Finding Unicorn Ad Inspiration

Webinar Replay

June 14, 2023

Dara Denny

Performance Creative Strategist

Dara has spent 10,000 hours and $100 million in paid social ads in the last eight years. Holding deep expertise in performance marketing creative she advises some of the largest brands in the world and teaches her expertise to the masses through her youtube channel.

What you'll learn

Learn from the best on creating 'unicorn ads' – those rare, highly effective ad creatives that can significantly lower CPAs and drive business success. This session is a must-attend for marketers and creatives aiming to craft ads that not only capture attention but also convert.

Key Takeaways

Identifying Unicorn Ads
Extracting Creative Strategy Insights
Consumer Psychology in Advertising

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;23;07

Hey. Hey. How's it going? Pretty good. I'm pumped to be here. Yeah. Nice sweater. I like it. I know, right? Shout out. I had the choice between Daddy and baby, and I was like, Daddy, Daddy! All right. Okay, Awesome. Well, I know that anybody on the call doesn't know who DA is, but in the case of There is someone.

00;00;23;07 - 00;00;45;25

She's the senior director of performance created a thesis. You know, she does a lot of creative direction and creative strategy for for DTC brands. And she also makes the best creative strategy videos on YouTube by far. And so I will stop talking and let her take it away. Amazing. Thank you so much, Zach and everyone. I am super excited to be here.

00;00;45;25 - 00;01;13;26

Super excited to see you guys, we're going to have a really fun session today. It's going to be all about finding unicorn ad inspiration and we are going to be zooming in on unicorn ads, a.k.a. those winning ad creatives that crush and annihilate your rivals. These are mythical ad creatives that dominate ad accounts, slash CPAs and half and can even make or break an entire business.

00;01;13;28 - 00;01;38;20

So maybe you've come across one in your career and maybe you've created one evenly. Even so, I am going to show you today how to spot other brands, unicorn ads out in the wild so that you can ultimately make better ad creative for your brand. So let's go ahead and dive in. But first, I'm actually going to show you guys two ads.

00;01;38;22 - 00;01;59;18

I have two creators right here. One of them is a unicorn ad and the other is not. So I'm going to play both of them for you and I want you to decide which one you think is the unicorn ad and which one you think it's not. So I'm going to go ahead and play these. I know what you're thinking.

00;01;59;18 - 00;02;18;26

Who uses a female condom? That's exactly what I thought when I heard about the Z2. Here's why I decided to give it a try. Number one, the kind of allows me to be in control of my body. I'm in a relationship now, but I like that I can play sexy to you ahead of intercourse so my partner and I can be more spontaneous.

00;02;18;26 - 00;02;36;17

Number two, this kind of is $0 for people with most health insurances, so there's no harm in trying it out. My partner and I normally used in the condom, so we thought it'd be fun to give this a try. And three, it comes right to my door in an unmarked box protecting my privacy. So you have roommates or live with family?

00;02;36;18 - 00;03;01;22

No one's going to know what you're having. Know you click on this ad to learn more about Etsy two and to get your box of emails on them man, someone called me out. It is my voice. Yeah, but you know that doesn't, you know shouldn't affect any way that you're judging these. Let's watch B raise your hand if you're so over Happens every day.

00;03;01;24 - 00;03;23;00

I love this stuff. Actually. So does my boyfriend. You're putting on your health insurance. You can get this at no cost to you because it's covered contraceptives under the Affordable Care Act. All I have to do is fill out a quick online questionnaire for a doctor, for a prescription for condoms to write to my door, to your discovery, access to the hormone free birth control option, that is, use it when I need it.

00;03;23;00 - 00;03;40;08

So no need to remember. I think so. And notice you get a two in one protection against us guys. No other female contraceptive methods protects against guys. What if I can get you in one? I'm here for it yourself. A favor and give them a try. If you want to learn more, go to Africa on Skype and take charge today.

00;03;40;10 - 00;04;00;15

All right. I see. I see a lot of people saying be, I'm going to give you two more seconds to decide which one you think it is. Let's go ahead and reveal the results. Right. If you guessed A, it was the winner. And yes, that was my voiceover. As you can see, this one got tons of spend, even more purchases.

00;04;00;20 - 00;04;19;07

That hook rate was amazing. And I did throw in the click through rate right there because as you can see, the other ad has a better click through rate than the winning ad. It doesn't really matter because click through rate doesn't really matter. But but just so you know to be actually it's the up and coming ad right now in the ad account.

00;04;19;07 - 00;04;40;22

So this ad is they're both very, very good. So if you guessed B, you know, it doesn't really mean anything because they're both winners. So guys, I am so excited to be here today. A few of you know me, but in case you don't, my name is Da Danny. I'm a performance creative consultant and I've led agency Creative and Growth teams for the last five years.

