The very best ads are driven by insight.
They start with a universal truth to which everyone (or at least everyone in the target audience) can relate, and then build from there.
But as anyone who's successfully created an insight-driven ad can tell you, accomplishing this is a lot tougher to do than I just made it out to be.
When a strong insight exists, there's a really easy way to know if you're in the target market for a product: watch the ad.
And if when it's finished you think, "I can totally relate to that!", then there's a good chance you're one of the people the advertiser is trying to reach.
Nike's "Better for It" campaign from 2015 offers an interesting example.
"What's better than sleeping in? Nothing. But you came to yoga anyway."
- Nike Better For It "Nothing Better" advertisement (:15)
If you love getting up in the morning to exercise, you've ever gone to the gym for a "quick workout" and ended up there for a few hours, or the thought of going for a run or squeezing one more yoga class into your day sends chills of excitement up your spine ... then this campaign is definitely not intended for you.
(And if this is the case, you can stop reading this post now and get back to your workout.)
But if you think exercising is something you "need to do" and not necessarily something you want to do, you'll very much appreciate this campaign.
Interestingly, these ads all end by flashing the Nike.com/Women website on screen, which not-so-subtly suggests women are the primary target for this campaign.
But I'd argue Nike could have easily replaced the women in these spots with men, and for the most part, the creative idea would have still worked just fine.
That's because the insight driving this campaign isn't gender-specific.
If you watch these ads and think "YES!!! That's what I say to myself every single time"...
... then they're meant for you.
Insight-driven ads are great like that.
P.S. I adapted this post from one I originally published in April 2015 on my old blog... but the truth that the very best ads are driven by insight holds up well, don't you think?