Why you should prioritize generation-specific creative

If you feel like you’re not getting the most out of your audience targeting, you may need to rethink how you’re leveraging your creative with different audiences on different platforms. 

Every channel requires a unique style of creative, and I’m not talking about simply knowing when to use text, photos and videos. There seems to be a generational divide in the type of quality that audiences respond to, and brands that keep this in mind when designing their creative will ultimately get better results.

Boomer business is booming -- act accordingly

As of earlier this year, 70 percent of baby boomers who use the internet used YouTube, followed by Facebook (68 percent). Surprisingly, few brands actively target older generations even though they typically have the most spending power. Many businesses, particularly direct-to-consumer (DTC) businesses, treat their older demographics as an afterthought, blasting them with the same creative they use for younger demographics. 

This blunder is further exacerbated when you think of how much more spending power baby boomers have than other generations. At this point, they’re either at the peak of their careers or retiring with a ton of discretionary income. 

You could argue that this generation also stands to appreciate the luxuries provided by social media the most. They’ve gone their entire lives needing to go to physical stores to purchase products. They’ve also consumed advertising at a much slower pace during commercial breaks on TV or magazine advertisements. 

Social media completely changes the paradigm. Not only is this demographic going to be exposed to a wide variety of new products from the comfort of their computers, smartphones or tablets, but the advertisements are also going to be better catered to their interests. 

However, many brands are dropping the ball. We see it all the time. A brand finds out that a significant portion of its sales are coming from boomers, so it increases its ad spend. However, it still shows them the same creative designed for a more general audience. For example, it’s somewhat of a rarity to see lifestyle creative with older users who have gray hair. 

High-fidelity creative tends to perform the best for older folks. This generation often attributes the quality of a product more with the quality of the advertisement than younger generations, which have a tendency to prefer more organic, scrappier content. 

The boomer demographic has an average of 4.6 social media accounts, which means you’re also going to need a more fine-tuned understanding of how they interact with ads on various platforms. 

Millennials and Gen Z love organic

Avocados aren’t the only organic thing we’re stereotyped to crave. 

Millennials and Generation Z are distinctly different from baby boomers in that they were essentially born with both feet immersed in social media. This generation tends to have a much more intimate relationship with social because it plays a more important role in their daily existence. 

The very fabric of a millennial or Gen Zer’s social life has been altered by platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter and TikTok. These generations nurture their social connections and are exposed to massively popular topics of discussion. 

These generations typically view a blatant advertisement in their social watering holes as an unwelcome nuisance unless it’s genuinely interesting. This is why creative that appears to be more organic often performs better. 

Brands that are able to find the perfect balance in low-fidelity creative that simultaneously elicits an action will get more out of their creative.

Videos that look like they’re shot on an iPhone, selfie testimonials, people using the product, humanized and personal copy, and whatever you can think of that naturally fits in a social media feed will usually perform better than high-fidelity creative. 

Final thoughts

Your creative should be finely tuned to your audience and demographic if you want to develop successful, sustainable campaigns. Blanket statements can be very inefficient, and big brands are learning this the hard way.

For example, a brand may spend a huge chunk of its marketing budget on developing a single series of high-quality creative, and then feel inclined to blast that out to every demographic and audience. Sure, it might work, but it won’t be taking advantage of one of digital marketing’s greatest advantages: the ability to target highly specific audiences with unique messages. 

The more catered something is, the better it will convert. Make sure your creative doesn’t fall off your priority list when putting together your marketing campaigns.