How to Create a Great Brand Ad in 2025

In the fast-paced digital landscape of 2025, crafting a standout brand ad is more crucial, and more challenging, than ever. Consumers are inundated with content, making it essential for brands to produce brand advertisements that not only capture attention but also build lasting trust. This guide will walk you through the key steps to create impactful brand ads that resonate with your audience and drive meaningful results.

While direct response advertising focuses on immediate actions, such as clicks or conversions, brand advertising is about building trust, loyalty, and a long-term connection with your target audience. It’s less about pushing products and more about crafting a brand image that earns loyalty over time.

What Is a Brand Ad?

A brand ad is a marketing tool used to create emotional ties with your audience over time. It builds brand identity, establishes credibility, and ensures that when your audience is ready to buy, your brand is top of mind. Unlike performance marketing, which chases quick conversions, brand advertising focuses on long-term outcomes: recognition, customer loyalty, and brand image.

Goals of Brand Advertising

Brand advertising doesn’t just build awareness, it helps brands stay top-of-mind, influence purchasing decisions, and deepen long-term loyalty. The key goals include:

Increasing exposure: Keeping your brand visible in an overcrowded market.
Shaping perception: Reinforcing values, credibility, and authority.
Engaging your audience: Inviting interaction and fostering conversation.
Building long-term brand equity: Creating intangible value that supports growth, pricing power, and brand loyalty.

A strong brand ad aligns with your audience’s expectations while positioning your brand for long-term success.

Key Elements of a Great Brand Ad

While there’s no one-size-fits-all formula, most effective brand advertising campaigns share a few common traits:

Emotional appeal: People remember how your brand made them feel.
Strong storytelling: A compelling narrative draws viewers in and keeps them engaged.
Visual consistency: Repeating colours, fonts, and motifs builds recognition and reinforces brand identity.
Audience relevance: Great ads reflect the audience’s values, beliefs, and cultural context.
Clear message: A single, simple call to action can give the ad purpose without hard selling.

The best ads combine clarity, relevance, and emotion with a polished creative execution.

Step 1: Define the Story Behind Your Brand Ad

An effective brand ad tells a story that deeply resonates with your audience, whether by reflecting their experiences or inspiring them. The goal is to evoke emotions that forge a strong emotional connection between the viewer and your brand. Instead of relying on gimmicks that don’t retain engagement, focus on timeless storytelling elements that make your brand unforgettable.

How to Create Your Brand Story:

Begin by tapping into universal themes that mirror your audience’s lives or reflect aspirations they hold. Highlight relatable scenarios or showcase ideals that inspire. Emotional content, joy, hope, ambition, nostalgia, sticks.

Stay authentic. Clearly communicate what sets your product or service apart in a meaningful way. Let your message reflect your values, not just your value proposition.

Use the three-act structure:

Act 1 – Setup: Introduce the context and characters.
Act 2 – Confrontation: Present a challenge, desire, or tension.
Act 3 – Resolution: Show how your brand helps overcome or transform that situation.

By grounding your ad in this structure, you create a narrative that is both engaging and memorable.

Here is a great example of a simple ad that uses a clever three-act structure to keep viewers watching:

Step 2: Consider the Seven Basic Plots

People naturally connect with universal story patterns. By aligning your brand ad with one of these foundational plots, you can make your message more engaging and impactful:

Overcoming the Monster
Show how your brand helps consumers conquer significant challenges or adversities. This theme resonates with audiences facing obstacles and seeking solutions.
Rags to Riches
Highlight a transformation or success story that reflects your brand’s journey or that of your customers. Illustrate how your brand enables growth and prosperity.
The Quest
Depict a mission or pursuit that aligns with your brand’s goals, inspiring others to join you. This appeals to those who value ambition and adventure.
Voyage and Return
Illustrate growth through experiences, showcasing how your brand facilitates a journey that leads to personal development and a new perspective.
Comedy
Engage your audience with humour while conveying your message. A light-hearted approach can make your ad enjoyable and memorable.
Tragedy
Present cautionary tales that emphasise the importance of your brand’s solutions in avoiding negative outcomes. This can create a sense of urgency and importance.
Rebirth
Showcase the renewal or positive change your brand brings to consumers’ lives. Evoke feelings of hope and new beginnings.

By tapping into these timeless storytelling themes, your brand ad becomes more relatable and memorable, forging a stronger emotional connection with your audience.

Step 3: Research and Test Your Brand Ad Concepts

Before investing in production, validate your concept. This ensures your message aligns with your target audience and your goals.

At Story Machine, we collaborate with Luma Research, a leading firm specialising in ad testing and optimisation, to:

Evaluate Creative Performance: They provide insights into how your ad concept will perform with your target audience.
Recommend Optimisations: Based on their findings, they suggest adjustments to enhance effectiveness.
Ensure ROI: By testing before production, we help you invest wisely in ideas with the highest potential for success.

We use data to ensure every brand ad is built on insight, not assumption, maximising creative impact while minimising risk.

