Successful creative is about more than design or copy. In this audit, you’ll examine it across 3 subcategories:
SURFACE: Where it runs (paid, organic, lifecycle, etc.)
FORMAT: Its container (static, short video, carousel, meme, founder-led, UGC-style, email module, etc.)
CONCEPT: The idea inside the container (angle, hook, promise, proof, offer, etc.)
🧹 Take inventory
Write down what you’ve shipped in the last 30 days by SURFACE. Just list the output (e.g. paid post, organic post, lifecycle email, etc.).
Then tag each output by FORMAT (e.g. short video, meme, carousel) and CONCEPT (e.g. how it works, social proof, founder POV).
🧩 Look for patterns
Pull the top 10 and bottom 10 performing outputs across each SURFACE and study them.
Is 1 FORMAT doing most of the work?
Are a few CONCEPTS used over and over?
Are there mismatches, where the CONCEPT’s good, but the FORMAT’s wrong for the SURFACE?
Is anything you’re seeing challenging assumptions or trying something new?
🏃♀️ Quick! Run the “does it hit?” check
Refer back to 3 pieces of creative, outside your brand and IMPORTANTLY OUTSIDE YOUR industry, that you’ve recently noticed.
Ask yourself if your BEST creative from the inventory hits that hard, in its own way?
Think about how you could elevate it by refining what you already have.
🎲 Choose your next adventure
Retire anything you’re shipping out of inertia, if it doesn’t hit the same way anymore.
Refresh a CONCEPT that works, but needs a new FORMAT or SURFACE.
Re-test a “rule” that might deserve breaking. Your brand always writes subject lines 1 way? WHY??
And…. Refer to Reformation, if you need more creative inspo for your brand’s spring refresh. Not to copy. But to understand a bar.
