Great marketing means respecting the audience you have and the audiences you want. Because no one likes being marketed to—that’s just a simple fact.
Another fact: marketing makes the world go round; nobody can purchase products and services they don’t know about. The job of marketers, then, becomes to thread needles: how do you both get the necessary word out while valuing your audience’s intelligence and time?
At MarketSmiths, we think just as much about what not to do in marketing as what to do, if not more. Here’s one such observation:
“Lo-fi” video ads stink.
I watch a lot of YouTube. That means I watch a lot of ads on YouTube; most YouTube creators monetize their content through sponsored ad breaks.
Lately, YouTube has taken to serving me a particular ad for Bumble, the women-driven dating app, wherein a young man being filmed stares into a phone camera and, in his coldest, most deadpan delivery, says: “Download the Bumble app today,” then kind of shrugs. In another ad I’m often served for men’s skin care brand Tiege Hanley, a shirtless man stands in a random corner of his house staring into a stationary camera and screams, “Guys! Girls notice your skin, it’s literally the first thing they notice about you! So you have to make sure it’s on point!” He’s followed by a compilation of others similarly staring into their phones and webcams all repeating, “Tiege.”
Another ad for mental health platform BetterHelp features a man sitting on a couch interspersed with shaky phone shots of script-relevant objects found throughout his house. As he discusses the product he’s selling, the video leverages common YouTuber editing techniques like fade wipes and quick zooms on his face timed to the man listing things out.
We can’t link to these ads here—on platforms like Instagram and TikTok, direct links to sponsored ad posts do not work, and as the name implies, YouTube pre- and mid-roll ads are only surfaced to users before and during the video-watching experience (as long as you don’t have AdBlock turned on).
To experience an ad like those described above for yourself, watch this Tiege Hanley Instagram video that features all the hallmarks of the ads I described: the audio is listenable, the picture is perfectly viewable, but it’s all low quality; more like an actor wishing someone happy birthday on Cameo or hastily recording an apology video than the film crew productions typical of big-budget ads.
From a purely content-oriented perspective, the core message being communicated doesn’t necessarily differ from ones you’ve likely seen on television for decades—think of any ad featuring a person wistfully speaking into a camera about the bliss felt (and deeper connections with friends and family forged) all from taking some new over-the-counter pill.
But in their presentation, these lo-fi video ads leave a ton to be desired. Far worse, they poorly represent the associated brands—and can risk making the brands themselves seem cheap, careless, or both.
Because lo-fi video ads lack impact.
At first blush, the thinking behind this lo-fi approach makes sense: most marketing presents an idealized version of a product that doesn’t match how people would actually engage with it. So if your product is good, why not depict using it in the way people actually will?
In part, that approach means leaving in rough visual and audio presentation edges. After all, people don’t live in glossy film sets strewn with searing-hot lights and thousand-dollar boom mics—they live in rooms that aren’t lit to make a TV commercial look good and aren’t properly sound treated, hence all the glares, echoes, and the like that make this hobbyist video editor’s skin crawl.
But this utilitarian marketing approach misses the point of marketing entirely: to communicate the feeling of what’s being marketed, rather than solely its practicality. Because while information can…well, inform us, it’s often not enough to drive a decision. You may know a vertical computer monitor would improve your workflow or a better insulating HVAC system would make home life more comfortable, but if you don’t feel those things—if the absence of something better doesn’t gnaw at you—you won’t feel inclined to make the purchase.
Put another way, nothing will ever compare to actually driving that foreign car, or eating that deluxe brownie, or relieving chronic back pain. Why then simply portray those things through a realistic lens when you could instead tap into an aspiration or flight of fancy?
Lo-fi video ads lack ambition—so they can’t inspire action.
These ads—and especially their short lengths and hasty deployment as frankly irritating YouTube pre-rolls—lack that fundamental punch marketers of every medium look for that leaves audiences abuzz.
Take Beyoncé’s recent Verizon ad. Debuting at the Super Bowl, this ad featured the illustrious musician parodying her own penchant for “breaking the Internet” through public-facing stunts, each more elaborate and expensive than the last, proving that her star outweighs even Verizon’s robust 5G network. For each beat, Arrested Development and Veep star Tony Hale checks his phone to confirm whether Verizon’s network held firm, and each and every time it still works, much to Bey’s chagrin.
At the end, rocketing around outer space in a literal spaceship, she declares, “Okay, they ready, drop the new music!” and the ad ends, leaving the audience on an ambiguous note as to whether her last-ditch effort successfully conquered Verizon’s network. This coincided with real-life Beyoncé surprise-releasing two new, real singles and announcing a new non-Verizon-sponsored album.
It’s an incredibly striking, memorable, and “meta” way to announce anything, much less the highly anticipated new album from one of the most famous people in the world, one that got people talking—increasingly hard to do in today’s content-surplus world—and which may well have driven more than a handful of new Verizon contract signups.
Obviously, not every ad needs to do this exact thing in this exact way. And yes, anything starring Beyoncé is going to turn heads—I’m not saying any old brand could ever pull off something remotely resembling this. But what’s the hurt in trying, in aspiring to something bigger even if the final product isn’t necessarily as glitzy as Beyoncé in space?
Imagine if Beyoncé had instead announced her new album by speaking into her phone on the way to pick up her kids from school, or at the gym in sporting wear, or in line at the DMV. It still would have driven album preorders—again, she’s Beyoncé—but it wouldn’t have been an event, something that cultural and advertisement historians will go on to contextualize as: there was life before that ad, and now there’s life after.
High-effort ads always beat lo-fi ads—period.
By their very nature, lo-fi video ads lack that special spark that separates any old ad from something real, something with an ineffable yet no less propulsive drive to make you care about what’s being sold. Something more than just additional grist for the content mills, a firm, conclusive statement that says: you don’t just want this thing, you need this thing, and here’s why.
Conversely, the Bumble ad didn’t make me want to improve my dating prospects by downloading their app, the Tiege Hanley ad didn’t make me want to refresh my skin care routine with their products, and the BetterHelp ad didn’t make me want to improve my mental health through their platform. If anything, what drive I had to do those things was diminished, because if the company doesn’t care enough to put effort into advertising their products, why should I care?
Of course, going forward, I’m sure I’ll be served many more lo-fi video ads across YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and the like. And I’ll watch them all, not just because I’m an ad watcher in general, but because I’m open to having my mind changed. I don’t think the format will ever drive me like an intensely thought out and lavishly produced ad can, but I’d like to see someone try.
Until then, if you need a team of presentation- and detail-obsessed copywriters to make your next marketing beat sing like Beyoncé, look no further than MarketSmiths. Get in touch today to learn what we can write for your brand!