Understanding how your products and services resonate before production helps you make smarter investments with higher returns.

Step 4: Focus on Quality Over Quantity

Consumers today are flooded with disingenuous ads, generic claims, and low-effort content. To stand out, your brand advertising strategy needs to be rooted in quality.

Why Quality Matters:

Builds trust: High production values signal professionalism.
Differentiates your brand: Thoughtful execution separates you from low-effort competition.
Enhances engagement: Better visuals and storytelling boost watch time and recall.
Supports brand equity: Consistency and quality reinforce your long-term positioning.

Rather than saturating channels, a single well-made brand advertisement can generate stronger results and deeper brand loyalty.

Step 5: Leverage New Media Platforms Effectively

Choosing the right channels is essential to reaching the right people.

Key Platforms in 2025

YouTube: Advanced targeting with broad reach and strong ROI.
BVOD (7plus, 9Now, 10 Play): Premium placements with high attention value.
SVOD with ads (Netflix, Prime Video): Low clutter and high engagement.s.

These platforms offer cost-effective reach with advanced targeting and high completion rates, ideal for brand advertising campaigns aiming to increase exposure and build lasting impressions.

Advanced Strategies for Brand Advertising

As competition intensifies, innovative and responsive tactics are key to building an effective brand presence in 2025 and beyond.

Innovate Creatively

Use brainstorming workshops and creative sprints to generate bold campaign concepts. Brands that experiment with formats, interactive video, immersive storytelling, UGC collaborations, often see higher engagement and memorability.

Embrace a Multi-Channel Approach

Consumers rarely engage with your brand in a single place. By showing up consistently across platforms, TV, digital, social, out-of-home, you reinforce your message. According to recent studies, brands using multiple channels see up to 166% more engagement.

Leverage Real-Time Data

Monitoring live campaign performance allows for agile optimisation. Use tools like Google Analytics, Hotjar, or platform dashboards to track KPIs such as engagement rate, brand sentiment, and share of voice.

A/B Test and Learn

Test variations in tone, visuals, or even emotional framing to determine what best engages your audience. The ability to adapt mid-campaign is essential to maintaining relevance and increasing return on investment.

How to Measure the Success of a Brand Ad

Brand advertising may be long-term, but it can still be measured with clarity.

Reach and impressions: How many people saw your ad?
Engagement metrics: Shares, likes, comments, and interactions.
Brand recall: Use surveys to measure memory and association.
Sentiment analysis: What’s the tone of brand conversations online?
Branded search uplift: Spikes in searches for your brand can signal impact.

Tracking these KPIs ensures you’re not just creating awareness, but building relevance and value.

Who Should Invest in Brand Advertising?

Everyone with a brand. Whether you’re launching a new product or defending a market position, brand advertising provides strategic lift over time. It’s especially critical for:

Startups trying to break through
Enterprises reinforcing loyalty
Niche brands building trust
DTC and e-commerce businesses differentiating in cluttered feeds

If you’re committed to long-term growth, brand ads should be part of your marketing mix.

Recap: How to Make a Brand Ad That Works

Here’s a quick recap of how to create an impactful brand ad in 2025:

Define your brand story: Use emotional storytelling that reflects your values and your audience’s reality.
Leverage universal plots: Choose a classic narrative arc to structure your message.
Test your concept: Use research and feedback to ensure your ad hits the mark.
Invest in quality: High production values build credibility and trust.
Distribute smartly: Use the right platforms for your audience.
Optimise and innovate: Use real-time data and A/B testing to improve performance.
Measure success: Track brand awareness, sentiment, and long-term loyalty.

Follow these steps, and you’ll be well on your way to creating a brand advertisement that builds awareness and drives results.

Partner with Story Machine to Create Impactful Brand Ads

Creating a great brand ad is a complex process that requires expertise, creativity, and strategic planning. At Story Machine, we specialise in producing high-quality, authentic brand ads that resonate with your audience and drive results.

Why Choose Story Machine

Collaborative Approach: We work closely with you to understand your brand and objectives.
Expertise in Research: Our partnership with Luma Research ensures your ad concept is tested and optimised before production.
Proven Track Record: With over 800 projects completed, 14 industry awards, and 1.1 billion video views, we have a history of delivering exceptional results.

Take the Next Step Towards Creating Your Great Brand Ad

Don’t let your brand get lost in the noise. Let Story Machine help you craft an ad that stands out, builds trust, and drives meaningful engagement.

Ready to get started?

If you’re ready to discuss your next video project, reach out to us at Story Machine. We’re here to help you bring your vision to life with creative, high-impact videos that resonate with your audience.

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Ezra Auperle

Ezra Auperle is an award-winning producer who has been helping clients create high-quality video content since 2012. Known for his innovative use of technology and meticulous attention to detail, Ezra ensures that every project meets Story Machine’s high standards. Whether working with growing businesses or established companies, his passion for excellence and smooth production process ensure high quality videos are delivered on time and budget.

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