Why Creative Is Still the Biggest Performance Lever and How to Win Peak Season 2025

The Three Pillars of High-Performing Ad Creative

But it’s not enough to just throw budget at the problem, you have to deliver the right creative. We’ve identified three essential elements that separate breakthrough creative from forgettable content:

1. Product Focus
Ditch static product shots that disappear into the feed. Show your product solving real problems, in relatable moments, with clear value. Demonstration over decoration.

2. Stand-Out Visuals
In an endless scroll environment, attention is currency. Use dynamic video techniques, bold framing, or clean static layouts that demand pause. Standing out isn’t optional.

3. Platform Nativity
Create for the environment your ad lives in. Understand how your brand should authentically show up on Reels versus Feed, using both high-fidelity and lo-fi content where appropriate. UGC isn’t always the answer native-feel is.

Building a Performance-First Content Pipeline

We’ve developed a proven system that transforms creative from guesswork into a scalable, performance-driven engine.

1. Know Your Audience
Go beyond broad demographics. Build persona groups and uncover their motivations, pain points, and purchase triggers.

Example:

A fitness supplement should pitch “instant energy for your packed schedule” to time-poor parents, while promising “optimised pre-workout performance” to gym enthusiasts.

Same product. Different message. Better results.

2. Define Your Angles

What problem does your product solve? What makes it different?

Use reviews, FAQs, and customer feedback to uncover real, emotional purchase drivers. Let those insights guide your message, not assumptions.

3. Plan How You’ll Tell That Story

Once you’ve locked personas and angles, build a mix of creative concepts that land your message effectively:

• Unboxings to build anticipation
• Brand stories to humanise your business
• Customer testimonials to build trust
• Product demonstrations for clarity
• “Us vs Them” comparisons to position advantage
• Lo-fi meme content for scroll-stopping authenticity
• Behind-the-scenes content to build connection

4. Build a Systematic Creative Strategy

Map personas against messaging angles to generate a strategic pipeline of diverse concepts. This avoids random one-off content drops and creates a clear framework for testing, optimising, and scaling what works.

Content Volume and Diversity: Your Secret Weapon

Creative diversity is essential for paid social performance. We recommend running 20-50 ads per Advantage+ Shopping campaign. Why? It gives Meta’s algorithm more opportunities to find the right person at the right time with the right message — while keeping ad fatigue at bay.

To keep momentum through peak season:

• Maintain a 60/40 split between new concepts and iterations each month
• Continuously refresh formats, hooks, and angles
• Monitor for early signs of performance decay and rotate proactively

Case in point:

When working with Symprove, a gut health supplement, we ran a strategic two-day shoot with four models across two locations. Each concept spoke to distinct audience segments while building a versatile content bank. The result? Sustained performance, new customer growth, and preserved cost-efficiency.

Full case study here.

Peak Season Creative Strategy: Move Beyond the Discount

Most brands lean too hard on offer-only messaging during sales periods. It’s a mistake. Smart peak season strategy balances promotional urgency with brand education and product benefits.

Three essential rules:

1. Sell the Product, Not Just the Price
   New customers need to understand why your product is worth buying, not just that it’s on sale.
2. Maintain Creative Variety
   Don’t switch everything to a generic sale template. Keep testing diverse hooks, visuals, and angles to protect performance.
3. Keep BAU Ads Running
   Not every audience responds to sales messaging. Your consistent top-performers should stay live alongside promotional content.

Real-World Results: Brand Examples

HelloFresh shifted from generic offer ads to layered messaging that combined product benefits and social proof resulting in major performance uplifts.

Free Soul transformed their strategy by replacing single-concept ads with multiple formats: reviews, comparisons, and benefit-led messaging. The result? Fresher creative, better engagement, and stronger returns.

Five Best Practices for Creative Success

Based on what we’ve seen work repeatedly:

1. Balance High-Fi and Lo-Fi
   Test with affordable UGC, then scale successful concepts into higher-production content.
2. Scale Thoughtfully
   On lower budgets, prioritise two distinctly different concepts over ten near-identical variants.
3. Premium UGC for Premium Brands
   Lo-fi doesn’t mean low quality. Slow pacing, minimal talking heads, and clean overlays preserve brand feel while staying native to platform.
4. Curate the Right Creators
   Micro-influencers in niche communities often outperform generic advocates. Prioritise creators with content skills, not just audience size.
5. Balance Iteration with Innovation
   Refining what works is smart. Inventing new concepts based on learnings is smarter — and where big performance lifts come from.

Your Competitive Advantage Starts Now

As we head into peak season, your creative strategy will be your biggest performance lever. Prioritise product-first messaging, maintain relentless creative variety, and plan with strategic intent and you’ll outperform brands still clinging to last year’s tactics.

Because great creative isn’t just about aesthetics, it’s about communicating value, solving problems, and connecting with the right audience, in the right way, at the right time.

Nail that, and you’ll win peak season before it even starts.