10 tips and tactics for creating great advertising

It isn’t easy to catch people's attention these days. With so many messages and offers being thrown at people across too many platforms to count, it's hard to stand out from the crowd. So how can your advertising reach people? And not just reach them but capture their attention? Or more importantly, have an impact? 

That’s what great advertising achieves.  

As part of our research into the state of creative effectiveness in 2025, we compiled our findings from consumers into some tips and tactics marketing teams can apply to their advertising process to create better ads. 

Read on for the 10 we uncovered as well as some examples for each.

While this may be obvious to start, you need to make sure your ad stands out from the rest. 

To be remembered, an ad needs to capture attention and hold it. To achieve this, your ad must be distinctive; to stand out as something new that audiences haven’t seen before. But that is certainly no easy feat. 

Think about what’s unique about your brand that only you can deliver. What about the codes in your category and how you might be able to do something different? Can you stand out by being funny? By tugging on heartstrings? By using an unexpected celebrity (who still fits with your brand)? By adopting a different style or tone than the rest of your category? The possibilities are endless!

Example: Chipotle’s “Unfolded”

Take Chipotle for example. Their “Unfolded” ad was created to generate awareness for the future of sustainable agriculture in an animated film produced by Venables Bell & Partners and brought to life by the Grammy-nominated artist Halsey.

What makes it distinct? Under 10% of advertising is set in a rural setting (and 80% of fast-food advertising is set indoors), making this ad highly different from what's expected. 

The unique setting combined with a beautiful visual style and compelling music from a popular artist produced a distinctive ad that audiences knew could only be for Chipotle. 

Audiences will forget the specific details of your ad, but they are much more likely to remember the way they felt watching it. 

The best way to connect with people is to not just make them feel something, but take them on an emotional journey. 

Think of your ad as a mini movie and take inspiration from any great story you’ve ever seen: Start with a hook, establish the setting, characters and scenario, introduce a conflict or struggle and build on the tension until it reaches a climax — with a satisfying resolution that leaves people on a good feeling. 

It can make people feel any number of emotions along the way, but resolving on a positive note gives you the best chance of people feeling positive about your brand. 

Example: Budweiser’s “First Delivery”

Budweiser does a great job of taking the viewer on an emotional journey in this spot that follows a young Clydesdale on a mission to save the day by delivering a fallen keg. 

Created for Super Bowl LIX, this ad shows how good storytelling goes a long way in advertising and can help hook your audience from start to finish. In fact, this ad captivates the audience from the beginning, with 90% of viewers watching the full ad — not an easy achievement for a 100 second spot!

This ad is also undeniably enjoyable and emotionally connects with people, driving multiple peaks of love and laughter throughout.

Can you remember watching an ad that really struck a chord with you and left you thinking, “Wow, they ‘get’ me”? 

Many of the ads that resonate the best with audiences are those that are grounded in a real consumer insight. These are ideas that are instantly understood, but aren’t too obvious that you’ve really considered them before. 

Tapping into a real human truth helps you connect with people and have them saying “Oh yeah, that’s so true.” It will make your ad, and ideally your brand and product, feel relevant. It doesn’t have to be deep or poignant (although it certainly can be), but it has to feel grounded in consumers’ lives. 

Example: Currys’ “IRL”

UK store Currys hit this on the head with their “IRL” spot created to encourage shoppers to come into stores by reminding them of the unique value of shopping “IRL.” 

In it, the brand hilariously highlights the insight that consumers have gotten so used to shopping online that they may not remember how to function inside a real store. In the ad, shoppers are seen trying to zoom in on product packaging by pinching their fingers on boxes and leaning in, as well as “swiping through” items on shelves and knocking them over. 

By capitalizing on this insight and delivering it in a way that relates to their brand message, viewers found the ad to be highly relevant (and of course, relatable), meet their needs and resulted in strong purchase uplift for Currys!

Distinctive brand assets (DBAs) are shortcuts that help people instantly recognize the brand being advertised — and then help them recognize the brand wherever they encounter it going forward.

These can come in the form of brand characters, colors, shapes, sounds or music, taglines or words, fonts or even the overall tone of your ads or a consistent use of a brand platform. 

Everything from the M&M’s candy characters, McDonald’s golden arches, the shape of the Heinz ketchup bottle, Mastercard’s association with the word “priceless,” and Netflix’s “ta-dum” sound, all are DBAs.  

If you don’t have many DBAs outside of your logo, it’s worth it to establish them now. 

When you do have them, you have to keep using them until they can stand on their own and instantly call to mind your brand. 

Brands that establish and use DBAs for years and years can eventually reap the rewards of playing around with them and creating something really fun and distinctive. But keep in mind, this takes years of discipline!

Example: Aldi’s Kevin the Carrot

If you’re in the UK, you know who Kevin the Carrot is. 

