CRAFTSMAN+ INSIDE CREATIVE

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Jan 11, 2026

Optimize Your Creative Process with CRAFTSMAN+ Best Practices

Creative agencies are the driving force behind captivating and effective creative advertising campaigns. But how can you make sure your creative process is delivering top-notch results? At CRAFTSMAN+, our creative team believes it is crucial to streamline your creative process and employ the best practices available to maximize success. From identifying goals to the final production and resizing, we employ a comprehensive approach to deliver outstanding creative solutions.

Identify Goals

The first step in optimizing your creative process is to clearly identify your goals. What is the objective of this creative advertising campaign? Is it to boost brand awareness, drive sales, or convey a specific message? By defining your goals upfront, you can ensure that every creative decision made throughout the process aligns with your objectives. Once you are aligned with the client, the process becomes much more streamlined.

Establish the Relationship

Effective communication with clients is paramount in creative advertising. When CRAFTSMAN+ kicks off a project, we establish a shared vision where the creative team actively listens to ideas, expectations, and concerns. This dialogue sets the precedent for collaboration and ensures the final work meets the client’s vision.

Define Brand Guidelines

Maintaining brand consistency is key to a successful creative process. We emphasize defining brand guidelines early on—including key messaging, points of difference, product features, branding, and tone of voice. Aligning creative ideation with the brand’s identity guides the overall strategy for the campaign.

Historical Deep Dive

Understanding the historical context of a brand and its previous creative efforts is another crucial step. Our team analyzes past campaigns, current audience sentiment, app store reviews, and competitor ads to see what worked and what didn't. This perspective helps avoid past pitfalls and capitalizes on successful strategies.

Internal + External Cross-Communication

Set up the proper channels for communication, whether through Slack, defined email threads, or regularly scheduled meetings. Assigning producers to each client ensures that all stakeholders are aligned, with a key point person communicating expectations on feedback loops, turnaround times, and roadblocks.

High Level Concepts

This is where your creative team can really shine. Dig deep to develop unique ideas that set your advertising apart. Establish a brief overview of the campaign look and the strategy behind the vision. Incorporate a hypothesis or a connection to user motivations—such as Social Connection or Progression—to tailor concepts to the user.

Testing Matrix

To keep track of potential variants and the overall testing roadmap, we recommend building a Testing Matrix. Before finalizing any creative design, use this matrix to refine and optimize elements, ensuring the campaign resonates with the target audience.

Find out more about building a testing matrix here.

Storyboarding

The storyboard phase is where the creative vision takes shape visually. This is particularly beneficial for complex videos and playable ads. Detailed storyboards outline the sequence of each scene, aligning the story, messaging, and visuals before animation begins.

Production

With a well-defined concept and storyboard, you can move into production. Beyond the expertise of your team, utilizing creative software for resizing, localization, and playable production is essential for saving time and resources.

Playable Ad Production

Introducing Craftsman Play: your dedicated, all-in-one solution for creating and managing interactive ad experiences across all major networks seamlessly. With automated resourcing and self-service options, it is changing the landscape for interactive advertising.

Resizing and Localization

Resizing and localization often consume valuable resources that could be better spent refining campaigns. Craftsman Canvas allows you to build your static ad once and automatically reformat it for any digital platform. Localizations and custom designs are updated for any language or geo-location at the touch of a button.