Most brand marketers don’t suffer from a lack of content. They suffer from a lack of resonance.

The gap between making something and making something people care about is widening. These days, anyone with basic research functionality can stand up mediocre creative using AI, but not everyone can tell a great story that builds genuine connection between an audience and a brand – which is at the heart of performance branding.

Creativity in performance branding doesn’t get the same credit as media strategy or data attribution, but it’s the lever that quietly does most of the heavy lifting. If your ads aren’t converting, it may not be the audience. It might just be that the creative isn’t giving them a reason to care.

Here’s what we’ve found makes the difference.

Start with a Point of View, Not a Template

The best creative doesn’t always look “high-budget.” It doesn’t always have slick transitions or big visual metaphors. But it knows what it’s saying and who it’s talking to.

When I conceptualize creative, I look for the tension point. This might be the thing that’s a little too honest, a little strange, and/or something your audience has felt but maybe never seen reflected in a brand’s voice.

I love comedy and dry, odd moments because they stick. They make people pause. They invite curiosity. You want someone to see your ad and think, “Wait—who made this?” That reaction alone tells me we’ve done our job.

A WARC article revealed that using humor in advertising can be 6.1x more efficient at driving market share growth than neutral or dull ads. This shows how adding the element of humor into your creative strategy can increase your brand’s ROI along with your social media following. 

Hooking Isn’t a Gimmick—It’s a Responsibility

You’ve got maybe three seconds to earn attention. If you don’t lead with something that cracks through a user’s default state of numb scrolling, you’re done.

But here’s the thing: people aren’t hard to impress. They’re just tired of being manipulated. They’ve seen every carousel format and TikTok trend. What they haven’t seen is truth delivered without condescension.

I start with empathy, not tactics. Which leaves me to think: what’s a moment they’ve lived? A small annoyance, an intrusive thought, a petty little truth they’ve never admitted? That’s your “in” – you gain permission to make an impression by letting users know you understand their psyche.

A stat by Nielsen backs this up: emotionally resonant creative doesn’t just get noticed—it drives up to 23% higher ROI compared to work that doesn’t hit emotionally. People click when they feel seen, not when they feel targeted.

Good Creative Converts. Great Creative Gets Remembered and Converts

Most marketers believe that performance creative has to be dry, direct, or obvious to work. That’s not true. But what is true is this: the story has to serve the sale.

When I build creative with my team, we’re always mapping the emotional arc back to one question: What’s the problem, and how does this solve it? If we can’t answer that clearly, we’re not ready to ship.

Another thing we advise is to know how to best use your CTAs. It takes a balance between leaving enough ambiguity to intrigue your audience to ask, “Who is this brand?” while also being direct in your offering. With this, your ad shouldn’t leave viewers asking “so what now?”—it should finish the story.

AI Is Killing Creative

I’m not scared of AI, as I think there are smart ways to use AI to allow your creative teams to focus on the fun aspects of advertising that editors really want to do! However, it shouldn’t be treated as a shortcut or replacement for storytelling and the weirdness and taste that comes with it.

If anything, AI just makes it easier to tell which brands have no voice of their own.

That’s why I believe the future of brand creative will belong to the ones willing to be unique. The ones who say something only they could say. Who are willing to play with format, to take risks, to show actual personality.

What I Tell Every Brand We Work With

If you want creative that converts, start by making people care.

That means leading with a feeling and not a feature. Delivering a moment of truth, not just a CTA. This is about giving people a reason to remember you even if they don’t click the first time.

Performance branding is where art and ROI have to shake hands. And it’s only going to get harder to win in this space if you don’t start taking your creative seriously.

So no, I’m not here to push you on “more content.” I’m here to push you to make better content—messier, funnier, more self-aware. Something that doesn’t just perform, but lives.

Want to see how we use storytelling to drive performance? Let’s talk.

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