A wonderful example of DBA usage, Aldi has included Kevin the Carrot in their Christmas ads for more than nine years, fully establishing him as a brand asset that viewers immediately recognize. As soon as viewers see him appear on screen, they already know it could only be an ad for Aldi. And while he began as a feature of Aldi’s Christmas ads, Aldi has been able to use him successfully outside of Christmas — even featuring him in an ad for the 2024 Olympics. 

Not only that, consumers have developed a love for Kevin the Carrot over the years, which results in high Love and Like reactions as soon as he appears on screen — a great thing to have consumers feeling when they see an ad from your brand.

People tend to remember key elements of an ad or a general summary of it, rather than the small details. So if your brand or product isn’t a part of that summary, it probably won’t get credit for the ad. 

That’s why it’s so important to think through the role your brand will play in the ad. While you're developing ads, think about how people might summarize it, and then ask yourself whether the brand would have a role in that summary.  

Could they play back the story or summary of the ad without mentioning your brand?  Does your brand provide a turning point in the ad? A hero? And perhaps most importantly, would the ad make sense without the brand?

Example: Doritos’ “Abduction”

A great example of this is Doritos’ “Abduction,” winner of the brand's 2025 Crash the Super Bowl contest winner’s, which gives creators the opportunity to enter their own Doritos ad into a competition for a chance to be selected as the brand’s Super Bowl ad. 

Seriously, what better way to engage fans than to have them participate in the making of the ad itself? 

“Abduction” was created by Ohio-native Dylan Bradshaw, and features a man fighting to save his bag of Doritos from being abducted by aliens. The man and the alien ultimately shared a bag together in the end. 

The whole story revolves around Doritos being so desirable that even an alien wants them — and a human would fight hard not to let them go. Ultimately, you can’t play back the story without talking about the role of Doritos.

Consistency is key to establishing your brand. Building a clear and coherent representation of a brand in people's minds so it comes to mind quickly and easily when it matters. 

And consistency also helps ads to be easily recognizable for people.

Developing a meaningful brand platform that allows for consistency — and yet also offers space to be creative over time — is the best way to help to build immediate and coherent brand memories. 

But while consistency is key, that doesn’t mean you have to box your brand in with the same exact playbook time and time again. You can still maintain a consistent thread between your campaigns while also introducing something new. Something to keep it fresh. 

In fact, we often see that having a consistent platform ultimately results in greater creative freedom. Fresh consistency is a great way to keep your audience engaged while still remaining true to your brand.

Think: Same characters, new adventure. Or even same joke, different characters. Or same brand platform, updated for modern-day life.

There are many ways to keep the traits that are essential to your brand platform while inserting something new and exciting for your audience, or expressing the idea in totally new or fresh ways.

KitKat has been using “Have a break, have a KitKat” since 1958. 

But the brand has also successfully evolved the idea of “having a break” and grounded it in real consumer insights over time — ensuring that it always feels relevant and never feels stale. 

Recently, KitKat played with the idea that it’s difficult to truly take a break in today’s world. In “Break Better,” we see a young man sitting at his desk in a bustling office. When he stands up to take a break, all his post-it notes, pens, laptop and even whiteboard start trailing behind him and eventually sticking to him as “I Want to Break Free” by Queen starts to play. Eventually he opens a KitKat and all the items fall off of him, allowing him to truly take a well-deserved break. 

It’s a clever way to visually show how hard it can be to disconnect — and feature KitKat as a hero in that story. It works because KitKat has owned “having a break” for 80 years, so it feels consistent but also fresh for audiences!

What is your brand known for? What do people expect from it? 

Once you’ve established your brand, your audience can begin to expect things like how your brand makes them feel based on what they already know, think and feel about it from past experience. 

If your ads fit with that expectation, audiences are likely to remember your brand and feel positively about it. But if you go against that expectation, they may not recognize or remember your brand — or just be confused by the connection. 

This doesn’t mean you can’t change your brand image or brand associations over time, but it can’t be done overnight! And it always needs to be done by keeping some aspect of familiarity, rather than switching completely from one thing to the next.

Example: Liquid Death

Liquid Death, created after observing concert-goers and musicians alike drinking water out of energy drink cans to avoid judgement and fit into the scene, consistently delivers on a rebellious, edgy tone that fits with their brand. 

A great example is their ad with The Prince of Darkness himself titled “Ozzy Osbourne warns kids not to snort Liquid Death” that promotes their Death Dust, a powdered electrolyte mix. The spot shows Ozzy driving around and telling a pair of kids not to snort the stuff and the real purpose of the powder — a hilarious poke at both the rockstar and the mix. It’s an incredibly distinctive ad that sets the brand apart from the category. 

And even when promoting their new keg sized option of Liquid Death to pregnant women in “Kegs for Pregs,” the brand still maintains their edge and humor, while being a bit polarizing — but that comes with the rebellious territory — and still generates a lot of laughs and enjoyment from viewers, as it’s what they can expect from the brand.

Be honest, have you ever found yourself sitting through an ad that completely loses your attention? What about one that was so fast, that you had no idea what was going on, nevermind what brand the ad was for? 

