vehicle. We've seen exactly what you just said there. We found winners through those testimonial concepts and we've literally taken that, put it in third person and then done a whiteboard concept where it'll be like, this is Paul. Paul struggled with, did it? And it will just show drawings on a whiteboard of taking them through that customer journey of the before and after, but putting it on a whiteboard. So it's just like really thinking about how you can, because again, it's like soulmate theory, that's going to unlock more incrementality because it's going to appeal to a different person

42:24Olly:than the other testimonial was. But you've got the narrative there. Exactly. The script and the structure stay is very similar. Yeah. And you're applying those learnings accordingly.

42:34Loukas:I think just in terms of like another very quick tactical thing that i'm seeing which is working as well is more subtle visual changes within the hook that demonstrate a different persona what i mean by that is let's say you're talking about um an eyelash serum and someone just speaking to camera saying if your eyelashes look like this then you need to try this yeah and we it's a it's a green it's the person green screened over and behind them is a young girl's eyelashes whereas run that as a test but then also run it as a test with it where it's being an older lady's eyelashes and showing an older person's eyes can easily create that now through our ai image gen and nano banana but you're not saying or speaking to a different persona you're just visually showing a different persona through

43:22Olly:what's happening on screen we've seen that exact example play out in the other count didn't we where it was and it it appealed to a completely different audience and it brought cack down by like over 10 pounds because it just resonated with them that they were a better consumer of that products that we weren't targeting previously but we didn't have to do a huge shoot to achieve

43:40Loukas:that exactly right and that's why i think it's like the the it's important with your creators as well to just get i don't think it's ever been more important than ever and we'll talk about this in the next episode to get evergreen statics from your creators just because of that creative diversification and also by being able to take winning messaging and let's say it was a um a news headline um a static where it's like breaking news this has been helping thousands of x people solve problem um but then you run that same creative with like five six seven different faces on the screen and as a result you know they're not going to be grouped under the same an entity ID and it's going to unlock more reach.

44:23Olly:I want to come on statics maybe to round out the episode. But just before we do that, I think a really good tactic, and we've only just started to see this work over the last seven to 10 days and I put a tweet out about it, but TikTok shop has obviously been booming and we've managed to replicate on two accounts now, taking some of these upper funnel problem or unaware creatives that are very education first sell second literally just throwing them to gmv max and spending we've been able to get up to like six seven k a day and spend for some clients yeah that's wild through tiktok shop on creative that's already working on meta hypothesis there is if it's good enough the creative is good enough and it does a good enough job at education and conversion in one asset distribution on platform isn't having as much of an impact i've also seen tiktok converge towards meta more so in the last 12 months anyway like for quite a few clients we've got a lot of high prod in the accounts a lot of the high prod that we're running for a deodorant brand right now is outperforming ugc so i just think it's worth a test um it'd be great to see if here if anyone gets success from that but especially into q4 if you can even make it break even or it's just amazing awareness driver i think that the asset i mentioned got eight million views in

45:45Loukas:12 in 12 ways i think it's a great indicator and i remember us having a conversation i think on the podcast in q4 last year about predictions for this year and i remember one thing we spoke about was high prod on tiktok um but and it's it's interesting to see finally that we're seeing some

46:04Olly:of those those assets actually performing yeah it's like i just don't it makes sense like i feel like a good ad is a good ad regardless of the platform as those channels converge in terms of ability to reach audience demographic like you should see the content diverge in many ways and converge sorry and i feel like that's what we're sort of seeing so go test that if you've if you can yeah i think one thing that's really helped with that likely is like um video gen because

46:34Loukas:so much of the tiktok feed now is video gen it could be the gorillas yeah exactly could be the

46:41Olly:gorillas in the forest could be and sent me um uh the queen rp uh to me of her like skateboarding down Oxford Street and he sent me in a group chat and he was like do you reckon there's some like 80 year old woman sat at home just being like mind blown like how is Elizabeth free and Elizabeth skateboarding down Oxford Street because it's obviously like AI but they just have no concepts

47:10Loukas:of that being a thing yeah no but I think that's because the the barrier to entry now for high production is non-existent anyone can do it if you've got an idea you can put it take you know you can bring it to life you're seeing more and more of that coming through vo3 on tiktok which i think as a result has meant there's people more receptive to diversity on the platform

