Blog

Banner Ads, Display Advertising

What is a banner ad creator?

Papirfly
4 minutes read

Marketers are used to adapting to new technology and speedy marketing trends – It’s comes with the job. Nevertheless, that does not mean that it’s easy. On the contrary, the fast changes surrounding the Martech development forces us to create and publish more. If it was one format and multiple channels we wouldn’t have to stress. But the reality is different.

Banner adverting is one of many tasks’ marketers need to take into consideration. Although this type of advertising has not been for everyone, we are becoming increasingly digitalized and who’s to say what the future holds? Will print still have a place in the future of advertising?

Create banners ads that stand out and avoid blockers

Digital ads turn up everywhere when you’re scrolling the internet. Whether you’re reading an article in your local newspaper, professional articles, shopping or searching. With increased banner ads, came ad blockers. In 2019, roughly 25.8% of internet users were blocking advertising on their connected devices. Does this mean you should give up? Absolutely not, blockers are used because the audience is tired of intrusive, bad ads with irrelevant messages. 83% actually wish they could just filter the ads they don’t want to see instead of blocking everything. In other words, they are welcoming display ads as long as they are of value to them.

Design smart, elegant and target relevant banner ads

You need to avoid ad blockers. And from the looks of it, the way forward is beautiful and relevant designs. Another important element in digital ads is personalization. This is not a new concept in consumers vs. sellers. Think about the times you go to the store and personnel asks if you need help. They do so to provide you with personal assistance based on your needs. Personal display ads have the same objective; to provide you with personal assistance. Zalando is a great example on how they try to connect with people on a more human level.

The question is, do you have the skills and insight to do this on your own, or do you need expert help?

Also read: How to create dynamic display ads that count

Say hello to a banner ad creator

With a banner ad creator tool, you don’t need to be a skilled UX designer or have any programmatic knowledge. Because a resourceful banner ad creator will do the job for you.

Now, it’s recommended to use a designer for the actual design and layout. Once that’s in place, you’ll create ad templates based on the design. After that, anyone can design beautiful and unique display ads with a few simple steps. It doesn’t matter what format, platform, or channel you need to create banner ads for. This is all handled by the banner ad creator.

And when changes are due, you’ll be able to update your ads in real-time without worrying about different formats, asset optimization or hiring help from a skilled designer. You are completely self-serviced.

Benefits of a banner ad creator

  • You’ll be in control of your ads in any channel or platform from one single place.
  • Agency costs are reduced as you can solve changes on your own.
  • Marketing efficiency will increase as you will have one place for maintenance, updates, and publishing.
  • Brand consistency is secured. One single source of truth ensures your ads look the same everywhere.
  • One platform, multiple outputs. Designing banner ads is time-consuming because of all the different formats. With an ad creator this issue is eliminated.
  • Personalization and audience relevancy is neatly handled by the tool.
  • Avoid wasting ad money. The beauty of digital ads is the ability to see your performance in real-time and optimize when necessary.

Also read: Key benefits of display advertising software

Why should you avoid free ad creator tools?

There are plenty of free ad creators or platform specific tools (Google Ads, LinkedIn, Instagram ++) available and it’s easy to think that this will be good enough. However, there are some downsides you need to be aware of:

  • Is your brand image respected? Free tools usually don’t offer customization which makes it hard to design display ads that are on-brand. Fonts, buttons, logo placement, colors and more is based on fixed standards. Creating that unique and beautiful look becomes impossible.
  • Are you able to optimize your brand assets for all ad formats? Display ads are not “one size fits all”. When creating ads, you have to optimize each format individually to secure optimized designs. Controlling this with free tools are difficult.
  • Can you publish directly from the ad tool? If you use Google Ads, the ads you create will only apply to Google and its network. If you use LinkedIn, your ads will only be published in LinkedIn and so on. This is tedious and time-consuming. And don’t even get us started on the maintenance…
  • Can you change the ads in real-time? Ad relevancy is important, and changes are bound to happen. How do you secure ad relevancy if you have created your tools in a free creator, or used platform specific tools?  

If you’re still hesitant if you need to invest time and resources in banner advertising, you’re probably not alone. There are still many companies that are serving a more traditional audience and print isn’t dead just yet. Regardless, Millennials are turning 40 and Generation Z is about to start their working life. Will they use printed media? Or should you consider investing in technology that keeps your brand visible and valid for the next generation as well?

Brand management, Brand strategy, Branding processes

How to make your brand stand out?

Papirfly
5 minutes read

A brand is your company’s most valuable asset, it’s the asset that attracts attention and when done correctly, it’s what establishes loyalty and engagement. When you master your brand, your business will grow. 

Branding would be easy if there was no competition, but of course unrealistic. Most brands and companies must work hard to get their markets attention, securing a growing customer base and loyal customers. So, what are the factors that will give your brand the outstanding edge? Logo colours? Images? Tone-of-voice? Or your choice of marketing channels?

What’s unique about your brand, why should the consumers choose your brand over your competitor? How do you make sure your brand stands out from the crowd?

There is no simple answer to this, it’s a bit more complex. Before you can build a stunning brand that stands out, you need to know how to communicate your brand, you need to know your audience and you need to know your competition. Let’s take it step by step.

1. Know your competition

One part of brand building is to separate your brand from your competitors. To do that you need to know who you are up against. Who are your competitors, what are their unique selling points and advantages? What marketing channels and to whom do they reach out?

There are a ton of questions to ask and answer, but your competitor analysis is an essential part when you’re going to find your brands identity and finding the gap where your brand can shine.

2. Identify your audience

Without customers you can’t succeed. So, you need to attract them. How? First of all, you need to understand their needs and their buyer journey. Who is your target audience and how do you communicate with them? What channels do they engage with and what are their buying triggers? Why is your brand relevant to them?