00;04;40;24 - 00;05;06;12

I've had the pleasure of with several amazing brands on their creative and their creative strategy. And I also produce one YouTube video every single week. So you are here from YouTube. Please shout out in the chat. You guys are why I do everything and I always love seeing you around. I've also been in a number ads as evidence of the initial ad that we looked over.

00;05;06;17 - 00;05;25;04

One of these ads is actually a unicorn ad, but I'm not going to tell you which one it is. You guys can look at this presentation in afterwards and figure it out. So today, what you're going to learn, number one, what is a unicorn? Ad number two, I'm also going to show you how to find out other brands, unicorns.

00;05;25;11 - 00;05;45;24

And three, I'm also going to show you what I think was the birth of a unicorn ad recently. Really hard on this metaphor today. So let's go ahead and dive into the Anatomy of a Unicorn ad or what is a unicorn ad? Now, here is another ad that maybe a few of you have seen. This is a unicorn ad.

00;05;45;29 - 00;06;02;19

So I'm also going to play this ad for you. And rest assured, this is actually the last long video I'm going to have you guys watch. But I want to make sure that we're getting some interactions in the chat. And I want you to type in a chat and say why you think this is a unicorn ad, why you think this is a winning ad.

00;06;02;21 - 00;06;22;03

So I'm going to go ahead and play it. Wait, what? If you're anything like me, you can never find the gene that fits you just right. You run into this issue and I'm done with that. So that's why I switched to the perfect jeans. I actually ended up finding out that they're made with spandex and Ryan giving us men the free roam comfortability that we've always been looking for in our jeans.

00;06;22;05 - 00;06;54;28

One proof Keep watching. All right. So I see a few people type in and say in the hook right. So this is this is what a good creative strategist would say they would look at and say, it's UGC, It's really trendy. So it feels more relatable. It doesn't feel like an ad Excellent hook. I see a lot of you guys are jumping in there and saying, this is an excellent hook.

00;06;55;01 - 00;07;14;09

Maybe you also took a look at the rest of the ad and said, Hey, this whole great is dope. Maybe even, you know, good lighting, good framing, whatever. And they're using a problem solution. AD Right. We go to the beginning. Big package. What a problem right there. Presenting a solution to that problem. Now let's go a little bit deeper, right?

00;07;14;09 - 00;07;44;22

Because those things do not make a unicorn ad, right? So a great creative strategist would look at this and say hey, that hook was taboo, yet aspirational. Right? They're saying big package and almost by someone continuing watch that ad it's like consenting to saying yeah that's me I'm going to continue watching it. So they're bought in right? They're also looking at this creator and saying, hey, he's a good looking guy, but he's relatable and he's diverse.

00;07;44;22 - 00;08;10;18

So he is appealing to a wide range of people. Right. And also we also want to look at the strategic editing. Right. So let's take a look at this right here. Uncomfortable framing, right? Like, wow, that's very close. But what they do right after. Here is genius, that text movement. It's one of my favorite things I've seen recently in an ad and then boom product revealed the perfect Jane Right.

00;08;10;20 - 00;08;28;04

And then they did they did something that I thought was also really cool right about here. I'm not sure if you guys remember it, but right here the creator, the voiceover says you want proof. So that's like a pre CTA. So then it goes through and gives all proof of all the reasons why this is such a dope ad.

00;08;28;06 - 00;08;56;20

Now, there's one other factor in this ad that makes it a unicorn ad, but in fact it actually has nothing to do with the actual ad creative itself. What do you think that is? What element of this ad creative that is not actually the ad creative is making this the unicorn ad. The amount of social proof on this thing was intense, right?

00;08;56;27 - 00;09;23;20

So this build up tons of comments, tons of shares, tons of reactions. Right in. This leads me to my point. You as the growth person and you as the creator or the producer, you do not make unicorn ads. In fact, you cannot. The only person that can make unicorn ads are your users. They are the ones that decide which ad creatives are really going to go the extra mile.

00;09;23;23 - 00;09;44;00

You can do. You can do everything right. But if your users aren't signing up for it, it doesn't really matter. So now I want to talk about how to find unicorn ads out in the wild, right? Because if we can learn how to spot unicorn ads, then we're going to be able to learn to better create those type of ads for ourself.

00;09;44;04 - 00;10;01;23

So let's take a look at one of my favorite brands, Martin Bell. Now, one of the first things that you're going to do, trying to identify a unicorn is you're going to look for the ad creatives that have been running the longest. This is actually one of my favorite things about foreplay, is you can go ahead and see how long these ad creatives have been running.

00;10;01;25 - 00;10;20;28

So let's zoom in on one of these. Right. Let's zoom in on this one right here. The second thing you want to do, if you're trying identify a unicorn, means you want to see if those learnings are being replicated. So they had this ad that has been running since about December and they were like, wow, this format or this messaging is killing it.

