Dogs and Wine

A short note at the beginning…The art association redesigned their ads and look much better and the Willamette noodle company dropped their fax number out of their ad. Perhaps I’m having an effect, or just coincidence.

I wanted to start out with a good ad today. Peaceful Puppy Paws does a good job. They do three things good here.

1. Contact info is clear and powerful at the bottom

2. Headline (which is also the company name) and picture draw you in immediately no guessing

3. Bullets are quicker and easier to read than body text. The three bullets are interesting, compelling and to the point. Well done.

Under the bullets and the contact info there are colored boxes that may have looked good on the proof, but once the newsprint soaked up that color it was kind of faded on the final product, so a little more color would have not faded as bad. Not really a criticism, just note for future, newsprint fades color.

Compare that to the ad that appears directly beneath in this month’s Salem Monthly…there are lots of problems here it is hard to know where to start.

1. Black on red rarely works. The Red background tends to eat up the black and make it very difficult to read. Here is an old trick, hold the paper at arms length and see if you can read the print in your ad, if you can’t you have a problem. I have a difficult time making out what the scripted fort says under the logo even up close.

2. Too many graphic elements weaken the impact of this ad. You have 3 logos, 4 cut out photos of product, a photo of the front of the store, a photo of wine glasses, and two boxed subheads. The problem is everything is now so small, you no longer know what the ad is about.

3. Every ad needs to have a compelling reason to act. What is the call to action here? Why read the ad and why act.

A more effective ad would have been a headline of “Over 40 Gift Packs to Choose From” Subhead of “Starting at only $18.00” Use one photo of a gift pack. Drop the red background, the photo of your store front and the wine glasses and 2 logos at the bottom.

The main point here is when you have less space you have to trim your message. Simply making everything smaller rarely results in good advertising.

Los Dos Amigos and Salem Art Association

Los Dos Amigos

I have eaten at Los Dos Amigos. It is a good place; their ad however has some serious design problems.

The concept of advertising is to present a compelling actionable message quickly. What the Amigo’s designer has done here is find a way to convey an interesting message in such a way that you don’t know where it is coming from. You don’t want customers seeing “free” then wonder “where?” Messaging and design needs to work hand in hand so they complement each other. In this ad the design is hurting the readability of the text.

The crux of this problem is the multi-colored bands and dark lines separating the ad into four separate parts. At first glance you don’t know if you are looking at one ad or four. If it was just colors maybe you could get away with it, perhaps faded one into another, but what we have here is dark line separations. You eye automatically recognizes them as separate elements; you have been conditioned to read them as separate ads.

The information in the ad is good. The offer is compelling. Now, just get your graphic artist to tie everything together.

Holiday Showcase

Is it a good idea to critique an art showcase? I’ll do it anyway.

The ad itself is good. Excellent text and the information is pertinent and interesting. Anything I say here is, in my opinion, to make a hot rod go faster.

The Holiday Showcase logo, make it bigger. If you resize it and keep it centered, you will not lose much of the photo space. It will however make a bigger impact on the eye.

The three photos at the top: Good photos and they show items I assume that will be at the showcase. At the same time you have an opportunity to frame the center photo. If you are going to use three photos, it is a little strange to have a white center photo that disappears into the photo on the left and has a hard border on the right. If you want to have unbordered photos sandier putting a photo that will frame the center with color.

Overall it is a good ad.

This week we have two pretty good ads to look at. Both are from the September edition of the Northwest Senior and Boomer News. They are bottom strip ads, which the NW Senior News seems to sell a lot of…it is a good buy. If your ad is visible the full width of the paper gives your graphic artist a lot of room to work with.

Hollywood Station

This ad is OK. On the plus side it is packed with information and that info is pretty good. One the negative side it looks a little like a classified ad that has been transplanted into the senior paper. There are three things to discuss here: design, contact confusion, contractions, and design.

There are a few design elements of this ad that don’t do it justice. The first comment is a little industry specific: when advertising to seniors contrast is king. Yellowing vision will blur black text on blue backgrounds. Your target market might not see your logo.

This is one ad divided into two different sections a photo section and a text section…but it also looks like two separate ads. This is made worse because the gutter above the ad splits the page in half so the reader questions if this is one ad and location or if it is two? The artists tries to bind the two halves together with the star burst “only 12 left” which is a great urgent message. Rule number one of design is to not leave readers with questions about advertising. Ad are supposed to deliver little knock out punches and confusion only blocks the message.

What makes tops off the confusing design is the contact confusion. On the left hand side is “call Cathie Miles” at one phone number on the text side you are asked to call “Sam Labbe” at a different number. That is what really makes it confusing. Maybe one contact is for leasing and one for purchase? I assume that is the way it is. Anyway again it raises more question marks among potential customers and decreases the effectiveness of the whole.

