Dráusio Tronolone on creative challenges for brands and agencies & future industry trends

Dráusio Tronolone is the creative lead at LoopMe

Having previously worked for some of the biggest names in the industry, such as MTV, Disney, Coca-Cola and Ford, he’s here now to talk about key considerations for creative teams in digital advertising, the main creative challenges brands and agencies face today, and what future trends we can expect.

How did you end up in your current role?

I started my career as a designer and animator for MTV in Brazil, helping to create all the eye-catching visuals that were aired by MTV in the 1990s and 2000s. It was an exciting time for motion graphics and it allowed me to travel the globe working for media moguls like Viacom, Disney, and NewsCorp. In this period, I developed an interest in disruptive technology and programming languages. Towards the end of the 2000s, I moved into advertising, holding roles as Creative Director and Creative Technologist at J Walter Thompson, where I helped to deliver outstanding campaigns for clients such as Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson and Ford. In 2018, I decided to move to the UK with my family and I was hired by LoopMe to be their Creative Lead.

Dráusio Tronolone

The most rewarding part of my role is when the creative work we deliver for clients convinces them to work with us, especially when it’s a new client that was captivated by our creative proposal. It’s always deeply satisfying to see our ideas come to fruition and to know that we have hit the nail on the head with client briefs.

Tell us about the key considerations for creative teams in digital advertising today?

It goes without saying that creative studios should be committed to delivering state-of-the-art campaigns for global brands in all sectors of the industry. But with consumer attention becoming increasingly fragmented, there is now a greater emphasis on interactivity and producing awe-inspiring experiences that will hook an audience and capture its imagination.

LoopMe research has found that consumers like creative ad experiences, and that interactivity increases attention and favorability, so creative teams should identify ways to incorporate these elements into all of their outputs. Every campaign should be seen as a unique opportunity to deliver something captivating, and this will usually be an enjoyable and rewarding process for any self-respecting creative.

I often say that interaction is a fifth dimension, and it needs to be consistent with a campaign’s concept and message. Creative teams should unite art, copy, and animation to form a cohesive narrative and ensure that the creative flows seamlessly in unison to provoke a sense of awe. The latest technologies available in HTML5 will help with this; from augmented reality (AR) to 3D games, everything is possible if you have the right tools, and it’s an incredibly exciting world to work in.

What are the main creative challenges brands and agencies face in digital advertising today?

As digital environments have evolved, so too has the way in which audiences consume, and interact with, content. The rise of AR, for example, and ever-immersive gaming experiences, has left some advertisers playing catch up. A big challenge for brands and agencies today is translating their existing campaigns into interactive digital applications to create highly engaging experiences for consumers.

The latest advances in technology mean today’s creative solutions are highly sophisticated, and they play an important role in breathing new life into traditional campaigns. To help their clients achieve the best results, creative teams need to ensure they understand the brand’s message across all its levels and layers of complexity to bring it to life in an innovative and eye-catching 5D environment. They may use a mix of automated tools with handcrafted designs and animations, for example, to achieve the highest level of quality.

What trends can we expect to see in digital advertising's future?

I think that ads will become less intrusive and more integrated into the environments they are served in. Eventually, advertising will be platform-agnostic, allowing ads to flow from one device to another, using every available media to its full potential to deliver a less fragmented experience throughout the user journey. Instead of seeing the same ad adapted to multiple devices, audiences will be able to experience the message continuously as their attention shifts to other platforms.

Although still nascent, the metaverse will inevitably be a huge platform in the coming years. It’s crucial that consumers begin to understand the metaverse from the gaming perspective; the science fiction novel and film Ready Player One is the best example of that mix, envisioning a virtual reality entertainment universe in which players can escape from everyday life.

We tend to think of gaming as purely console-based but, for the younger generations, it’s way more than that. It has quickly become a language, a medium – a whole world of sensory social connections. The future will revolve around that logic. Companies like Unity and Unreal, which started as game developers, are now delivering solutions for everything related to media and entertainment. The possibilities of real-time rendering are extremely powerful, and these are the companies we have to pay attention to. It’s crucial that advertising gets to grips with this shift to interactive, immersive experiences so it can successfully evolve with it and leverage the plethora of exciting opportunities it has to offer.

I’d like to see the metaverse come to life in the style of Ready Player One, but there will need to be robust safety measures in place, taking potential physical and psychological implications into account.