47:33Olly:are you completely off topic before we get on statics i've seen more ai creative in places i didn't expect and i like example is i saw a whiz air ad on the tube yesterday on the way home it's like split screen and the top was this woman like with like a background of a beach but it was just so obviously an ai woman like the way her face moved as she kind of came towards the camera it looked a bit plastic you know how yeah when you don't generate characters they've got like a bit of a waxy feel to them sometimes i was like i wonder how many people who see this know that or it's just because we're so close to the problem like not the problem but that the industry

48:14Loukas:yeah i've started to see it show up in in more places yeah i think yeah it's an interesting one it's it's difficult to say because like we we are at the intersection aren't we we have to be so it's so hard to know but i do i'm you know when my mom and dad are talking about it you know it's it's pretty mainstream yeah yeah that's just like i've got a good eye for it at the moment

48:34Olly:because i think he's still noticeable especially with people even the sound like you can tell

48:39Loukas:through like someone speaking usually if it's been created through that vo3 it's interesting

48:45Olly:but yeah to wrap up before we before we wrap up statics just want to touch quickly on statics um again covered it in the partnership ads i think one thing that's working amazingly well for statics right now is just native instagram stories loads of lengthy text overlays calling out problems education first um like yellow armpits being an example for a geodrome band pairing that with third party at whitelisting is a really quick and very high impact win but beyond that

49:17Loukas:any other static wins that you're really seeing yeah i think to be honest with statics it's like it's a lot of the same i think one again it's you know it's how many times can you evolve the native static and i think the one that i'm seeing right now that i know we're testing a lot for black friday is the chat gpt chatbot so asking chat gpt a question like and we've done this with we did this with like google image ads previously where it was like you ask google a question in the search bar and said what is the best product for desired outcome and then it will show the products just in image form um so we're seeing those chatbot ones doing really well on chat gpt the other version of that is email so customers emailing the brand about a review yeah um and it's all the same shit right but it's just like a slightly different native form yeah i also i

50:10Olly:think again thinking about personas there it's like if you're selling to an older individual what are the mediums of content they're consuming on a daily basis there's no point doing the chat gpt thing if most of your audience is over 45 because they're just not this is not going to resonate but under that it's like so powerful another one in that format we're doing is i actually saw jägermeister robbed one of our ads we'd done we'd done um we did that we did a microsoft xp paint ad a while back for a brand where it was just like this is the best xyz and pointed to the products and they'd replicated that ad and i saw i saw it on my feed i think that's another example like using compute like computer screens notes pages um like written on writing on paint like all of those like out there things are working yeah exactly i think the way

51:00Loukas:the way to look at that as well is that i'm really bullish on is i think one of the strongest emotions that you can evoke through an ad is or just through anything is nostalgia yeah so it's even if it's a something that doesn't exist anymore like msn you know how how can we tap into like nostalgic plays of delivering a message bbm exactly that will just really stop people in their scroll and almost evoke that like feeling of nostalgia runescape chat bubble now we're talking club penguin yeah yeah yeah yeah i think i think statics can still take up a meaningful

51:39Olly:amount of spend that's i think that's the key call out so i think you've got to still and their cost for production is so low that this should be a really large portion of your ad output yeah 100 but it's about doing it with intention to get to get in front of new audiences and

51:53Loukas:growing mental reach yeah we we actually i've ran a comparison report recently um on a few of our accounts and shout out to caden on this because he built a really good way of running this um but essentially for every single one of the accounts that i ran this on it's all said the same thing high prod is best for top of funnel uh ugc for middle and and statics for bottom and that that that rang true in terms of spend at each stage of the funnel uh for for multiple accounts so

52:25Olly:something to consider 100 perfect well i think we've done dropped a lot of um tactical tactical

52:33Loukas:source for people to take um remember to comment down below um prompt and we will make sure to to put that down because it's a juicy one and yeah give us a like subscribe we'll have passed

52:45Olly:3 000 subscribers by the time you view this but um loads more episodes coming round tables hopefully by the end of the year um and yeah thank you for watching thanks guys see you in the next one