Visual Trends 2021: Paid Social Advertising From Top Brands

Before the pandemic hit the world, we, the digital marketers predicted 2020 will be the year most businesses will jump from traditional means of communication, design, marketing, and branding to digital means, especially social media.

As we have just entered 2021, the circumstances are as we foretold but we surely paid a hefty price. All ‘no’ thanks to coronavirus. While many local and international brands had to cease their operations and shut some of their stores, companies and organizations are taking full advantage of this drastic digital shift.

Let’s see how brands are using visuals to optimize their paid social advertising and what’s in Santa’s sack for next year.

Paid Social Advertising

As per Zenith Media forecasting, ad spending will recover globally by 5.8% in 2021 despite the wariness from worldwide coronavirus challenge and threat to the business community. It is estimated that digital advertising will continue to rise, and it will account for over 50% of the total advertising market by 2022.

The basic idea behind paid advertising on social media is to gain conversions that solidify into purchases. Unlike organic marketing that may have several non-monetary goals, the goal of paid social advertising is usually to increase sales of products and services.

According to Hubspot, paid social advertising is about marketing sponsored messages on well-known social media platforms by targeting a particular audience. With this in mind, results depend on clicks and impressions. Among the two, a click has the most potential to get translated into a lead or a sale.

While the communication medium, targeting the right audience, and copy content greatly matter in the success of a lucrative paid social post, visuals play a major role in attracting and retaining the attention of buyers.

The Prerequisite Of Visual Advertising

When you are advertising, it is essential to make sure branding is done right. By this, I mean that you must have your brand identity sorted so that consumers are well-aware of where the products and services are coming from.

For example, you have two packets of sugar. One has the name of the brand, and the other has no such information. According to several reads on consumer behavior, the psychology behind making a buying decision depends on knowing what one’s buying. In this case, a buyer will most probably pick the pack of sugar with a brand name on it.

The Creative Director of Haro Helpers, Brett Downes shares that “branding your social media is the top-notch strategy that creates a lasting impression on the audience.” He continues to explain that “Humans create a first impression in as little as 50 milliseconds, which isn’t enough time to read a piece of text.

Thus, branding your social media presence, above all, means building an attractive logo and cover page.” So according to Downes, before beginning the process of advertising, a business should have a professional logo that accompanies all the branding and marketing items of the company.

Visuals For Paid Social Posts

When it comes to using visuals for social media advertising, there are a number of forms available. The Young Entrepreneur Council shares a bunch of ways to use visual cues for kick-starting a buyer’s journey such as images, infographics, videos, memes, screenshots, and presentations.

This said, paid social advertising is more than just a list of all the possible visual aids. Each post is meticulously designed to deliver a message with a purpose and strategy at the back-end.

Let us explore the most used visuals on paid social posts.

Video For Paid Advertising

Moving images or as we popularly know them, videos have become an essential piece of the social media advertising puzzle. Art Director and Freelance Illustrator, Joshua Kemble shares, “video is an excellent promotional tool on social media”. For his illustrative book, Kemble used the design software Adobe After Effects to highlight visual graphic aspects of his print production into a trailer for the web and social platforms.

With Native videos for famous video-sharing websites like YouTube, brands are rolling out with barrels of information in just 12 seconds. Most brands try to squeeze the main features of their products or services before the “skip ad” button appears on the bottom right of videos. A leading social dashboard, Hootsuite suggests that in-stream adverts need to be watched by people for at least thirty seconds or clicked before any monetary transaction occurs from brands to platform and content creators.

But there are more ways of going about video advertising through social websites. Other ways include using hashtags to generate engagement through social media sites like Twitter. Head of Global Business Partners at Twitter, Stephanie Prager shared that the digital video advertising spend is projected to rise to approx. 25 billion in 2025, and thus “marketers must understand how to enable deeper connections between people and the things they love and care about.”

The SpotX report on Global Video Advertising Trends elucidates, “As people spend more time at home, consumer video viewing will continue to outpace expectation.” Many more stats prove that videos became a trend this year and will continue to do so.

This is why Randy VanderVaate of Funeral Funds shares they’ve been posting social ads on Facebook as an “effective lead generation strategy and to create brand awareness.” They “use video content that resonates with the target market: people aged between 50 and 85 to educate them the importance of life insurance by showing them what will happen if they do not get it.” Here is where the emotional appeal comes into the picture.

