MW 216: Creative that stops the scroll

Getting your ad into someone’s feed is only the beginning. The harder task is giving them a reason to stop, recognise your brand and remember what you said.

Our latest Mediaworks Masterclass explored what makes creative effective in crowded feeds, and how AI, platform choice and production processes can work together to improve campaign impact.

One of the central themes was that producing more content does not automatically mean producing better advertising. AI makes creative variation easier, but the value depends on the ideas, brand assets and media planning behind it. The opportunity is to build a process that earns attention, creates recognition and turns interest into action.

You’re competing with everything in the feed

Your competitors are only part of the challenge. Every ad sits alongside entertainment, news, creators and conversations, all competing for the same moment of attention.

That makes an impression a starting point rather than evidence that your message has landed. An ad can appear on screen without someone noticing the brand, understanding the proposition or remembering either afterwards.

Creative needs to do three connected jobs:

• Capture attention by giving people a reason to stop scrolling.

• Build memory by making the brand recognisable and easier to recall.

• Prompt a response by making the next step clear and relevant.

A striking visual might achieve the first without delivering the other two. Effective creative connects the attention it earns to a brand and a message worth remembering.

Platform choice shapes the creative opportunity

The same asset will not work equally well everywhere. People move through a social feed differently from how they watch YouTube or connected TV, and those behaviours affect how much of your story they are likely to see.

The session explored this through attention elasticity: how much scope an environment gives creative to hold attention for longer.

In environments where attention is brief, prioritise immediate clarity, early branding and a proposition that is easy to understand. Where longer attention is possible, there is more room for storytelling, emotional engagement and sound.

This should influence both the campaign mix and the creative brief. Start with audience behaviour and the campaign objective, then decide which platforms and formats can support them. Resizing a finished asset for several placements does not address the differences in how people use those placements.

Make the first 1.5 seconds count

The opening needs to give people a reason to keep watching while making the brand visible.

That means briefing creative teams on what must land immediately. The audience should not have to reach the final frame to discover who the ad is for or why it matters.

Visual hierarchy helps establish that order. The main message needs to stand out, supporting information should be easy to follow, and the next step should be clear. Use the available space deliberately, with each element contributing to the message.

Movement can help attract attention, but it needs a purpose. An animated element, product demonstration or opening sequence should support the proposition and brand recognition.

A useful review question is whether someone who sees only the opening would take away anything meaningful about your brand.

Use AI to expand useful creative variation

AI can support work across planning, messaging, imagery, video, voiceover and campaign optimisation. Its value comes from applying it to tasks where it can increase useful output or reduce repetitive work.

That might mean adapting an approved concept for different audiences, exploring message variations or producing assets across multiple formats.

The strongest starting point is a clear strategy and an approved creative direction. Without those foundations, faster production can multiply generic content or introduce inconsistencies.

Human review remains essential, particularly around tone of voice, product details and visual accuracy. Build checks into the workflow at the stages where mistakes can be caught before they spread across an entire asset set.

Creative variation should also create learning. Give each version a purpose so performance can help explain which messages, openings or visual approaches deserve further investment.

Build recognition through distinctive brand assets

As production becomes faster, brand consistency needs to become more deliberate.

A logo is only one part of recognition. Colours, typography, graphic devices, imagery and recurring narrative elements can all help audiences connect an ad with the brand behind it.

The session highlighted the importance of defining these distinctive brand assets in enough detail for teams to use them across formats. A small number of examples in a brand guidelines document leaves too much open to interpretation when campaigns require dozens of executions.

Turn those assets into practical templates and show how they work in static, motion and video formats. This gives teams room to vary the message while maintaining a recognisable identity.

Storytelling matters too. Even a short ad can introduce a situation, show a benefit and provide a clear next step.

Connect media planning and creative production

Media planning and creative production need to inform each other throughout the campaign.

Audience insight should shape channel choice. Channel behaviour should shape the brief. The brief should define the required formats, messages and brand assets, with quality checks continuing as campaigns are built.

Production automation can make this more manageable. The masterclass demonstrated how templates and a messaging spreadsheet can support asset creation at scale through tools such as Figma Buzz.

That creates capacity to test more relevant variations, provided the templates, inputs and approval process are sound.

The efficiency gain should extend beyond producing assets quickly. A connected workflow helps teams use campaign results to decide what to develop, adapt or replace next.

Better creative starts with a better process

The session brought the opportunity back to three priorities: platform choice, creative variation and consistent brand execution.

Each depends on the others. A strong idea needs a suitable environment, automated production needs clear direction, and every variation needs to contribute to recognition.

Start by reviewing whether your campaigns make the brand count in the first 1.5 seconds, and whether you have enough meaningful creative variation to support testing and optimisation. Those questions can reveal where changes to planning, production or the creative itself could make the biggest difference.

Key takeaways

• An impression creates an opportunity. Creative must earn attention, build brand memory and make the next step clear.

• Platform and format choices should reflect audience behaviour and the attention needed to communicate your message.

• Make the first 1.5 seconds work harder through clear messaging, purposeful visuals and early branding.

• Use AI and automation to scale relevant creative variations, supported by human review.

• Build distinctive brand assets into templates and connect media planning, production and campaign learning.