Just like a competitor analysis, a customer analysis is just as important. There’s simply no point in communicating your brand before you know what language to speak.

3. Define your positioning statement

Now that you know your competitors and your audience, identify what elements and features that differentiate your brand from the others and how you can take advantage of this to build an unique brand identity that fills the gap in the market.

The key here is to recognize the distinctiveness of your brand, but of course it needs to be appealing for your audience as well. Ask yourself what will make the audience choose our brand over your competitors? Spend some time on this one. It will set the grounds for your next steps in building a brand identity that stands out.

Also read: What part does your brand play in your company? 

Before you start shaping your brand’s identity, investigate market trends that will impact your choices. For example, authenticity is a fairly new concept pushed forward by Millenials, is this also something you have to deliver upon? Trust is another important factor. In other words, you can’t get away with b…shit. Your brand needs to be authentic, reliable, and transparent if you’re going to have any chance of getting noticed. 

Your brand image is not enough by itself. The employees also play a crucial role in making your brand stand out. For example, your customer service representatives have a significant role as they interact with customers and potential new ones on a regular basis. For 73% of consumers the customer experience is an important factor in their purchasing decision.

Also read: Who do you need on your team when building your brand? 

5. Build your brand identity

For many marketers this is the fun part. This is the creative part where your brand comes to life. But let’s not forget that your brand will be your company’s most valuable asset, so as fun as it may be, this is also a crucial step in creating a stunning brand. As you are shaping the life of your brand, you’re also shaping how you want your customers to perceive you. Now thinking back on your audience, it’s a good idea to ensure that the way you want to be perceived lines up with what your audience cares about. If you don’t, you will be shooting blanks.

When shaping your brand’s identity, test different variations of your brand. Dare to be different and evaluate reactions and perceptions. Use focus groups for an external audit, but don’t forget your company and colleagues. Sales and customer service also know your target audience, and you can get valuable insight that could impact how you should shape the identity of your brand.

Also read: 7 steps on how to manage your brand

Elements you need to include in your brand identity are: 

  • Logo: This is your brand’s ID – your fingerprint and passport. Your logo represents your company, your offerings, your employees and more. 
  • Tagline: The short and memorable description that communicates your brand message. This is the element that alongside your brand name, needs to tell your audience in a few words, what you are offering.
  • Colour palette: The power and symbolism of colours is complex. You don’t have to be a colour expert, as luckily you can find information online for this. Nevertheless, do some research to define a colour palette that fits with how you want your brand to be perceived. Never forget that colour symbolism can be very different, and can carry different weight in different countries. And so if your brand intends to have a very wide international profile, you should take this into consideration.
  • Typography: Just like colours, fonts also have a significant purpose when shaping your brand’s identity. Make sure you choose the font that along with your colour palette shapes your intended brand identity. 
  • Brand assets: Illustrations, icons and imagery are visuals that really count when it comes to your brand’s identity. This is where your designers have to create that edge that differentiates your visual brand from the competitors.
  • Tone of voice: How do you want to communicate with your target audience? This can’t be random. You need to carefully choose your voice based on your target audience and how you want to be perceived. 

When the above is defined and neatly put together, you have your brand’s identity.

Make your brand stand out

The expression “one does not exclude the other” complies with brand building. It’s a process and it takes time. Most importantly, you can’t ever take your eye off the ball. Your audience will change, the market trends will change, and you need to make sure your brand changes with them. 

To make your brand stand out, you need to pay attention and preferably stay in front of your competitors 24/7. Yeap, managing a brand is hard work, luckily there are tools available that can help ease your brand management burdens significantly.  

Also read: What you need to establish proper branding processes

Create a home for your brand

What good does any of it do, if all of the above ends up in a drawer, never to be looked at again? If no one knows how to communicate your brand or apply your brand correctly, the harder it will be to manage your brand building with ease. 

Remember that branding is not a job for marketing alone, you need everyone in your company to move in the same direction if you’re going to have any success with your brand building. 

At this point you should look into a brand management platform and how that can help you establish a brand that stands out. 

  • Collect everything about your brand in one single place
  • Make your brand usable and self-serviced
  • Keep your brand relevant and updated

Also read: Where does your brand live? 

Brand management

Where does your brand live?

Karl-Fredrik Lund
3 minutes read

Is it sensible to buy a boat without first thinking about a berth? The answer is an obvious “no”.


Yet many companies invest millions in rebranding or marketing campaigns without thinking about how to manage and care for them.

The summer months we have just left behind will probably go into our collective memory as the “stay at home” summer. Sales of leisure boats, among other things, are said to have exploded, and along the coast, there have at least been plenty of examples of clearly new captains where the pride in the new boat surpasses the knowledge of navigation and seaworthiness.

I recently thought about this in a conversation with a customer. They had invested several million in a new profile, followed by a rebranding campaign because their agency had said: «OK, this is the new you. But where will the brand live?”

Continue reading “Where does your brand live?”

Is it sensible to buy a boat without first thinking about a berth? The answer is an obvious “no”.


Yet many companies invest millions in rebranding or marketing campaigns without thinking about how to manage and care for them.

The summer months we have just left behind will probably go into our collective memory as the “stay at home” summer. Sales of leisure boats, among other things, are said to have exploded, and along the coast, there have at least been plenty of examples of clearly new captains where the pride in the new boat surpasses the knowledge of navigation and seaworthiness.

I recently thought about this in a conversation with a customer. They had invested several million in a new profile, followed by a rebranding campaign because their agency had said: «OK, this is the new you. But where will the brand live?”

Continue reading “Where does your brand live?”