00;10;21;00 - 00;10;40;25

So they wanted to iterate it and make it for their men's product. They wanted to make it for their men's khakis product. And then they also wanted to do it for White T's a completely different product. All of that signals to me, Hey, we might have a unicorn on our hands. They did the same thing with this other ad that's actually been running from my birthday, December 23rd.

00;10;40;25 - 00;11;00;15

So, you know, Capricorn Power. So they took a look at this and said, Hey, statistics really seem to be moving the here, let's try it for men. Let's try for a men's product. Let's try it again for another woman's product. Let's try it in a slightly different format. And of course it boils down to the secret sauce, right?

00;11;00;21 - 00;11;26;25

You do not create unicorn ads, your users do. I recently came across this unicorn ad by Jones Road Beauty had 6500 comments like, I don't think I've ever actually seen an ad that had that much social proof. But what's also a really great factor for, this specific ad, right, is they're going through it and doing whitelisting. That's also another factor that you have to consider is who is the best person to deliver this message?

00;11;26;27 - 00;11;44;16

Is it going to be is it going to be me, the brand, or is it going to be someone else like a creator? And remember, the only things that you really have control over when you're making your ad creative is is your number one, your format. So you're going to think, okay, how do I want to deliver this message?

00;11;44;16 - 00;12;14;14

Right? Do I want to do a features point out ad? Do I want to do a UGC ad Like there's a million different combinations of formats you can use, but also, what is that message that you want to deliver right? When might and Beau thinks about this right? Their thing, they if they see a format, they're going to really go down a bad way of trying several different iterations but they're not just thinking about the format and I find that a lot of brands and a lot of creative strategists get stuck in just replicating format.

00;12;14;16 - 00;12;32;20

But what makes Matt and Beau one of the great brands to watch is they'll also they also think about their messaging and be like, how else can we iterate this? Right? How else can we showcase this to multiple demographics, multiple different types of people, or also just meet people in a different way with that same messaging, which I think is awesome.

00;12;32;23 - 00;12;56;24

Now, hold on. Hold on to your chairs to this one, because this is kind of wild. The birth of a unicorn. I think I recently saw the birth of a unicorn ad recently I saw this ad and number one, I thought, damn, you know, that is a statement. In fact, when I first saw it, I saw that they were split testing for other different variants inside of for play.

00;12;56;27 - 00;13;16;26

But I didn't say the screenshot because I was like, you know, I'm just going to watch this line. It's probably nothing because in a way, when I saw it, I was like, you know, maybe it does have unicorn status. It's it's leaning into taboo advertising, right? But it's super absurd. But It's using product photography on a plain white background.

00;13;16;26 - 00;13;36;02

And that's not very compelling on page social. Or is it? But, you know, I'm looking at the other elements. they have social, right? I mean, even when I see this ad, it's like 3605 star reviews. Like, I don't even see that. I don't care. I guarantee who cares about the guarantee? I'm looking at the Virgin who thought they might be pregnant.

00;13;36;05 - 00;13;59;01

But, you know, I decided to watch. And over the next few weeks, what I saw was fascinating. Number one, they started leaning into different types of messaging, different types of value props they wanted to explore. They tried doing different types of backgrounds, different types of image graphics, right? And I was like, okay, something might have hit there with that original ad maybe.

00;13;59;03 - 00;14;24;23

But then I saw that they were replicating the exact same thing on their sister product. So hold up, let's go back. This brand is called Flo. They have a sister product name URL where they were going deep on the taboo advertising and deep on this specific type of format and messaging strategy. So, you know, the only way we could confirm this really, right, is by seeing the comments and seeing what's going on here.

00;14;24;26 - 00;14;49;27

However, I couldn't as hard as I tried, I couldn't actually get those ads to trigger. I know on my Instagram and my and my Facebook, but I did see this here from one of their sister, another one of their sister companies. I guess this is this like a portfolio company for supplements that continues to make ridiculous advertising. I kind of dig it 113 Nothing to write home about, but maybe I don't know.

00;14;49;27 - 00;15;08;06

What do you guys think? Do you think that this is a unicorn ad potentially chat section? Maybe. Anyways, guys, I had a super short presentation day. I just wanted to jam with you. What I'd like to do now is if you have any questions, let's get some questions in the chat so that we can have a little bit more of a discussion.

00;15;08;09 - 00;15;49;27

Okay. Thanks, everyone. Bye. there you. I can't hear you. All right, Sorry about that. There. Yeah, Thanks for. Thanks. Yeah, that was awesome. As always. I just let some of the questions kind of pile into the chat. I'm super here is just from my point of view. What would you say is like the thing that surprised you the most this year so far in terms of creative strategy?

