To make your ad effective, you should know how to reach potential customers and incite them to use your products or services. There is not one single rule that can help serve the purpose of an ad. Instead, the more factors you try to incorporate into your ad, the better the chances are that you will be able to make a successful ad.

Recently, my experience of watching display ads has been tiresome. There were two reasons behind it: First, the ads didn’t grab my attention, and second, I got annoyed as they were covering the content of the websites. I tried to dig deep into it to find the possible reasons that make an ad work. After analyzing most of the factors or aspects of an ad, I could hardly find any ad that includes all the essential components. Most of the key elements were missing from ads which resulted in making them boring and flop.

However, I didn’t lose hope and ended up finding an ad that contains most of the essential elements, if not all, to analyze how those factors help it achieve its goal by grabbing the attention of the audience.

Here is the ad I am talking about:

Now I’ll talk about different elements separately to show you how this ad incorporates most of them.

Here are those key elements mentioned in detail:

Consistency

When it comes to advertising, one of the most essential factors is “Consistency”. A brand should remain consistent throughout its advertising campaigns to ensure that each ad it runs on different platforms of the Internet is similar. Most brands tend to undermine the importance of associating their ads with their brand value. In an attempt to stand out from their contemporaries, they try to use entirely different designs or themes in their ads. But the fact is that the audience develops trust automatically for those brands which show consistency in their ads and it further leads to an increase in brand reliability.

Alignment with Mission or Goal

The ads must also align with the mission statement or goal of the company. When it comes to Nike, its mission statement is “To Bring Inspiration and Innovation to Every Athlete”. The ads it creates from time to time are not only consistent in theme, color, and design but also adhere to its mission statement.

Here is another Nike ad for reference that reflects the same mission and goal as the previous one. With every different product it launches, it reinforces its tagline “Just Do It” to inspire every athlete out there.

Induce Emotions

One of the best elements you can find in Nike’s ads is that it induces emotions in its potential customers. It aims to provoke a particular feeling to make its products more relatable and meaningful for its customers. It has presented a narrative of a hero to the world who overcomes every challenge and hardship of his life. “Just Do It” is the tagline to encourage people that they can do anything even if others keep telling them that “They Can’t”.

Surprise

It is also important to keep the “Surprise” element in your ad. Nike is one of those few brands that keeps surprising its customers through different and unique product launches, offers, deals, or discounts. This ad is also one of the greatest examples as it offers a new service “NikeID” to its customers to allow them to design and personalize products, especially footwear according to their specific needs or preferences. However, most brands end up shocking their customers instead of surprising them. It might cause an increase in the viewership but that would further lead to a lower conversion rate in the end.

Targeted Audience

If you want your ad to be effective, try targeting it to a specific audience. This way, you can also tailor the content of your ad according to that audience. Both the ‘copy’ and ‘creative’ of the ad should be designed to attract that specific audience. Nike has set an example for a lot of smaller brands and companies that it is always beneficial to have a specific target audience. It mostly addresses athletes in its ads and even if it doesn’t clearly say it out, it has established through its previous ads that it is trying to appeal to a specific type of individual or audience.

Ethics

A lot of marketers start giving misleading information to their customers to get immediate attention from them. However, you must realize your responsibility as a marketer or advertiser. The ad you create should be ethical and clean as it will contribute to the image and value of the brand. To date, Nike hasn’t created or published any unethical ad for short-term gain. It sticks to its ethics as a brand that always proves to be beneficial for them in the long run.

Clear yet Compelling

The copy and content of the ad should be clear yet compelling. The advertisers usually forget that they have very little space to occupy on the screen. It is always better to keep the text shorter and the image clearer. In Nike’s ads, you can see that the text is always to the point.

In the above example of the ad, the text is “Customize Your Nike Free with NikeID”. It is quite straightforward and explains the purpose of the ad clearly. At the same time, it doesn’t overload the ad. Moreover, the image of blue shoes is also standing out in the contrasting white background.