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How Performance Creative Delivered Record ROAS for Onsen Towel's Mother's Day Sale
Emotionally-driven product photography outperformed legacy assets and delivered highest return on ad spend
Highest ROAS of All Ads
Beat Legacy Photography
Biggest Sales Event of Year
Background
Client & Context
Onsen Towel creates premium waffle-weave towels and luxury bath products. Their annual Mother's Day Sale represents their biggest sales event of the year—making creative execution critical to campaign success.
Onsen recognized they lacked the necessary product photography assets to maximize performance during this high-stakes promotional period. They needed fresh, emotionally resonant visuals that would drive conversions through paid media channels during the Mother's Day shopping window.
Challenge
The Challenge
Onsen faced three core challenges for their critical Mother's Day campaign:
- •Asset gap for biggest sales event: Lacked fresh product photography for their most important promotional period of the year—Mother's Day Sale
- •Creative differentiation required: Needed visuals that stood out in crowded Mother's Day gift market and resonated with gifting mindset
- •Prove creative impact on performance: Legacy photography was functional but needed to demonstrate whether new creative could materially improve ad performance metrics
Analysis
Our Diagnosis
We identified two strategic opportunities:
Emotional connection drives gifting behavior
Mother's Day purchases are emotionally motivated—creative needed to tap into feelings of warmth, love, happiness, and appreciation rather than just showcase product features. Photography that evoked the emotional context of gifting would enhance perceived value.
Emotion-led creative for emotion-led purchase decisions.
Visual quality correlates with premium positioning
Onsen's premium price point required photography that matched the luxury positioning—visually stunning images would create immediate impact, deepen product connection, and justify premium pricing during promotional period.
Photography quality signals product quality.
Strategy
The Approach
Sum Digital's creative team developed emotionally-driven product photography specifically designed to resonate with Mother's Day gifting mindset and enhance Onsen's luxury positioning.
Creative Strategy
- • Storyboard emotional themes: warmth, love, appreciation
- • Connect product to Mother's Day gifting context
- • Create visually stunning, premium-quality images
- • Enhance perceived value through emotional appeal
Execution
- • Professional photoshoot with Mother's Day theming
- • Deploy new creative across paid social campaigns
- • A/B test new photography vs. legacy assets
- • Measure engagement, click-through, and ROAS impact
Execution
What We Changed
Created emotionally-driven product photography
Developed new photography assets focused on emotional connection rather than just product features—storyboarding feelings of warmth, love, happiness, and appreciation that align with Mother's Day gifting mindset and enhance perceived value of luxury products.
→ Emotion-led creative for emotion-led purchases
Upgraded visual quality to match premium positioning
Replaced functional legacy photography with visually stunning images that created immediate impact in ads—professional execution signaled product quality and justified premium pricing during competitive Mother's Day promotional period.
→ Photography quality signals product quality
Tested new creative against legacy assets
Ran controlled comparison of new Mother's Day photography versus existing product images across paid campaigns—measured engagement rates, click-through rates, and return on ad spend to quantify creative impact on performance.
→ Data-driven validation of creative effectiveness
Outcomes
Results
New creative delivered highest return on ad spend compared to all other ads in account
Clearly outperformed existing photography in engagement and sales metrics
High-quality, emotionally-driven product photography measurably improved performance for Onsen's biggest sales event—proving creative quality directly impacts bottom-line results. Request a creative audit to see if this approach fits your campaigns.
Framework
What This Proves
Creative quality is a performance lever
High-quality product photography isn't just aesthetic—it directly impacts engagement rates, click-through rates, and return on ad spend. Visual quality signals product quality and justifies premium positioning in paid campaigns.
Emotional resonance drives gifting purchases
Mother's Day creative that tapped into emotional themes (warmth, love, appreciation) outperformed functional product shots—emotional connection enhances perceived value and conversion rates for occasion-based buying.
Strategic creative beats legacy assets
Purpose-built creative for specific promotional periods consistently outperforms generic product photography—investing in campaign-specific assets pays measurable dividends during high-stakes sales events. This is part of our broader performance creative approach.
"You guys are awesome! What a beautiful sale this turned out to be. The new creative clearly outperformed our legacy photography. Let's do more photoshoots!"
See how this applies to your brand
We'll audit your current creative assets, identify performance gaps, and show you how emotionally-driven photography can improve your campaign results.