What do you do if your creative advertising lacks storytelling?

Plan backwards. Start with your end goal is it purchase, engagement, brand awareness. Who is your audience(s)? Once you’ve established your end goal you can build out the steps to get there. This will determine the type of campaign you run and story you tell. Can the story be told in one medium or is it better served in bites that gives or guides the consumer to the full story. When these key points are established it’s easier to look for the potential gaps in your campaign. Split testing and sharing it with people in your target audience prior to launch is a huge factor in successfully working out gaps prior to launch. Monitoring the campaign to make adjustments as needed is a must.

Thorough Campaign Review: Conduct a comprehensive review of your current advertising campaigns. Consumer Perspective: Evaluate ads from the perspective of a consumer. Are they engaging? Do they evoke emotion or connection? Identify Narrative Thread: Determine if there's a narrative thread missing that can tie your message to the audience's experiences. Analyze Content Structure: Assess if your content has a clear beginning, middle, and end. Identify Gaps: Pinpoint gaps in storytelling as the first step to crafting a compelling narrative that resonates with your audience.

If your creative advertising lacks storytelling, prioritize revisiting your brand's narrative and core messaging. Identify compelling themes or emotions that resonate with your target audience and infuse them into your campaigns. Develop cohesive story arcs that captivate attention and evoke meaningful connections with consumers. Collaborate with copywriters, designers, and marketers to ensure alignment between visuals and narrative. Incorporate storytelling elements such as character development, conflict, and resolution to create engaging and memorable ad experiences. Continuously test and iterate your storytelling techniques based on audience feedback and campaign performance to elevate the impact of your creative advertising.

Audience Understanding: Effective storytelling in advertising requires understanding your audience's desires, challenges, and journey. Craft Personal and Relevant Stories: Use audience insights to craft stories that feel personal and relevant to them. Alignment with Audience Worldview: When your narrative aligns with the audience's worldview, it creates a stronger bond between them and your brand. Build Detailed Audience Personas: Take the time to research and build detailed audience personas as the foundation of your storytelling strategy. Resonate on a Deeper Level: Detailed audience personas ensure that your stories resonate on a deeper level with your target audience.

Go back to theory, several books help you learn theory behind crafting narratives for instance Screenplay by Syd Field. You can analyse a set of ads to fit the theory in, this will help build better understanding

Not everyone thinks alike and not everyone thinks like you. Start with research into your audience(s) and other campaigns targeted at the same audience(s). Learn from other campaigns so you don’t make the same mistakes while learning everything about your audience(s). This will be invaluable in avoiding gaps in the success of your campaign.

Your audience needs to see themselves, the way they think or gain a perspective of your service that relates to their needs in the visuals you choose. People will always see a visual or headline before they read. You need to understand the medium you’re advertising in as much as you need to understand your audience(s). You don’t want your campaign to blend in or get lost. Understanding the medium and where your campaign will appear and what will visually be competing with your ad is vital in choosing the right visuals.

Any successful campaign is one that is monitored and evolves. Campaigns need to evolve if the start to plateau or a misstep in your upfront strategy isn’t resonating with your audience(s). Evolution is an invaluable part of your campaign and your personal growth as an expert in future campaigns.

If your ads are missing that storytelling magic, it's time to dive into the plot. Think of your brand as a character—what’s its journey? Tap into emotions, add conflict, resolution, and sprinkle some personality. It’s like writing a hit song where every note tells part of the story. Get personal, get real.