What Does Failure Look Like For Single Image Advertising?
Taking a closer look at the ad creatives as seen on Facebook Ads Library, I found some companies with prominent use of single image ads that failed to catch up with their rivals’ success.
Single image ads are static images appearing as only one unit of image per ad. Unlike carousel display ads which make use multiple images per ad, or video ads which make use of audio and visual senses, or GIF ads which utilizes animations to appear lively, single image ads rely on making impressions quickly at first glance, by playing around with color contrasts, minimal use of text and a clean overall look without complicated elements.
In other words, ad creatives using single image ads must be quick to impress. Failure to do so will render your brand being squashed by competing brands with better performing ad creatives.
Let’s take a closer look at how failures look like.
- Skin treatment brands: Good Molecules vs The Ordinary
- Good Molecules had been around since 2018 on Shopify (based on web archive), but it has only been picked up as trendy starting early 2021.
- The Ordinary had been around since 2017 and the webpage had been busy since 2018 onwards.
- It’s obvious from the Google Trends data above as to who’s running at the top for the last few years; The Ordinary seems to be winning the race, whilst Good Molecules is catching up from behind, but slowly.
- Both skin treatment brands are currently active in their Facebook promotions.
- The Ordinary has managed to maintain its clean look consistently, with minimal colors enabling the bold, black texts to stand out, enhancing its message clarity.
- Meanwhile, Good Molecules failed to highlight which section is the most prominent. Despite the fact that the color contrasts shown are good, and texts are readable, the multiple striking colors triggered cognitive overload.
- Feeding the first ad image from Good Molecules to this free color extractor tool, here’s what we’ll get:
- Doing the same for The Ordinary:
As you can see, the clever use of non-prominent colors in such a way that doesn’t take away the appeal from the main colors has kept the ‘quick to impress’ philosophy of static image ads intact.
Instead of leaving the audience with ..
‘OK, so what’s the message I can take with me?’
.. the audience’s brain was instead left with two long-lasting impressions: the brand name itself and the different items available in the product set.
2. Chair manufacturers: Secretlab vs Herman Miller
- According to its website, Secretlab has been around since 2014, while Herman Miller has been around since the early 20th century (108 years to be exact).
- Despite Secretlab being relatively new, its almost a decade worth of experience specializing as a gaming chair manufacturer was enough to propel the company forward to compete with a more generalist furniture manufacturer like Herman Miller.
- As depicted in the Google Trends graph above, Secretlab’s search demand correlates strongly with that of Herman Miller. However, at least for the US market, the former still can’t outrival the latter in the past 5 years.
- Both brands are currently active in their Facebook promotions.
- Looking at the ad creatives per se (without analyzing the ad copies), Herman Miller focuses on the benefits of using its chairs, except for the second image where it focuses on financial cost for the buyers. Meanwhile, Secretlab does it the other way around.
- Whilst there isn’t data available to pick which tactics best fit the customers, if I am their marketers, I would do some customer avatar research first and foremost.
- Whilst the color palette of Secretlab works fine (and the same goes for Herman Miller), the issue seems to be around the amount of text in the ad creatives. It would be better off for the footer text to be incorporated into the ad copy instead, so that the static image doesn’t carry mixed messages. As it stands now, there are 2 themes of message embedded in the visuals; one is regarding the pop-up store and the other is regarding price.
- In other words, similar to the case of Good Molecules above, failure to understand the importance of getting a simple message across though quick impressions might be the factor that’s holding back the company from its full potential.
Takeaways:
- Companies wanting to make prominent use of static image ads should not take this ad format lightly.
- Just because static image ads are seen by some as the simplest version of ad formats after text-only ads, it doesn’t mean that it comes without a challenge.
- The challenge for static image ads is to provide a long-lasting impression quickly. That means the message needs to come across as easy to remember, and the overall design is kept minimal and clean.