Is it sensible to buy a boat without first thinking about a berth? The answer is an obvious “no”.


Yet many companies invest millions in rebranding or marketing campaigns without thinking about how to manage and care for them.

The summer months we have just left behind will probably go into our collective memory as the “stay at home” summer. Sales of leisure boats, among other things, are said to have exploded, and along the coast, there have at least been plenty of examples of clearly new captains where the pride in the new boat surpasses the knowledge of navigation and seaworthiness.

I recently thought about this in a conversation with a customer. They had invested several million in a new profile, followed by a rebranding campaign because their agency had said: «OK, this is the new you. But where will the brand live?”

Continue reading “Where does your brand live?”

Employer brand

Why empowering employees makes great business sense

Papirfly
4 minutes read

Feeling empowered and being empowered gives us a great deal of confidence, and a sense of purpose and value in our careers. What can be difficult though, is transferring empowerment into something tangible.

Because empowerment might mean different things for different employees, or take a range of steps to initiate, it can also be hard for senior management to justify the time and expense this may take to action. However, the benefits of empowering employees often far outweigh that of the investment.

Particularly in today’s climate, employees are feeling uncertain in their roles. Having absolute empowerment starts with some basic steps and can progress with further nurturing, all of which we will explore in this article.

Knowing the role, understanding expectations 

If you asked your team to write down an exhaustive list of their responsibilities and duties, could they do it? Often when we progress in a role we end up taking on more and more until the lines become blurred.

Having a definitive job description, including who to report to for what, from day one will help your team know exactly what they should be doing, avoid confusion and give your employees the confidence to deliver. If a role evolves, ensure your employees get updated digital job descriptions to ensure absolute clarity. 

Allowing for growth through mistakes  

Though mistakes in the workplace can cause a lot of additional pressure, stress and tension, it’s the way in which they’re dealt with that determines whether they can help or hinder an organisation. If training and CPD have been lax, you will have to expect mistakes to happen at one point or another.

What’s important is that, once identified, a de-brief takes place. From this debrief you can create a plan of action, or introduce a new process to prevent this from occurring again. In doing so, you tighten processes, and your team members learn a valuable lesson. Your team also gets used to the debriefing sessions, and could use this method to problem solve with their own workload. 

Providing the opportunity to upskill 

When an employee’s knowledge becomes stale or outdated, it can leave your company exposed to a substandard pool of information, and greatly misrepresent what your brand signifies. There are a few ways you can ensure people stay developed:

  • Provide a training allowance for online courses, books and other materials
  • Introduce regular CPD sessions, either individually or for whole teams
  • Encourage self-development hours once or twice a month, they can use this time freely to explore subjects they feel will help them with their career and put together a short slide deck or document in order to share with others 

Investing in an employee’s development is good for business whichever way you look at it. For example, the employee feels they are valued and progressing their career, and your organisation benefits from a new skill. The only negative in the financial commitment is if somebody leaves, they take this skill with them. Ensure that any person bringing these new skills into the business are documenting any new processes or knowledge so this can be used for training further down the line.

Likewise, if you’re going to make a considerable financial investment (such as for a degree), ensure there are terms surrounding this – for example the employee would have to pay back the cost of the qualification if they leave within a certain amount of years. 

Investing in tools and processes that streamline 

Work smarter, not harder. An employee shouldn’t need to be constantly running around stressed to showcase how hard they work. Aside from stress having a negative impact on workplace culture and general happiness, things that can make life easier for employees will make them more productive and free up time from monotonous tasks for more strategic or creative thinking.

What you get…

Giving people the ability to make decisions means they are accountable 

With responsibility comes accountability. When an employee is empowered to make decisions for themselves, they understand that the pressure falls on their shoulders, and will usually do all they can to avoid any failures. 

Quicker problem solving 

When the right individuals have their positions elevated, they feel more confident to make contributions to higher-level conversations.  

Better job satisfaction 

When people feel they are trusted and their opinions are valued, they generally have a better experience in the workplace and a more positive perception. Those that are happy may evangelise to others, either through word of mouth or through advocacy on social media. This helps strengthen your employer brand and recruiting prospects.  

More stringent processes, less room for error 

Giving someone a new responsibility or training is usually coupled with new processes, systems or tools. This means looking at an area of a business that may have been previously unexplored, and provides an opportunity to tighten the workflows within an organisation. 

Employees are more aligned with the organisation’s goals

Being empowered in the workplace makes people feel more emotionally invested in a company. When they feel part of the conversation and valued as a colleague, they are buying into the brand, the business and the ethos the company holds. 

Empowering employees doesn’t mean giving inflated responsibility for the sake of it. It’s much more about identifying opportunities to enhance the working lives of promising team members. 

By doing this, in turn you create a much more rewarding place to work and a more efficient, streamlined workforce. 

Global brands across the world are empowering employees by giving them the freedom to create through BAM by Papirfly™. The all-in-one brand activation management tool gives teams the ability to: 

  • Create an infinite amount of assets to support your marketing and with easy-to-use design software. Give employees complete autonomy to create professional brochures, videos, emails, social media assets and more without any design skills needed.  
  • Adapt campaign materials, text and imagery for use in markets across the globe in just minutes.
  • Organise, filter and store every campaign asset in your collection. Logos, fonts, imagery, videos and more can be found, downloaded, shared and modified by teams across the world.
  • Share and distribute guidelines, training videos company-wide to keep everyone on the same page. 

Find out more about BAM today or get in touch for a demo with one of our expert team.

Corporate

How to create dynamic display ads that count

Papirfly
6 minutes read

You can have the best display ad media strategy in the world but if the creative around it is underwhelming, you’re not going to see the results you hoped for. The best ideas stand out from the barrage of other ads individuals see each day. They use humour, emotional appeal, and functional messaging to leave a lasting impression on those who see them while browsing online.