On Instagram, long-form IGTV videos also allow brands to run video adverts and share revenue with creators. In a brand’s omni-channel strategy online, TikTok has become a major place to advertise products and services for top brands like Nike, Budweiser, Burger King, Amazon, Lego, Coca-Cola, Snickers, Google, and Dove among many others.

Plus Points Of Video:

• In a short span of time, they grab attention and retain it.
• It is easier to remember a story through video than by text.
• If done right, video delivers messages much quicker than audio or text.
• Videos paired with music, effects, and a visualizer can enhance the customer experience.

Personalizing Visuals In Paid Ads

In simple words, to personalize anything means to make tailored designs towards individuals or a specific group of people. Personalization comes in handy when brands target visuals towards a demographic.

In marketing, personalized ads mean brands collect and visualize user activity data to hyper-target people using social media websites or surfing online. In design, personalizing ads is about trying to appeal to an audience from a particular locality or addressing a specific need. The trick is to use data to create visuals that entice users to click and place them at the right place and time.

Image source: thedrum.com

The key to personalization in paid visuals is to add a call-to-action with a befitting photograph or illustration that describes the problem or gives a solution. Adding a price or a discount offer is a good idea too. Even using some advertising appeals like social appeal, fear appeal, or humor appeal can give your ads a personal touch. Car brands like put in-image ads along with their automotive logos to promote year-end sales, for example.

Another way to personalize ads on social media is to humanize your designs using pets and people as brand ambassadors or for testimonials. Instead of just lifeless products, humanized photography adds character to paid social ads.

Plus Points Of Personalized Ads:

• Brands can connect with the target market on an emotional or intellectual level.
• Brands create and deliver relevant messages for potential buyers.
• It gives a sense of control to buyers rather than ordering them to do things.
• User-generated images paired with paid posts can turn leads to conversion.

Also Explore: Advertising Trends For Guaranteed Conversions

Creative Imagery For Paid Social

When it comes to image-based social media advertising, digital marketers can get as innovative and creative as they possibly can using the features of each social platform. Below is a list of all the ways top brands are optimizing images, poster designs, photographs, and illustrations to garner leads online.

Multiple image carousels help to display images of products like mobile applications with screenshots of how the app works, its main features, and step by step process. Such ads can be shared on Instagram and Facebook.

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Flat-lay photography is a way of placing products in an attractive layout to grab viewer attention. Facebook describes a few neat techniques for “simple and powerful photographs” for ads like having a single focal point or using high-res photos. Apart from this, you can create patterns using products or use the trendy knolling photography method.

Product stories are another great way to promote goods. For example, a beauty brand can showcase a list of product portraits with a “view now” or “buy now” or “view on website” button. These shoppable posts help product-based companies to display their catalogs to the online audience.

Plus Points Of Image-based Ads:

• Static images are versatile and fit for any platform.
• Images speak 1000 words and convey messages quicker.
• Images can be styled in many ways using trends and effects.
• Pictures help buyers visualize products a brand has to offer.

Synthetic Media Advertising

Just like synthetic leather, such a type of media is artificial and virtual. It contains visuals and designs powered by technology such as artificial intelligence, deep fakes, and generative adversarial networks.

Potential In Deepfake Commercials

In an article in The New York Times, media reporter Tiffany Hsu explains how the pandemic has altered the way brands produce advertisements. She highlights a commercial that ran during ESPN’s The Last Dance series in which the producers layered videos of anchor Kenny Mayne’s past and present face to produce a deep fake commercial.

While this technique is ethically questioned, brands and organizations are looking into the opportunities it offers, especially in times when the world is going through a shift in paradigm.

As long as deepfakes are harmless, transparent, and constructive, it is alright to merge two separate images or videos to create an illusion of a rather surreal reality. Brands like Spotify and Hulu have also experimented with deepfakes to create brand awareness or to share an inspiring story.

CGI Influencers Become Brand Ambassadors

Apart from this, computer-generated influencers like Shudu, Bermuda, and Miquela have become social media sensations. In a Calvin Klein commercial, @lilmiquela appeared making out with Bella Hadid.

Plus Points Of Synthetic Reality Ads:

• Creators have more control over the characters: moods and actions.
• Brands can take consumers to different “created” realities.
• Virtual technologies open new avenues for brands to explore and experiment.
• It’s easier to reshoot videos with avatars than to re-invite real people to model.

Visual paid social posts are here to stay, in fact, bloom in the coming years. With nature (literally) pushing us towards a completely digital age, brands and marketers are awaiting and prepping for when social media will overtake the marketplace fully. Until then, let us adapt to all the changes and be positive.

Good Luck for 2021!