Good Ads & Bad Ads & Creativity

1. Good Ads & Bad Ads & Creativity

2. Good Ads & Bad Ads: Creativity • Advertising is not an art form. It’s an expensive, business tool. • Current squeeze on profits • High media costs • Increasing clutter • Increasing complexity of today’s changing consumer.

3. Good Ads & Bad Ads: Creativity • Vitally important to stretch advertising dollars. • Create ads that make people say “Wow, I love that ad.” The real news is “Wow, I love that product. • Creative advertising is really advertising that creates sales.

4. Good Ads & Bad Ads: Creativity • Strategy and creativity are everything. • Creative director likened creative development to a dance. • Sometimes strategy leads. Sometimes creative leads. But remain close and in harmony for a great time. • Knowledge is power: Research. Information. Creative.

5. Good Ads & Bad Ads: Creativity • Advertising motivates by appealing to problems, desires and goals and by offering a means to solve their problems. • An appeal is the motive to which an ad is directed. • Appeal is designed to steer a person toward a goal the advertiser has planned.

6. Good Ads & Bad Ads: Creativity • Consumer processes information. Huge volume we see and hear daily. • Allow it to pass right by us. • The audience’s ability to turn off promotional messages. • The faster ideas get across the more powerful they become. • Simple? • Does it deliver intended message?

7. Good Ads & Bad Ads: Creativity • Inside every fat ad is a thinner and better one getting out. • Simplicity is everything. • Simple logic. • Simple arguments. • Simple visual images. • Strong ideas are simple ideas.

8. Good Ads & Bad Ads: Creativity • Advertising needs to catch the eye quickly, and deliver its intended message quickly. • Think about how you read the newspaper or magazine. • Focusing on everything and every page??

9. Good Ads & Bad Ads: Creativity • Great advertising is using fewer words and visuals to be more compelling. More powerful. • Unique Selling Proposition (U.S.P.) to an Emotional Selling Proposition (E.S.P.) • Rational vs. emotional. Both. • Capture the essence of the strategy and give it creative vision/power.

10. Good Ads & Bad Ads: Creativity • Take the simple, most salient feature of product and communicate that in a simple or entertaining way. • Good copy speaks to you. • Should be smart, entertaining, conversational. • And deliver the intended message.

11. Copy: • Is the copy arresting? • Clear? • Simple? • Gives information to the readers? • Are the facts supported? • Does it sell? • Is it believable? • Is it too general? • Does it deliver intended message?

12. Good Ads & Bad Ads: Creativity • Every ad contains two things: • What you want to say • How you want to say it. • Art direction brings emotion.

13. Layouts: • Is the layout simple? • Does it look overcrowded? • Does it sell? • Is it an eye catcher? • Is it distinctive? • Does it have a dominant visual? • Does the white space work? • Does the artwork match the purpose? • Can the type be read?

14. “It’s Not Creative Unless It Sells.” • If it doesn’t motivate the consumer to do something or stimulate some part of the brain, then it doesn’t work. • Our minds do work in mysterious ways. • Concepts (or idea) + Words (copy) + Pictures (layout) + Medium or Vehicle (media) • Do you get the message?

15. “It’s Not Creative Unless It Sells.” • Creative means dramatically showing how a product fulfills a consumer need. • It can be as simple as casting the right actor or character for a brand. • A unique demonstration of product superiority is creative. • A memorable jingle.

16. “It’s Not Creative Unless It Sells.” • Be careful the execution does not subtract from the selling idea. • Bad advertising can overwhelm the selling message. • Movie stars and athletes continue to serve as substitutes for selling ideas. • Great advertising: When the headline, visual and logo communicate the idea immediately.

17. “It’s Not Creative Unless It Sells.” • Advertising which drives customers to demand the product or service. A few words about advertising and creative “award” shows. • For every potential customer who reacts to “sophisticated” advertising, there are others who may not get it. • Examine alternative ideas and creative.

18. Stronger Advertising • Break the Pattern--Advertising that excites the eyes and ears, with a look and sound of its own. It separates from competing products.

19. Stronger Advertising • Creates an Identity. Use distinctive artwork, layouts, copy to enjoy higher readership. • Break Through the Clutter. Break away. There’s a lot of competition. Don’t look like the competition.

20. Stronger Advertising • Position the Product Competitively and Clearly. • Advertising must bring new meaning and importance to old and nonexclusive values.

21. Structure of Advertising • Promise of Benefit (the Headline) Arouses and peaks interest. Keeps you reading. • Spelling out of Promise (Subhead) Optional • Amplification of Story. (Body Copy) Support. Present Your Info. • Proof and Substantiation (Seals, guarantees, samples, trials, offers, testimonials) (as needed) • Action to Take. • Logo

22. Basic Design Principles • Unity of design elements. Unified design. • Harmony of all elements. • Orderly sequence. Orderly manner. • Emphasis on --visual, headline or both. • Contrast in size, shapes and tone. • Balance of elements. • Color • White space

23. Stronger Advertising • Go With the Flow. • The positioning of the creative elements. • Ads with good flow send the reader’s eye around the page to take in all of the elements. • Orderly.

24. Better Advertising • Reflect the Character of your Product. • Different products require different types of advertising.

25. Better Advertising • Effective advertising recognizes the essential nature of the product and projects its most important qualities into the product’s advertising.

26. Better Advertising • Appeals to the Head and the Heart. Rational and emotional buying appeals. • Speak with One Voice. “Umbrella”, “Campaign”

27. Better Advertising • Everything in an ad and in a campaign must support the positioning ---copy, graphics, artwork, sounds/voice.

28. Bold Advertising • Answer: “What is in it for the reader/viewer?” • Headlines must appeal to the customer’s needs, while at the same time play up the product. • Tell a story.

29. Bold Advertising • Request action--Visit websites, the store or the showroom. • Encourage trial, coupon, send or call for information, look in the Yellow Pages, pick up phone.

30. What has been learned? • Ad noting increases with size of ad. • Don’t be too clever. Headlines and copy generally are far more effective when they are straight forward than too tricky. • Make your ads recognizable.

31. What has been learned? • Studies show that ads which are distinctive in their use of art, copy and layout, and typefaces enjoy a higher readership level. • Blind headlines that require reading the body copy don’t always work. At least 5x more people only read the headline.

32. What has been learned? -con’t • Repetition is important. Stick with winning ideas. • Although more ad readers are better than fewer ad readers, what really counts is the total number of sales. • No matter how original an idea is, it must be related to reality or solve a problem to be considered creative.

33. What has been learned? -con’t • The tougher the times, the more important creativity in advertising becomes. • It is the fastest, most economical way to cut through to the hearts and minds of consumers.

34. What has been learned? -con’t • If what you say isn’t that different, say it differently. • If the whole world hasn’t been waiting for your message. • Make them awfully glad they heard it anyway.

35. What has been learned? -con’t • A great ad is memorable. • Competing for attention against other advertising, news, sports and entertainment. • Life.

36. What has been learned? -con’t • After you have produced the best product, packaged it brilliantly, priced it right, distributed it magnificently and positioned it competitively. • You will have wasted all these great skills if the consumer doesn’t see or hear what you’re trying to sell.”

37. What has been learned? -con’t • Jeff Goodby: Great advertising scrabbles logic a little bit, it jumps beyond that by being likable and watchable and captivating. • It surprises you. • Great advertising is great ideas simply executed.

38. What has been learned? -con’t • There can be no doubt that advertising today must be: • More intrusive • More imaginative • More innovative than it has ever been before.

39. Good Ads & Bad Ads & Creativity