How to make your display ad stand out from the crowd

One part of brand building is to separate your brand from your competitors. To do that you need to know who you are up against. Who are your competitors, what are their u

Creating ads that generate results requires a combination of powerful copy and visuals. Eye-catching ads are essential for keeping up and being noticed in a sea of online ads. In this article, we’ll explore how to make your promotions stand out.

Before you start creating copy, you must have a clear goal in mind for your display ad campaign. You might use your display ads to meet a variety of goals:

  • Generate more leads
  • Increase subscriptions
  • Highlight special offers for your products or services
  • Build brand awareness
  • Share updates and new offerings

Consider the action you wish readers to take, and use this to help select the words and visuals of your ads to connect with the relevant audience demographics.

It’s also important to consider the platform your ads will appear on. Since you can create display ads on several platforms, place them where they have the highest potential of engaging your target audience to get the highest return on your investment.

For example, in social media advertising you will find that younger customers are often found on platforms like TikTok and Instagram, while more mature audiences can be found on Twitter and Facebook.

5 useful creative tips to boost your ad performance and ROI

1. Use compelling visuals

Each display ad example in this article uses interesting visuals. The images are simple and tell the story with minimal complexity, making it easy for the viewer to understand what’s going on instantly, which is important when they might be scrolling through feeds or pages in a hurry.

Colour is a critical factor to convey mood and personality, so choose carefully. Warm colours like red, orange, and yellow generally convey a sense of energy and enthusiasm. Blues and purples more often connote poise, wisdom, and stability. Green, of course, makes people think of action and growth. Select your colours based on the immediate impression you want to give a potential customer.

2. Write copy engaging copy

Before you start shaping your brand’s identity, investigate market trends that will

Once you’ve chosen your display ad campaign’s goals and visuals, you’ll need to consider the copy itself. When you create ad copy, it’s crucial that you understand your audience. How they speak is especially important – tone and style matter – the copy must resonate with your audience.

People won’t read lengthy ad texts online. Long paragraphs will turn them off. Keep it short and punchy so viewers can take in everything straight away. You might find it helpful to write a few versions and A/B test them to see which works best.

3. Use humour where appropriate

People love laughing, and humour is one of the best ways to connect with your target audience. Don’t be afraid to go a little left-field with your visuals and copy. The payoff can be huge if you get it right. Just ensure that it feels authentic to your brand, respectful, and acknowledges a common experience they’ll recognise.

4. Solve the audience’s problem

Most consumers have learned to zone out ads that don’t help them solve a problem. If your ad provides something of value and tells the reader useful information, they are more likely to actually see it.

The key to a great ad is to remember that everyone has problems – your message has to instantly address and solve it. A creative brief should always have a clear problem that the consumer has, and a clear solution that the product/service provides. You have a problem. We have thea solution.

5. Include a clear call-to-action

Be direct in telling your audience what you want them to do next, and do it in such a way that grabs their attention. Whether it’s “Buy Now” or “Claim Your Offer,” using a strong action verb directs your audience to the next step.

A good way to make this desired action distinct is to use a contrasting colour that grabs your audience’s attention and stands out from the rest of the ad visually. As long as it still aligns with your overall visual identity, this can be useful in securing clicks, shares or other types of engagement.

3 examples of great display ads

The North Face

The North Face doesn’t just produce everyday winter coats, and this piece of collateral has done an excellent job of conveying this fact by creating an effective brand awareness campaign using a visually captivating story coupled with strong ad copy.

Why it’s effective:

  • Strong colours and relevant images.
  • The pictures and text tell a captivating story that’s hard to ignore.
  • This ad sends a memorable message about The North Face brand.

Microsoft

Microsoft’s Azure platform competes in one of the most competitive IT markets – enterprise cloud app development. This ad takes the typical “free trial” offer to a new level by giving their readers full control over the length of the trial period. The call-to-action delivers real value and solves a problem, instantly making this ad more click-worthy.

Why it’s effective:

  • Bright blue and contrasting white colours demand attention.
  • A unique and compelling free trial offer that stands out.
  • The clear and simple call-to-action button tells you exactly what you get.

Semrush

Semrush’s attractive promise to solve your biggest business problem in seconds is hard to resist. Even if their audience scrolls by, that enticing offer will echo in their heads and help further collateral stand out when they encounter another piece of Semrush collateral down the road.

Why it’s effective:

  • Bright contrasting colours and rich media helps this ad stand out on the page.
  • The ad promises very specific and attractive results.
  • “Competitors’ top products and offers” is a captivating result for business owners.

Create dynamic display ads efficiently with smart templates

Whatever your marketing message, you need to get it out in the world quickly in order to retain relevance and context. The ability to change graphics, layouts, frames, text, transitions and more, all without compromising on style or quality, can be a huge asset for brand consistency in the fast-paced world of marketing.

What’s more, building, previewing and publishing visuals from one central place can also help accelerate the efficiency and speed of content creation.

BAM by Papirfly™ allows all of this and more, enabling marketing teams to produce digital ads faster so you can take advantage of opportunities when they emerge, rather than lose precious hours, days and weeks on designs, proofs and revisions.

Give your teams worldwide the ability to maintain consistency across your digital display assets, customising offers and incentives whenever demand arises. Produce marketing materials in a simpler, more cost-effective way, and increase the volume and frequency of collateral to gain a competitive edge in the increasingly crowded landscape of digital advertising.

Everything your team needs in a single online portal. BAM provides the freedom to create consistent print and digital display ads without agency support – and a lot more:

  • A single brand portal for all the latest documents, information, fonts and guides.
  • Adjust permission levels to restrict who can use which assets.
  • Keep your brand consistent and accessible for everyone – wherever they are in the world.
  • Build on your asset collection as new creations are made.