Finding the right length is a critical component to making great ads. You want to take your audience on a journey that keeps their attention, while also being mindful of their time investment to see it through to the end. 

We are often asked what the ideal length for an ad is. The answer is that it differs by context and media, but also it has to be determined by the narrative you are telling. 

There are a lot of great short ads and a lot of great long ads out there. The key is in making the length just right for your story. Our advice? Don't make it longer than it needs to be so you lose people. And don't make it so short that people are lost and cannot follow it.

Example 1: Pedigree (Short)

At only 15 seconds long each, Pedigree’s “Love at First Sight” campaign is a wonderful example of a series of spots that tell a full, emotional story in a very short period of time. 

The first spot in the campaign, “Party” shows a man all dressed up at a party, professing his love to someone off-screen as confetti falls, which turns out to be a dog in an adoption center. The ad promptly concludes with the words “Love at first sight isn’t just in the movies. It’s available at your local shelter.” appearing across the screen. 

The second spot, “Rain” depicts a woman standing in the pouring rain, exclaiming, “I’ve wanted an eternity with you from the second I met you!” The one she’s shouting to is again a dog at an adoption center, concluding with the same words on-screen.   

Both spots do an excellent job at delivering the brand’s message and evoking a strong emotional response, showcasing that a short ad doesn’t have to limit effectiveness or the ability to create strong emotion. 

Example 2: Lay’s (Long)

On the other hand, at one minute long (and some additional longer versions), Lay’s “The Little Farmer” ad is perhaps the definition of a long ad executed to perfection. 

Set to the tune of Barry Louis Polisar’s “All I Want Is You,” this spot follows a young girl who sets out on a mission to grow something on her own, while her family heads out to plant potatoes on their farmland. From rainstorms to grasshoppers and more, the girl keeps watch to protect her little spud. In the end, she proudly adds her fully grown potato to the massive load atop a Lay’s truck.

Viewers were hooked on the story, which elicited strong feelings of love and togetherness; with many viewers noting how lovable and family-oriented it was.

Even though it was on the lengthy side, the heartfelt storytelling of the determined young girl captivated viewers, eliciting strong feelings of love while also leading up to a feel-good brand message that this is exactly where their product comes from — from family farms across America. 

It can be argued that it’s better to be direct, but that’s not always the case with advertising. 

that subtly share its value. Think: Shot on iPhone by Apple. While this campaign never says “Buy the iPhone because it has a great camera,” it does show a beautifully shot montage of everyday moments with the message that they were taken on an iPhone by everyday users — implicitly reminding people of the perfection of photos taken using the phone.

But that doesn’t mean being direct should be off the table. If done well, brands can find success in explicitly advertising their offerings in a positive way.

Take Old Spice’s commercials for example. Throughout their ads the man constantly praises Old Spice, its smell and how “manly” it makes you — but he does so in a series of situations that are absolutely hilarious to watch, making for a fun experience for viewers.    

With so much media fragmentation, it is proven that the more channels you use as part of your campaign, the better the return. Multiple channels help you reach more people, but they also make the impact more powerful when people see the campaign expressed in multiple ways.  

Of course for this to work, the campaign idea needs to be expressed in both a coherent way across channels AND in a way that plays into the characteristics of the channel. 

When developing a campaign, brands should think about the key things that should look and/or feel the same across the assets. One asset should cue another. And they should all cue the brand. 

Ultimately, they should work together to create a stronger, more immediate and more positive representation of the brand such that it comes to mind into the future for more needs and occasions.

Example: Cadbury

Cadbury recently brought back its iconic “How do you eat yours?” tagline after 20 years with an integrated campaign focused around the idea that you can learn everything you need to know about a person based on how they eat their Cadbury Creme Eggs. 

With the ad “Big Deal,” we learn that Heather likes to nibble her Creme Eggs while maintaining eye contact. As the ad continues, we discover how this defines Heather’s personality through a number of humorous scenarios in which she asserts dominance while continuing to eat her Creme Egg. 

An out-of-home campaign brought to life other examples of Creme Egg eating habits and what they tell us about the person. 

And all of this was centered around driving people to the online test to allow them to learn about what their approach says about themselves — allowing people to continue the conversation online. 

The whole campaign was a smart approach to bring the iconic tagline into the modern day while leveraging multiple channels.

That was a lot to take in, and of course all these tactics can’t be applied at once. To start, just remember: it’s critical to stand out to your consumer. Which is why it’s so important to bring them in early on. 

Professional comedians don’t come out on a big stage and riff about whatever they’re thinking about that day. They try out new jokes with smaller audiences over time to land on the best material told in the way that gets the most laughs. Then they take what they’ve learned to the big stage. 

The same applies to your advertising. The day your ad airs for the first time shouldn’t be the first time any consumer is seeing your ad. Consumers should be brought into the process early and often to help you pick your direction, shape your story and optimize the final campaign.

With a deep understanding of what works with consumers, you’ll be able to create advertising you can be confident in. You can create truly effective creative.