3 Questions With Amanda Sousa
Amanda Sousa, Design Team Lead
Amanda is Gupta Media's Design Team Lead. With a decade of experience across different pieces of the industry, she oversees Gupta's creative relationships & output, while also ensuring that our media teams have assets that are informed by data and research, optimized to perform. The future of creative is in flux as people re-emerge from their homes, and businesses and consumers alike start to dip their toes into the metaverse to see what Web3 really has to offer. We asked Amanda what she thinks it will take to succeed as we immerse ourselves in the future of creative.
--
Many of the assets your team builds are served to audiences as a performance media product. How do you make sure that creativity doesn't get lost in creative effectiveness?
Amanda: First and foremost we follow the data. We know it’s recommended that ad creative should be refreshed as frequently as every week, which is why we work with brands to build a framework of ads that are easily and frequently refreshed on a regular basis. Of course we adhere to each brand’s established style guide, staying true to their established look and feel. The creativity comes in by finding new ways to tell the brand’s story (through fresh messaging, eye-catching visuals, and innovative ways of using the ad space). Consistently refreshing creative helps to avoid audience ad fatigue. You have to think about both the long game and the short game. Small, frequent changes to creative in the short term, and larger, more substantial changes planned out on a quarterly and annual basis.
Out of Home has experienced a renaissance over the past two years. Is this a trend, or here to stay...and why?
Amanda: OOH is absolutely here to stay! There was a period of time early in the pandemic where we thought OOH would become dormant for a period of time. To our surprise, it was the complete opposite. Getting out into the physical world has become more and more important to people that have been stuck in quarantine since the start of the pandemic - making physical OOH advertising even more valuable to brands trying to market to a population yearning for real-world experiences.
This renaissance has given creatives an opportunity to get back to the drawing board and rethink OOH advertising. Anamorphic and AR animations have become an incredibly popular and effective way of engaging people that typically wouldn’t give a digital billboard a second glance. QR codes have also made a huge comeback. Basically any OOH marketing tactic that gets people to interact with the ad is guaranteed to grab people’s attention (and sometimes even the opportunity to go viral!) Digital OOH spaces also give marketers the ability to respond to a news headline in a matter of minutes (vs. the slower response-time of traditional printed OOH ad spaces). Suffice to say, OOH is still a remarkably effective marketing tool.
There is a lot of talk about virtual worlds and the metaverse right now. What should creatives keep in mind as they begin to engage the hordes of early adopters hanging out in virtual worlds?
Amanda: While the metaverse is rapidly growing, we are still trying to figure out exactly how people will use it. How do we, as creative marketers best use this avant-garde space? It’s important to keep in mind that while this virtual medium may be new, the principles of marketing are still the same. Keep your brand’s voice consistent and strong across all platforms, but explore innovative ways of using the new medium to tell your story. Stay abreast of the emerging trends as advertising expands into the metaverse and always be ready to take a leap of faith when the timing and circumstances are right. The winners in this space won’t just watch and learn, but will be willing to jump in, test, analyze, refine and test again.