Discover the power of our smart templates and the wider possibilities of BAM by booking your free personalised demo.

Table of contents:

  1. How to make your display ad stand out from the crowd
  2. 5 useful tips to boost your ad performance and ROI
  3. 3 examples of great display ads
  4. Create dynamic display ads efficiently with smart templates

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Brand management, Brand strategy

How to manage a brand? You need brand management.

Papirfly
5 minutes read

In marketing, brand management is an extensive field of expertise and a full-time job. Nonetheless, it’s not uncommon that marketers have to combine lead generation, communication, content creation, website administration and social media with building a strong, long-lasting brand. If you’re one of those who manages to do this with success, then hats off to you.

Luckily, many of the abovementioned tasks are digitalized and thus easier to carry out and manage. Let’s look at how you can also digitize and automate how you manage your brand through proper digital marketing tools

1. Centralize your brand

Your brand consists of multiple elements and rules. Your brand’s personality, it’s voice and appearance along with a ton of brand assets outline your brand.

Continue reading “How to manage a brand? You need brand management.”

In marketing, brand management is an extensive field of expertise and a full-time job. Nonetheless, it’s not uncommon that marketers have to combine lead generation, communication, content creation, website administration and social media with building a strong, long-lasting brand. If you’re one of those who manages to do this with success, then hats off to you.

Luckily, many of the abovementioned tasks are digitalized and thus easier to carry out and manage. Let’s look at how you can also digitize and automate how you manage your brand through proper digital marketing tools

1. Centralize your brand

Your brand consists of multiple elements and rules. Your brand’s personality, it’s voice and appearance along with a ton of brand assets outline your brand.

Continue reading “How to manage a brand? You need brand management.”

In marketing, brand management is an extensive field of expertise and a full-time job. Nonetheless, it’s not uncommon that marketers have to combine lead generation, communication, content creation, website administration and social media with building a strong, long-lasting brand. If you’re one of those who manages to do this with success, then hats off to you.

Luckily, many of the abovementioned tasks are digitalized and thus easier to carry out and manage. Let’s look at how you can also digitize and automate how you manage your brand through proper digital marketing tools

1. Centralize your brand

Your brand consists of multiple elements and rules. Your brand’s personality, it’s voice and appearance along with a ton of brand assets outline your brand.

Continue reading “How to manage a brand? You need brand management.”

Branding templates, Template Technology

How Template Studio keeps your brand consistent

Papirfly
3 minutes read

There are many factors that have an impact on your company’s success. Branding is one of them. Your brand is your company’s identity, it’s what separates you from your competitors and helps you stand out from the crowd. That is… If you have managed to establish a strong and memorable brand.

The question is, how do you get there? First and foremost, you need to establish brand consistency. Easier said than done when less than 10% of B2B companies state that they are consistent across all marketing channels… Obviously, brand consistency does not happen by chance!

That’s why you need a proper platform to help you out. With Template Studio, you get a self-serviced approach to keep your design on-brand at all times.

The marketing tool that secures brand consistency

Branding is a task the entire company must embrace; every employee and department needs to understand and know how to communicate and use your brand. To simplify it, without uniform brand management you risk incorrect brand communication and brand dilution. And you don’t have to be Einstein to realize that this will damage your brand value.

Also read: How online layout design templates protect your brand identity

Template Studio saves your life and your brand

As a marketer, you probably have a long list of requests in your mailbox for brand asset changes. Whether it is a format change, file type request, translation changes, contact changes, image change or other localization adjustments, it is a task you must respond to. 

Unless you have Template Studio. This tool allows marketers to create the perfect creative template suite for the entire company, completely self-serviced and always on-brand.

How Template Studio secures brand consistency

If you have the resources and capacity to respond to all the asset changes on-time you are a star. If you don’t have the time, don’t worry, you’re not the only one. The digital marketing space puts strains on marketing departments all over; being present in a range of different platforms that demands attention and continuous nurturing makes it hard to keep up. In 2020, Martech found 8000 digital tools available. How many of these 8000 do you have to present your brand in: Websites, social media, advertising tools, email communication, sales tools and more?

Template Studio takes it down a notch and allows you to achieve brand consistency through a few simple steps:

  • You control your brand from one single source and your designs are always professional looking and updated.
  • The template technology makes sure your designs stay the same regardless of the creator. Responsive technology and content control always keep you in control of your brand image.
  • The online editor accepts a wide range of templates to be created. This secures a unified brand look across numerous platforms and channels.
Solutions_Design_Templates_04_Templates

Also read: How to automate document creation and stay brand consistent

Valuable template capabilities you should be aware of:

  • Template Studio transforms standard Adobe Indesign or Illustrator files into digital brand templates.
  • The technology is easy to use, and anyone can be a designer without any software know-how or design skills.
  • Brand assets are always updated and on-brand when digitalized. When you make changes to your designs or have new brand assets, just publish new digital templates to the studio and voila. Or update your existing ones.
  • The studio provides flexible brand control as you decide what can and can’t be changed. Each template can be modified to suit your company as well as the creator’s needs to ensure your designs are always on-brand.
  • File output is carefully controlled and allows you to prepare your files for multiple channels and platforms. One template = multiple formats.

Also read: Why marketers need digital brand templates

Template Studio keeps your brand management balanced

Apart from keeping your brand consistent, Template Studio also provides other benefits. When you establish self-serviced branding templates you no longer need to worry about your mailbox be stuffed with ad-hoc design requests. Neither do you have to worry about frustrated colleagues taking matters into their own hands and designing something without respecting your brand guidelines. Nor do you have to spend money on simple design tasks that require the help of a creative agency.

