Investing in strong evergreen content can save you thousands of dollars

When consumer products brands ask us how they can get the most bang for their buck with the creative we develop together, an easy answer for us is that the company should probably be investing in really strong evergreen photo and video assets.

Evergreen simply means that the content is timeless, season-less, and essentially product-less. The intention is to show-off your brand values, represent your ideal customers, and tell the bigger brand story. In theory, an evergreen asset should last you forever unless you fundamentally change everything about your brand.

Evergreen content is fantastic for social media, it’s crucial to have throughout your web pages, and we’ve seen really successful ROAS from evergreen media!

When developing evergreen content, it’s important to think about all the pieces of the puzzle that need to come together in order to classify an asset as truly timeless.

1. Models

When you know exactly who your ideal and actual customers are, you can then use that information to represent your customers visually! Being intentional with the models you shoot with will help your customers feel seen and represented. This not only encourages a purchase but creates lasting brand loyalty. You can showcase your brand values and get someone towards a sale without showing your product by using humans to tell your story.

2. Wardrobe

When shooting evergreen content, taking a neutral approach to wardrobe is important.  Choosing wardrobe that can span multiple months and seasons or times of day will help to make the assets go further.  This comes down to colors, styles of clothing, fabrics, etc. Wardrobe is an important piece of telling the story and can influence someone’s perception of your product’s intention.

‍

3. Location

Picking locations comes back to your target demographic and what is most natural to your product. The locations should make sense to come back to year round and be applicable to your products in several contexts. Also, if you’re serving a global audience, it’s important to keep your visuals somewhat location-agnostic. This will create both consistency and longevity with your evergreen creative!

‍

‍

The example images above are from a few different projects Marika Creative did for our client Beam. The 2 photos on the right are clearly very product specific. Last year, Beam launched these limited edition flavors of their hero product, Dream. Dream is a powder-based formula, and when mixed with hot milk or water, creates a hot cocoa-esque drink to encourage better sleep.

In the 2 photos on the left, you can see the mugs of, what you now know as, Dream. However, you can't tell which flavor of Dream is in the mug, can you? Can you tell what season it is? Do you know what the weather is outside? Do you know where in the world the models are sipping their Dream? The answer to all these questions is NOPE - making those two photos evergreen assets. All you can tell, and all you need to know, is that it's evening, which is when Dream should be enjoyed, before bed (hence the cozy wardrobe too).

Evergreen creative can only save you money if it is done both strategically and in bulk. One successful evergreen project will leave you with assets that could last you 2-3 years realistically! This is only possible, though, with a precise strategy and thorough production (done by a team like Marika Creative) and a clear vision for the next few years of the business (brought to us by brands like you)

Does this make sense?

Obviously, you still need all the kinds of creative for well-rounded and strategic marketing execution! Evergreen creative will not replace your e-comm media, product-specific media, and a lot of lifestyle needs, and you will still need to continue to invest in all of this regularly throughout the years. But, investing in thorough evergreen media upfront can stretch your budgets further since you won’t need to refresh it as often as you do everything else. Evergreen media is applicable to multiple marketing verticals and is a necessary piece of telling a complete narrative in your marketing efforts.

If you want to invest in evergreen creative and would like to know how we can take one single project and leave you with enough creative for the next 2-3 years, then it’s time to chat with us! Please fill out our inquiry form here and tell us about your brand and your goals and we will set up a call to take the next steps together.