Tips for distinguishing your ads from bad ads
Published on 11/19/2001 under Ad Management
So you think you know a good ad?
It’s one of the crosses we have to bear in advertising. Everybody is a creative expert; you may not know one thing about how to go about creating an ad, but by golly, you certainly know a good one when you see it. And conversely, you know a bad ad when you see it, too.
Or do you?
Most people, including many of us on the creative side, have a hard time remembering that our likes and dislikes aren’t necessarily the same as those with whom we’re trying to communicate. We reason that if the ad doesn’t appeal to us, it won’t be effective with our target audience, which may or may not be accurate.
But let’s assume for the sake of argument that our personal tastes are much the same as the audiences we’re attempting to reach. Here are a few suggestions for distinguishing a good ad from others that aren’t so:
Does it have a powerful visual?
The purpose of the primary visual in an ad is to stop the reader and begin the process of interesting him or her in the selling proposition. The purpose is not to show all the product’s many features or its inner workings, unless by doing so, you can demonstrate something that differentiates your product from others the prospect may be considering. Too many technical managers simply want to show the product because they think clients will be as intrigued by it as they are, which usually isn’t the case. They also think a beauty shot of the product will be a stopper. It’s not.
Go ahead and take some liberties with your product shots. Baldor makes its electric motors shiny gold; Miller welding equipment is always blue (hence, “The Power of Blue” tagline), and its photography is always dramatically lighted. For Cooper Cameron, we use a photo-illustration technique that shows the product transitioning to a blueprint-like effect at the outer edges, because it fits with our message of technology leadership.
Some advertisers invest in sexy, diaphanous computer art showing the product’s inner layers in an interesting but surreal way. There’s no limit to the creative ways you can portray your products in magazine ads. Just don’t use the photo you took for the technical bulletin; it’s boring.
Does it have an intriguing headline?
I definitely subscribe to what I call the Law of Offering a Benefit in ad heads. Not only does this help the visual stop readers, but it sorts the prospects from the nonprospects.
Even writers of powerful headlines have to work a little harder to craft a benefit statement that is uniquely yours. For example, I like the way SAS Institute projects headlines on the foreheads of people in its series of thoughtful black-and-white (only the logo is four-color) ads for its data mining and e-intelligence software products. One recent headline was, “Opportunity no longer knocks. These days, it darts past the door before you can even react.” And how about this one from Gartner/G2 Growth Research: “Growth opportunities reside in every nook and cranny of this economy. Be the tweezers.”? I dare you not to read at least some of that ad to find out what they mean by “Be the tweezers.”
There are many ways to offer a benefit. I favor writing magazine ad headlines that reach out and grab both eyeballs, because that’s how you break through clutter.
Is your selling proposition clear?
Too many trade ads these days are so clever, you can hardly figure out what they promote. They somehow confuse shock value with selling—or maybe it’s not shocking at all, but many of them are so vague, you find yourself turning the page without even considering the message. I guess that’s good, because nobody has time these days to read every ad, and these abstract concepts are actually performing a public service by making the goods ad stand out even more.
Still, I hate to see advertisers waste money; it perpetuates the myth that business-to-business advertising is superfluous and can be cancelled without repercussions. (Of course, bad advertising is superfluous and should be cancelled, but that’s another story altogether.)
Here’s one reason I like Harvey Studies: They provide verbatim comments about your ads—the good, the bad and the ugly. I usually go through the comments, marking the good ones in yellow and the bad ones in pink. If the yellow doesn’t outnumber the pink by a wide margin, we have a problem.
Is there a good call to action?
Most advertisers don’t give much thought to the call to action, but I think it’s just as important as the headline and primary visual. What do you want people to do as a result of reading your ad? If you said, “Call our 800 number for full details,” or ”Log on to our Web site at www.(fill in the blank).com,” you need to go back to the drawing board.
A good call to action can actually start the selling process. Promise a test report; offer a product demonstration; direct them to a special section of the Web site where they have to log in before they see something of value. If nothing else, compare how your product stacks up to others in the field. Everyone is super-busy these days, and if you can offer something that helps them expedite or narrow their search, you’re giving them something money can’t buy: free time.
Power ads seek out the ideal prospects and cause them to pay attention in ways that serve the prospect’s self interests (“What’s in it for me?”). It will cost you more to produce a powerful ad, because you and the agency team will have to put more effort into it. But the results will be well worth the extra investment.
The real value in b-to-b advertising can only be achieved by making sure your ad pulls its share of the load. Marketers must stamp out lazy advertising, and you can help by knowing what to look for.