Advertising: Good, Bad & Ugly
Sunday, April 18th, 2010There is good advertising and there is bad advertising. Whether you pay an advertising firm to design your ads or you go it alone, advertising still costs money so it’s important to get it right every time.
Let’s start with the good. Shall we? The good, believe it or not, follow successful formulas for good design. That’s right, even though advertising design is a creative medium there are still formulas for success and rules for good design. Good advertising conveys a message with impact, makes that message the focus of the advertisement, appeals to the intended audiences wants, needs, desires, fears, intelligence and or status.
Bad advertising on the other had typically breaks the rules of good advertising by attempting to be everything to everyone, cramming as much information on the page as possible and or over highlighting the less important parts of the ad.
Here are the most common mistakes:
1. Over Logo’in
Over Logo’in is the act of placing too much emphasis on the logo and not enough on the message. Another example is having the logo compete with the space of the message. While branding is important in advertising, big logos are not a branding trick. The key to branding is establishing an image for the brand, i.e., the company and then keeping consistent with that image. It’s more than a symbol or the name of the company. Advertising’s goal is to get people to notice your ad and respond to it. If they respond to it, trust the formula, they will then look for your logo.
2. Overcrowding
Most bad advertising suffers from overcrowding. This is the act of trying to get as much information into the advertisement as possible in an effort to let your audience know as much as possible. This can, and usually is a combination of too much copy, too many headlines and too many photos. This method fails in many ways. For starters, overcrowding dilutes the impact of messaging. It’s almost impossible to get a clear message across with too much information. Secondly, overcrowding tends to make ads blend with other content in magazines or newspapers. In advertising less is more. A break in clutter is actually eye catching. Finally, unless you’re a supermarket, overcrowding tends to look cheap. So you’re a thrift store you say? Well consider this, Ebay could be considered the one of the few companies justified in having an overcrowded ad but do they? No. Because they know the secret lies in a clear message that their audience will respond to.
3. Inappropriate Design
Inappropriate design is the act of using imagery, typography and sometimes humor that is not really best suited for the nature of the business or target audience. Let’s talk examples. Take for instance a commercial real estate firm who’s target market is large corporations. Their image should then portray confidence, integrity, power, expertise and business savvy. Therefore the use of an overly feminine font in a feminine color of, let’s say, lavender does not really portray the right image. Imagine a high end furniture showroom with an affluent target market. Their ad needs to appeal to an affluent appetite and lifestyle. Now imagine their typography is a paintbrush type of font or even a crayon front highlighting numerous starbursts of sale items throughout the ad. This ad would not really appeal to an affluent audience’s sense of lifestyle and status. You wouldn’t see this sort of thing in a Mercedes ad and for very good reason. Inappropriate design also includes the imagery and messaging used. Good advertising uses only attractive, high quality photos. Just because you sell barcode scanners does not mean a photo of a barcode scanner, you took yourself, should be in your advertisements. Your audience doesn’t need to see a beauty shot of a scanner to be enticed. Keep it quality and keep it target audience appropriate.
4. Poor Messaging
The sure death of any advertisement is poor messaging. This would include vague, typical or too many messages as well as over messaging. Good advertising focuses on a clear, concise message per ad. Of course you may have many things to offer but that is what an ad campaign is for. One advertisement, one message. Over generalizing causes the audience to ignore. You’re going for appeal. Never over message. People, unless waiting in a doctor’s office, don’t read much copy. Long winded paragraphs are pointless and steal space from your overall message. Focus on a good layout, a smart tag line and if you don’t have a good one, bullet point features over a poor or typical tag line work best.
