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Little
Move, Big Results
It seemed
like a relatively small thing at the time. A client,
the owner
of a printing and imaging company, called to ask whether
he should stay in the Yellow Pages. We not only advised
him to
stay in, we also convinced him to up the size of the ad and
change the format so the ad would stand out better on
the
page. The resulting ad pulled in plenty of business, including
a $50,000 order – about 50 times the usual size of first
orders. Not surprisingly, our client was smiling broadly
when he delivered
the news. It should also come as no surprise that he agreed
with our recommendation to go with an even bigger ad
in next
year's marketing and advertising program.
Advertising Royalty
Have you seen the Budweiser TV ad
where the bottle cap is turned over and placed on the top
of the bottle? The cap becomes a crown and the viewer gets
the key message: Bud is the King of Beers. This is also a
fabulous example of compression: countless meetings, piles
of creative briefs and streams of emails were all compressed
into one simple image. Plus this spot scores very high on
the speed meter. Just one look and you get it. You could watch
TV all day and not see another spot that comes even close.
What were they thinking?
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Click ad
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Imagine you are in a briefing meeting
with your advertising and marketing agency. The Creative Director
jumps up
and proclaims he has found a fresh, new way to promote your
web-based sales management solution. He then unveils the ad
(see right) and says, “The combined impact of the picture of
the Rhinos and our dynamic headline (UNLEASH YOUR SALES TEAM).
will stop readers dead!” He continues droning about the wonderful
copy and eye-filling layout. Then, full of self-satisfaction,
he sits down and the room erupts in applause – NOT!
How did this ad ever get approved?
What does a row of Rhinos have to do with the product or the
promise of benefit (better sales results). And what is the
connection between the image and headline? Are we to assume
that Rhinos are kept on a leash? Or are we to assume that
the client’s sales staff are wide-eyed, slow moving creatures
with large beaks?
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Click ad
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Why didn’t the brand manager ask for
another idea with a closer connection of the image, headline
and promise of benefit? It is possible. Just look at our Rhino
ad for Munich Reinsurance.
If you find another example of an
ad that deserves to go into our Animal House, please send
it along. We enjoy trying to figure out the “creative”.
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