Hey! It's late so I'm just gonna get right into it. I've been thinking a lot about how ad creative is evolving rapidly. If you're active on X, you've probably seen 100 posts about Andromeda and creative similarity. And for good reason. Things are changing and changing quick. Here are a bunch of things I currently believe about ad creative right now and going into 2026. By the way, I had an error in my last newsletter. If you want to get the $5k Roku Ads Manager credit, use code GET5K here.
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1 . Variation and iteration testing is a big cost center and the majority of it is a waste of time. Meta is being very clear now about what it considers a unique ad. I was personally a bit shocked to learn that ads that I thought looked very different and communicated different things were considered the same ad/ entity ID in Meta. So if even seemingly larger changes are considered the same ad; all of those small variations like hooks, copy, etc seem mostly pointless. We've gone from 4-5 variations of each ad to 2-3, and often we make no variations. And when we do iterate now, we only find success on a pretty significant swing. Usually it entails taking the same messaging and finding new ways to say and show it.
2. The editor era is over. The creator era is here. It used to be that the most valuable person on a performance creative team as a great video editor. A great editor could go into a library; find a bunch of footage, and make a bunch of banger ads from it. There is still a bit of value in this approach,but I think much less so. Today the value is in diversified content, and you can only get so far with the same footage. You need volume, diversity, and creativty and that is what creators get you. People are engaging with creators way more than brands on social, and you can only get so much out of editing. We need net new, social first content across a wide variety of personas, demographics, and messaging and that is a near impossible thing to do with just brand led footage or production. Creators are the solution here.
3. Speaking of creators, you know I am a huge fan of partnership ads. As much as people are talking about them and testing them, its still underrated. But they are only one type of creator asset; I do think you can work with creators for non-partnership ads and should have a creator strategy from your brand page. But I think almost everybody should be investing in partnership ads.
4. DR UGC is dying. I think the super scripted, cheesy direct response ads that a lot of the big name agencies produce is past it's heyday and that is a good thing. Consumers are numb to it, it is doing nothing for brand consideration, and it's no longer as effective. UGC started because it was super effective; but somehow it's become super produced, with strict scripts, still edits, round of edits by comittie, and endless iterations. We've lost the plot.
5. I think a bunch of teams across organic and paid social are behind. They're stil trying to curate pretty IG feeds for followers. That era is over. TikTok is everywhere, and everywhere is TikTok. What I mean by that is every platform has a short form, algorithmically generated feed where followers don't matter. Engagement is all that matters, and if people engage with content it will be shown to more people like them. This is true across organic and paid. I think we will continue to see less difference between good organic and paid content. Both need to be top of funnel, hyper personalized, and give users a reason to share it with others.
6. More teams should have creators on staff. I think it would be a significantly better investment to have 2 full time creators on staff pumping out TikToks/Reels/Ads for 40 hours a week than most UGC agencies. I am testing this right now in some smaller capacities, but I'm likely going to do this.
7. More brands should hire creators as creative strategists. Ridge does this and it's really smart. I think it's easier to teach someone selling and data than it is so teach an ad person good content. I also want to do this. I think it would be a good idea to hire a creator in that audience cohort as the strategist for it.
8. I think we'll see more success with more produced content. I think the typical DR UGC agency is in the middle; too produced/edited to be authentic but too janky to invoke trust. You either want to go high and produce your stuff; or go low and make it super raw and unedited. BTW, I'm on the hunt for a good video agency who can shoot on DSLRs or fancier but also gets performance. If you know of any, hit me up.
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Have a great Halloween if you have kids!