Instead, you can work peacefully with your strategic and long-term initiatives necessary to establish a strong and reliable brand that keeps your current customers loyal and future customers will desire your brand.

Curious to learn more about our Template Studio? Check out our brochure.

 

Corporate communications and marketing

Ad recall: How to make your marketing more memorable

Papirfly
5 minutes read

Have you ever mentioned a TV advert from the past to a friend and been met with blank stares? That’s because what we remember and interact with in advertising varies from person to person. What one person remembers seeing, another may have brushed over. As brands may use several messages on a single audience, they need to understand whether they made an impact and which ones were memorable – if at all.

Using ad recall, brands can gauge a better understanding of their marketing and its effectiveness. Let’s explore it in more detail…

What is ad recall?

Ad recall is a metric used for advertising and marketing campaigns where brands can find out the impact of campaign messaging on their chosen target audience. The metric has been used in physical focus groups in the past, where participants are physically shown the ad and asked to respond to questions about it.

Today, ad recall is used in a much less traditional sense (though outdoor ad recall was up 51% during lockdown). Channels such as Facebook and YouTube heavily push ‘ad recall’ surveys, where the user is disrupted in their feed or on a video and asked about what they have seen in relation to an ad for a particular product or service. Usually, the brand can use this data to decide whether the advert:

  • Had the effect it was hoping for
  • Had a powerful enough creative
  • Is being promoted on the right channel 

How is ad recall measured? 

At its most basic level, you could argue that ad recall is measured by the percentage of people who saw or interacted with your brand. But that data alone isn’t enough to make any informed decisions. Ultimately, the way it’s calculated will depend on the method used. Many big traditional media placement agencies will run physical ad recall groups, or approach people on the street. But ad recall is mostly used nowadays on Facebook and YouTube.

The way these two tech giants measure the effectiveness of ads differs. Here’s a short summary of each: 

How Facebook measures ad recall


Facebook uses an estimated recall rate to calculate how memorable your adverts are. If engagement and views are your primary objective, this data will help you determine if your campaign has been successful within the confines of your goal.

A tool called the estimated ad recall lift metric will tell advertisers how many people they can expect to remember their advert if they were questioned within 48 hours of seeing it. This estimate is calculated based on the number of people you reach with your ads and how likely the person is to recall what they saw. Facebook then recalibrates this estimate by introducing ad recall lift surveys.

You may be wondering how Facebook could possibly estimate how likely an individual is to recall what they see. Well they have a lot of data to help them. Their algorithm considers likely thousands of factors, but could be calculated based on a scoring system across items such as:

  • Does the user like or interact with your business page already? 
  • Does the user regularly interact with adverts? 
  • How often does the user spend on Facebook every day?
  • Is the user less likely to interact with content if it is sponsored? 

As previously mentioned, this estimate is further strengthened by running polls to a random selection of users. 

How YouTube measures ad recall

While Facebook and YouTube have distinct algorithms for measuring ad recall, how they do it is similar. YouTube will also calculate a number of metrics that would assess a user’s consideration, purchase intent and awareness. Their use of surveys targets two particular groups: one who hasn’t been served the advert and one who has. They look at the differences between these answers to determine whether your ad was memorable.

YouTube also has a tool called Brand Lift which will go further than traditional ad recall metrics. They can monitor organic searches of your brand on Google and YouTube to see whether your campaign is making waves elsewhere. They perform this test on two control groups once again – one that hasn’t seen the ad and one that has. From this data, they’re able to compare the behaviour of both groups.

If you’re interested in YouTube’s Brand Lift, it’s worth noting that the service is only available for specific types of video campaigns.   

What factors influence how a user interacts with your advert

There are many ways a person’s response to your advert can be influenced. Some of them are tangible and within your control, others aren’t possible to change.

Factors within your control…

  • Where they see the advert
  • The advert creative and messaging
  • The call-to-action and the incentive to interact with it
  • How much the advert stands out on their feed/within a video/on the street
  • The creative’s readability across different formats and devices 

Factors (sometimes) outside of your control…

  • Whether they already have a relationship with the brand 
  • If they have an emotional connection to the brand 
  • If the brand colours used in the advert are a preference of theirs
  • Whether a friend or family member has mentioned the brand to them before
  • If they have read reviews on your product or service before
  • If they have made an in-store purchase with you before
  • Whether they have had a bad experience with your brand in the past 

Steps you can take to improve your recall rate in future

#1 Ensure your adverts are designed to be viewed well on desktop, mobile and tablets. Research has shown that people are twice as likely to recall your ad if they have seen it on multiple devices. 

#2 Before your advert goes live, ensure you set it up in situ as a preview – then view it across multiple devices. This will give you a better understanding of how the viewer will see it outside of a generic artboard or video editor. Likewise with outdoor or printed advertising, mockup a to-scale example of how this might look. For large formats such as billboards, you can do this on a smaller scale, or print off a few letters and hold them at a distance.

#3 Test multiple messages and different types of creatives where you can. Some people respond better to video, others to text or picture-based adverts. 

#4 Ensure your advert stands out. If it’s a static message, consider whether you could say it in a different way or whether the design is lacking something. If it’s a video, experiment with different lengths and ensure the first few seconds are the most engaging. 

#5 Don’t deviate off-brand. It can be tempting to stand out by doing something wholly unlike your brand, but this could end up doing more harm than good. If you are considering an alternative route, consider running a small focus group to test the water first. 

Ad recall is one of the hardest metrics to measure…

But as algorithms learn, the better the digital ad recall effectiveness will be. Ultimately if your campaign spans many channels and formats, the best way to make sure your advert is memorable is to embrace it at every touchpoint. Consider your email marketing, website banners, in-store promotions – if you’re pushing a message heavily, it needs to be seen across the board.