Finally the contractions. HOA I assume is home owners association. For most people outside the real estate industry that acronym it takes a few minutes to figure out what it means. Again speed of understanding positively affects your ad performance.

Another word choice I thought was strange was “Steel appliances.” I keep getting a visual picture in my mind of a large clunky box with rivets holding it together. I assume Stainless steel is the appliance type discussed. “Stainless” is probably the more accepted contraction of stainless steel, as even if they didn’t get that is was steel it would be at least easy to clean. Of course if it is some other kind of steel using the space to simply put a modifier on steel would be well worth it: “Brush steel” etc.

The basic of this ad are good; a clear idea of what is being sold, some urgency and clear contact info. Some fine tuning will increase responses.

River Road

I have always been torn about this ad. On one hand it really pops off the page. It is clear. The photo is good. The headline is clear. The contact information is up front. It has a great call to action.

I think because of this ads location in NW Senior News we can assume at least a glancing idea of what assisted living offers among the readers. So for the readers of this senior publication it is sufficiently targeted.

I think the problem I have with this ad is that every other Assisted Living community Salem can say this exact message. The question is…do you need to. In the end the answer is probably no.

It used to make me crazy when I’d ask an assisted living community, what makes you different from your competitors, and the answer would be, “We are real homey” or words to this effect.

At the end of the day I think for this specific market location is way more important that market differentiation. Most to all assisted living communities provide the same services in the same way and try to be homey and none ever really achieve it. The best don’t look tacky. The really best don’t try to ape at a homey pretence and instead try to deliver good service in a kind and caring atmosphere.

Well I am a little off track here. Suffice to say, this ad is a good one. Clear and hopefully effective.

Reverse Mortgages

OK where to begin?

This ad is not a bad ad. At the same time it is not a particularly good ad either.

The attempt here is to perhaps educate people about reverse mortgages and entice them to call Eva Cutler. The contact information is clear and there is a solid call to action…lots of declarative statements.

This ad comes in four parts: header, subhead, bullets and text. I think the information is good, but perhaps a little out of order.

“Your local lender Reverse Mortgage Specialist – Eva Cutler” is the header to this ad. The job of a headline is the prick interest, pick up people sears and make them want to read the rest of the ad. Does this header drive attention to the ad?

I think the subhead of “Set a hedge of protection around your financial future!!” is a little long and out of place. This statement is too wordy for its own good and the word choice is real suspect. When I think of a “hedge” two definitions come to mind, something that is not particularly strong that is put around your lawn and an action you take to protect a wager. So the word “hedge” here is probably the wrong way to go. But, the problem really isn’t with the “hedge” it is that the word is unnecessary. In reality the statement should be something like “Protect Your Financial Future” and make this statement your header and move Eva Cutler statement to be a subhead.

Additionally, I have a pet peeve about two exclamation points. If it is exciting enough for one exclamation point use it, giving a statement two exclamation points does not make what ever you are saying more exciting, and in may ways comes off as disingenuous or silly: The Turtles are Coming!!

Next, move the box with the text up above the bullets. Move the last sentence “Change your life for the better” from the end of the text block to the beginning. Delete the portion of the text “it’s a great advantage” this statement is very general and doesn’t help the copy it merely makes it longer.

Finally the bulleted items…the first bullet is good and the last one is OK. Replace the middle bullet with something specific, a specific benefit. Give the reader another reason to pick up the phone and call.

After you make these changes look at the photo and decide if you want it or some other image.

After you make these changes, you should have a more focused more active ad.

Salem Monthly

I like the Salem Monthly. I like the articles and features. As an advertiser I find it ad friendly for one major reason. Instead of putting ads near the inside fold like the Statesman, they are mostly along the bottom and the outside of the page where more people will see them. So probably cheaper and better ad locations, hmmm seems like a good place to advertise to me.

I noticed in the last issue two ads that could demonstrate a point. The point of less is more.

Weathers is a full service music store and they have an ad featuring drums. This is a good ad. It features pictures of drums. Has drums on the headline. Drum manufacturer logos on the right hand side. Clear location information at the bottom. Offering a discount never hurts…if it was a specific discount it may be better, but no points off.

All in all this is a solid ad. A drummer would notice this ad and be motivated to read it. So job done and in black and white so the cost stays relatively down.

Take this ad as comparison to this one from the Tea Party Bookshop.

This ad breaks the rule of “Too Much.” For the space they have, they want to say too much, and in saying too much they really don’t say enough.

We have a headline about a remodel. We have big black text lists of products. We have red text about localness. We have a starburst about events. The best and most clear portion of this ad is the address and phone number.

Even with an ad space as large as the Weather’s ad, there is too much information here going in too many different directions to be a coherent advertising message.