00;15;49;27 - 00;16;10;18

Like, I think it all feels like creative charges on a rocket ship. So what's the thing that's like surprising you the most that you were like, I didn't see that coming. Yeah. Yeah. The the first thing is, you know, UGC is starting to die down a lot. I think that that was really the, the trend in like the creative strategy format of the moment.

00;16;10;25 - 00;16;34;03

And I was seeing a lot of people even like in the examples I showed like those are from over the last like six months plus like that's what a lot of people were spending a lot more time on. But it's actually more like the flow style ads that I see starting to work more and more. And I actually feel like this is kind of like an homage or a nod to like old school advertising that really focuses lot more on the messaging.

00;16;34;09 - 00;16;51;07

So as someone who works in creative and like, I don't even really consider myself much of a media buyer anymore. I'm a creative director. It's really cool to see, like, us have to dive in way more to consumer psychology, which is why Sarah's presentation was so amazing because I'm like, Yes, like those are the things that I'm thinking about.

00;16;51;07 - 00;17;16;28

I'm not thinking, how key? How do I test this creative in an ad account? It's a way more about consumer psychology and how to get that right messaging to the person at the right time. Yeah, I totally agree. I'm like a sucker for, like, old. Yeah, like that. So yeah, I also agree. We've got a question here from Joe asking if you have a different approach for making ads for info such coaching brands or offers.

00;17;17;00 - 00;17;43;17

Yeah so I mean it's all about the value you provide right and like especially for coaching and info products you have to be able to really clearly communicate your value and the transformation that your users are going to go through. So I honestly see that for like info based products and coaching products, like that's kind of like what I do as Dara, the creator, like not Dara that works at an agency.

00;17;43;22 - 00;18;09;15

And I'm going through this process right now where I'm making my own course and I find that like the creative strategies that I'm leaning into to meet people and to like, promote that product are like way more about speaking to their pain points and the potential transformation with that. But I will say, like to date I haven't done a ton of like coaching our info based products, but it is like a big thing that I see.

00;18;09;15 - 00;18;29;19

A lot of people want to see more examples from. So I do have a for play board actually for service based brands and B2B brands that I am totally willing to share after this after today. So we will share that in an with all of you. Okay. Awesome. And then for an ad account that's just starting off, how do you test, you know, different value props, marketing angles?

00;18;29;19 - 00;18;59;02

What does that kind of a brand new account? What's your kind of like? So I actually really love starting off with like for rapid format testing first because so something that I had a Facebook rep tell me recently is that the new hook rate is actually more like one second, which means that how your ad is physically showing up on Instagram or on Facebook that like they are making, they are taking that into account to see if they even want to watch or read like watch or read your ad.

00;18;59;04 - 00;19;34;04

So I would highly suggest doing format testing first. And then when you find a format that works much like modern bow, then start testing out different messaging props. And I think really the best way to know what value props and messaging to test first is to go through your reviews and really do lots of consumer research. I know Ella and Sarah were both talking about this a lot, but you really have to understand, like the pain points of your customers, the failed attempts that they've had to try to like, suit their pain and ultimately, like you want to position your transformation as that best transformation suite.

00;19;34;06 - 00;19;52;03

And then obviously, like a lot of the ads that you shared were kind of this like taboo with like a lot of clients may not might not want you to be going down that route. What's your do you have any tips for like pushing them in the direction that you want to go? Yeah, I mean, there are several different ways that you like.

00;19;52;09 - 00;20;13;22

Like I know some brands are a little anxious to try Tabu advertising because they think it's going to damage their brand and it's going to be blah, blah, blah. But there are many ways to try testing into more of the absurd without having to lean in to like the taboos of sex or the taboos of death. You can it could be a play on, you know, using bright colors.

00;20;13;22 - 00;20;35;29

It could be a play on like showing a mess and like doing some more different types of like, oddly satisfying hooks. I have a video about taboo advertising that shows some different ways that you can do this. I think a brand that used to do this well is cerebral. They were doing lots of really cool, engaging hooks at the beginning that didn't really have anything to do with Taboo.

00;20;36;05 - 00;20;52;11

So there are ways you can do that. But yeah, that's just the reality. A lot of brands aren't going to want to do that, but I do think the brands that well are the ones that are going to win and the ones that make unicorn ads. Okay, awesome. Well, that brings us to time, as always. You crushed it.

00;20;52;11 - 00;21;13;06

So thank you so much for taking the time. We're going to drop down Dara's links again just in the chat and I think should probably stick around for a bit. Just answer a few more questions in the chat and hopefully share her B2B for Flipboard and yes, thank you. Thank you for for taking the time. And we're going to hop into the agency panel next.

00;21;13;08 - 00;21;16;05

Absolutely. Thanks all Legan subscribe. Thank you.

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Finding Unicorn Ad Inspiration

Dara Denny

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