If you’re looking for an easy way to adapt digital and print creatives, Papirfly’s all-in-one brand management platform allows anyone to create new assets and make changes quickly, without professional support and while remaining on brand.

Table of contents:

  1. What is ad recall?
  2. How is ad recall measured?
  3. What factors influence how a user interacts with your advert
Brand management

Why marketers need digital brand templates

Papirfly
5 minutes read

Consistency is key for successful brand development

When it comes to marketing and advertising collateral, graphics and visuals are essential parts of an overall brand kit. But these digital assets can get misused by different people across the organisation, which is a disaster when it comes to building your brand. So it’s worth considering standardising your brand identity using digital marketing design templates.

Brand templates allow businesses to simplify and speed up content creation while ensuring consistency across all marketing channels. 

Some designers have an issue with templates due to the perception that they limit the possibilities to produce unique, bespoke graphics. This “conveyor-belt” style approach to asset creation goes against the grain in their passion for producing innovative, one-of-a-kind company marketing materials. 

However, competent companies already put these boundaries in place through their clearly defined brand guidelines. This is critical to maintaining consistency across all communications, a powerful marker of brand quality, and essential for building trust among audiences. 

With strict guidelines in place, designers can only push the boundaries so far in order to preserve their brand’s identity – any further and you can quickly lose recognition and trust among your customers. Good marketing collateral templates should manifest these guidelines, ensuring anybody using them can’t stray away from the core foundations of your brand identity.

The core role of designers is to be the overarching creative force behind the brand. Rather than be caught up in the minutiae of producing repeat assets and making an endless stream of subtle tweaks, using templates ensures that designers can shift their focus to bespoke projects and creative thinking, while other employees can confidently work on day-to-day asset production.

Secure brand consistency with digital brand templates

With digital brand or design templates, you will never have to worry about colleagues creating off-brand assets, nor will you have to worry about old assets resurfacing in your circulation.

If you make brand templates part of your system, brand inconsistency will be a thing of the past:

  • By producing your marketing materials through intelligent, digital templates, anyone can have the power to create these without the risk of compromising on your guidelines or visual identity.
  • “In an instant” is key in the digital world. Brand templates eliminate bottlenecks that usually occur when graphics need to be adjusted to local needs. By making the production of assets simpler and faster, there are no delays, and assets can quickly be adjusted in accordance with local languages and cultures.
  • Templates secure your brand identity. By deciding in advance what can and can’t be changed within a template, you “lock” your brand identity. Logo and colours remain according to rules, while content such as images or text can be adapted depending on the campaign, purpose, marketing channel, audience and more.
  • Flexible template technology allows users to define the asset size and create the file type they need immediately, without any risk of deviating from established standards. 

With a template solution, the workday becomes a lot easier for those in need of marketing material. Digital templates make sure all employees can create their own collateral when needed without breaking the brand identity guidelines. Efficiency is also improved as the involvement of marketing or designers is unnecessary and you achieve smoother workflows.

It’s a marketer’s dream when colleagues can create their own brand collateral and you can rest assured that your brand will remain consistent across every platform and channel.

How to introduce brand templates to your business

1. Keep it simple

It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the options available when you browse design template apps. To prevent this, have a vision for what you want your template to look like before you even start looking at options. 

Consider what elements you need for the asset you’re creating:

  • A simple photo template for an Instagram graphic? 
  • Several blocks of text for an event? 
  • A “buy now” button for a website graphic? 
  • Which of those elements need to stand out the most based on your goals?

With this in mind, you can easily sort through the splashy distractions that don’t actually serve your needs. In general, it’s best to go with the simplest option that checks all the boxes you’re looking for. Ideally, it should also be something that could easily be adapted to use for multiple types of marketing assets so you can keep things cohesive across channels.

2. Ensure they’re custom-build

Design templates are a great starting point, but customising them in line with your existing brand guidelines is essential. Have your design team play an active role in the creation of your templates, so that these receive their seal of approval before they can be harnessed by other, less-skilled members of your organisation to apply as required.

3. Focus on what your brand story is saying

It’s important not to spend so much time stressing about your templates. Pick a few templates you like – prioritising functionality over flashiness – and then let yourself redirect your energy to writing stellar copy for your graphics, A/B testing, and everything else you can control to make your assets stand out. However, do ensure you have sufficient template designs to match the various types of marketing materials you regularly use.

4. Templates are economical and effective

A template-based marketing strategy is no less impactful than a fully-fledged, focused campaign intended to target your audience. Moreover, if sustained, its impact in the long term is even better.

While synchronised global marketing might seem easy when done by large corporations, the logistical and financial efforts are still large. For small, or medium-sized companies, bringing a template approach or design to brand strategy is a sensible move, both financially and from a marketing efficiency perspective. It establishes the link between customer and brand no less effective than more expensive methods.

A solution like BAM by Papirfly™ offers a powerful template studio that enables you to structure your own smart templates across all forms of collateral, which can then be harnessed by your wider team to produce high-quality, on-brand results every time.

No specialist design skills are required. No need to factor in an external agency. BAM is so straightforward to pick up that any member of your organisation will be able to use it to create perfectly branded assets in a matter of minutes.

See the difference BAM can have in streamlining production of your marketing materials, empowering your employees and locking down on brand consistency – get in touch or set up your free demo.

Table of contents:

The best way
to manage your brand.
See it in action.

  • Boosting revenues
  • Doing more for less
  • Activating brands on a global scale
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Corporate

Why marketers need digital brand templates

Papirfly
5 minutes read

Innovation in brand automation solutions such as template technology, is streamlining previously time-consuming, manually-driven, repetitive tasks that cost marketing teams time, money and energy.