If you are making an ad about a remodel…show me the remodel don’t tell me. What is the benefit of the remodel?
If you are making an ad about product…pick a few representational items and rotate each month.
If you are making an ad about local flavor…show me the benefit. What can I get at the Tea Party Bookshop I can’t get anywhere else because it is local?
If you are making an event ad…give me the time and date of the event or a clear reference. If your ad rep is on the ball you may even be able to refer to another page in the Salem Monthly, “See our events on page 32.”

So the message here is focus. Weathers features drums this month and makes a pretty good ad. If the Tea Party Bookshop made a remodel ad or a tarot card or a local artisan ad, or an event ad, chances are it would come out pretty good too.

Maps Part 2 and a Little Country Charm

It has been a little while since my last entry. This week we have 2 ads that are opposite. Maps has changed their ad so a short look at it and a space ad from Willamette Lutheran Retirement Community.



MAPS

In a comment a few weeks ago the Maps people had said they were thinking about changing their advertising focus. This past 2 weeks has seen a different look. These ads seem to feature Maps employees in kind of a native Oregonian branding approach.

I’ve seen 2 of these ads so far, they seem to be running a fairly heavy rotation flight plan with the Stateman, so one ad ran a few times last week and this ad is running the current week. They were virtually identical, so you can see an attempt between the two at message building.

The photo in each ad is of an attractive employee with a label: name, position, Oregon connection. The ad is dominated by two positioning statements the first having to do with things typical native Oregonians like such as camping, Crater Lake (perhaps next week eating granola?) and a second statement that reflects back at Maps services. This ad is better than the ad last week, in this version Janet loves her auto loan. Last week the employee loved their phone, and there was a question in my mind, does Maps provide phones? So this week was much less ambiguous and therefore a clearer ad.

So does it work?

In general branding ads and top of mind ads like this are harder to judge. This ad contains no hard call-to-action the way June's ad did. Its purpose is different. What it does do is inform the reader about services at Maps and who is eligible to be a member. It does the educational task very well.

This ad will cost more as it is bigger than the June ad and maintains its good position on page 2. So hopefully it will not hurt ROI.



Willamette Lutheran Retirement Community

I’d say the WLRC is probably the exact opposite of the Maps ad. I’ll break it down into 3 areas: text, color, and who cares.

This ad is pretty text heavy. The first paragraph is strange; grammatically it is one giant sentence. But the writer skillfully inserts ellipsis after each phrase dividing it into pretty good bite size chunks.

The second paragraph is a description of the retirement community. The description is pretty good. It reads well, sounds inviting, a pretty good description.

There are three specific problems with this copy. First is there is simply too much of it. After reading the first paragraph do you need the second? After reading the second, do you need the first? Would the ad be better if it were boiled down a bit?

With the exception of “42 acres,” is there anything in the text of this ad that can be said of WLRC that can’t be said of any other retirement community in Salem/Keizer? The answer is no. So we have two paragraphs that doesn’t make the community stand out, but rather tells the reader, “we are the same as everyone else.”

I was glad the copy had a call to action at the bottom. Here is an admission, steal the best from someone else: use the call to action “Call Today for a Free Lunch and Tour.” Some people look down on a free lunch, say it is a waste of time and money, say it costs too much…simply, those people are dumb. One move-in pays for everything, and offering a free treat and an opportunity for your sales person to bond with a potential resident, is priceless.

Moving on from copy, the WLRC ad costs more than the Maps ad. It costs more just for the use of color. But when you spend more money on adverting, it should have more impact. The color of this as is limited to a green border, green logo, and color photo. Grab your graphic artist and shake them around a bit, you can do a heck of a lot more with color in that ad. You have the space to make a good presentation…to me the lay out just looks tired.

Finally, who cares? I have digested the copy, looked over the design, and come away with a very blasé feeling. Advertising is hard. I don’t see anything in this ad that moves me to action, nothing to excite me, or prick up my ears. Look again at the Maps ad, fewer words, clearer message. The WLRC ad wants to tell me about their country charm, the reader wants them to show me country charm, and tell me why it is important to me.

This is a Really Good Ad

I wanted to write something about an ad that was really good…An ad that is hitting on all cylinders…One I have no negatives to mention.

I took this ad from the Janco Saver. This publication is an 8 page signature size coupon book. It is typically covered with full color ads no smaller than 1/8 page. The paper it is printed on is pretty absorbent so subtlety will not work. It is delivered by zip code and the people reading these ads are looking for a deal.

The Northern Lights Theater Pub

This ad is a great ad. In a publication dominated by red and yellow, this ad is dominated by black. On a page where everything is symmetrical, this features a horizontal ribbon of white. The ribbon is designed to look like a strip of film, cueing the reader to the type of business they are viewing. Everything about the layout of the ad draws the eye, and differentiates it from the other business on the page.

It is uncrowded. It clearly states the low price of entry and also makes a compelling coupon for a free admission. Three boxes indicate features and up coming events. Contact information is clear and easy to read.

Everything about this ad works. Hopefully it is effective.

Maybe next week I'll find a real stinker.