Putting the 'social' back into social media

Putting people at the forefront of advertising is a more effective way for brands to outpace the competition. Ads combining creativity and empathy achieve 20% more sales. Yet, a lot of the social advertising we see isn’t very social, and ignores this critical growth catalyst. It’s time to ditch the social ads where the brand is delicately, and deliberately, placed front and centre and products shown in tight-framed pixel perfect glory, and put the “social” back into social media.

Brands have focused on beating the skip, or scroll. But with marketers projected to allocate 70% of media budgets to social by 2024, social ads increasingly need to do more to get people to view and click on content. They need to build brands in the longer-term. With such a high proportion of ad spend, social ads increasingly need to do more than to get people to view and click on content. They need to build brands in the longer-term.

So, how do brands make their social media spend work harder? Drawn from an analysis of over 1,000 social ads, Ipsos’ Social MISFITS analysis suggests that while optimising to the first second is important, creative, and empathetic experiences are significantly more important to achieve brand effects in the longer-term. We call this combination of creativity and empathy the MISFITS Mindset.

Discover more on how creativity and empathy can spark brand growth in this Ipsos Views POV.

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