1. Reduce repetitive, manual tasks and save money

According to Smartsheet’s report Automation in the Workplace, workers said they look forward to spending less time on repetitive manual tasks and spending more time on the rewarding aspects of their work. One of the ways workers believe they could benefit from automation in their daily work is by reducing the number of productivity-killing tasks they execute every day to keep the business running.

The goal of brand automation above all else is to eliminate the extra effort associated with creating and updating brand assets. Brand management teams worldwide all have to produce a range of content to tight deadlines for their consumers, but outdated, manual processes often prevent them from achieving the efficiency they’re after.

Professionals in all industries, but particularly in marketing, waste an excessive amount of time digging through files to find the resources they need. In the event that they don’t, they often start from scratch and create every new asset they need for their upcoming campaigns.

By providing intelligent templates and access to a wealth of on-brand resources, brand automation platforms reduce the time it takes to produce assets, gain approval and distribute it to your various audiences. In essence, you produce more while putting in less, allowing your brand marketers to achieve a much greater return on investment.

2. Are custom templates right for you?

If any of the following factors apply to your company, custom-designed templates may be beneficial to your business:

  • You have a team of people who create branded materials for proposals, brochures, presentations, ads and marketing campaigns. 
  • You have standard assets that are used across multiple channels. 
  • You want to achieve brand consistency across all materials. 
  • You want to look professional.
  • You feel efficiency can be improved by streamlining your processes.

Here are some of the ways that bespoke marketing templates could increase efficiency for your business.

1. Time

Working with a template can help you save time and meet tight deadlines. Templates should include colours, fonts, logo designs, and anything that needs to be in place to stay within brand guidelines. When the template does most of the work for you, a lot of time is freed up for other brand efforts.

2. Consistency

All outgoing materials should be standardised to ensure your brand is consistent and reinforced across all materials and channels. Templates will help guide the process when multiple employees and contributors are involved in content creation, and ensure that all content produced follows your brand guidelines.

3. Space for strategic thinking

With the time you save, you get more room for strategic thinking. When you have more space to think, analyse data and get creative with ways to meet their needs, you help your employees unlock their potential to improve their return on investment.

3. What to look for in a template solution

Template technology is a solution that provides employees with flexibility. By having the solution available online and removing the need to involve designers and other resources in repetitive tasks, your employees get increased flexibility that makes it easier to work more efficiently.

However, in order to maximise your marketing team’s output, it’s important to look for a system that provides templates for a complete range of print and digital assets:

Ads

To gain optimal conversion frequency, ads must be recognisable to potential customers. This is best achieved by using a combination of pre-designed templates and automated working processes that guarantee consistency across all digital channels and platforms.

Social media

More than any other digital marketing channel, social media allows companies to target their market segments with tailored content, but these platforms also come with many challenges for brands, especially with tone of voice. 

Timing and consistency are everything, and it creates a major challenge for marketers when resources are stretched and there are deadlines to meet. With pre-defined templates designing assets is easy, regardless of who makes it, and your brand remains intact.

Printed materials

Most marketing efforts have moved to digital channels these days, but your company will still benefit from having templates for print as well. With self-serviced business cards, posters, roll-ups and more, your employees can easily create the assets they need on-demand without having to contact a design agency every time a new update is required.

Dynamic content

Standing out from your competitors demands even more creativity from marketing teams. Static content is nice, but sometimes you need to go further and this usually requires the skills and expertise from an external marketing agency.

But not anymore. With a modern automation system, templates for creating, adapting, changing, and publishing dynamic content to the channels of your preference is quick and easy.

Video templates

ideo creation used to be out of reach for most companies. It was perceived as expensive with professional production costs. Now it is unthinkable to exclude video marketing. In fact, 81% of businesses now use video as a marketing tool.

It is important to be able to create videos fast and on-brand in order to engage with your audience effectively. So, look for template technology that lets you create and adapt your videos with only a few keystrokes so you can share high-quality content with your customers and prospects on a frequent basis.

4. Automate and simplify your workday

A digital solution with adjustable templates will reflect positively on your team in terms of efficiency. Create fresh brand assets like social media posts, video content, ad banners, posters and brochures by utilising predefined or custom templates to deliver new localised content on time, on brand and on budget.

Look for a solution that is available and intuitive and which supports all activities associated with your brand. With the template studio available as part of BAM by Papirfly™, anyone can rapidly produce on-brand, quality collateral for a wide range of digital and print channels – no specialist design skills required:

  • Social media assets
  • Videos
  • Posters
  • Brochures
  • Digital signage
  • Branded emails

Discover the efficiencies you can gain with our easy-to-use design software, and unlock the power BAM offers in helping you own, control and create your brand like never before. Get in touch to find out more, or book your free personalised demo.

Table of contents:

  1. Consistency is key for successful brand development
  2. Secure brand consistency with digital brand templates
  3. How to introduce brand templates to your business
  4. Templates are economical and effective

The best way
to manage our brand.
See it in action.

  • Boosting revenues
  • Doing more for less
  • Activating brands on a global scale
See how it fits your needs

Related articles

Brand management

Ensuring brand recognition in a competitive European automotive landscape

Digital Asset Management

Your guide: How to choose a Digital Asset Management system

Employer brand

Maintaining DEI communications on limited budgets in the automotive industry

Brand consistency

Brand integrity at scale: Explore key insights from MarTech Dagen 2025

Ensuring brand recognition in a competitive European automotive landscape

Global competition and tight budgets challenge automotive brands. Papirfly ensures fast, consistent, and localized content to stay visible and competitive.