I am freaky about this. Super freaky.
It’s how ads look. The layout of words and images and colors on a page.
If you are going to pay to run an ad and nobody gets your message, you may as well save your money.
There are a lot of amateurs out there laying stuff out, and others that follow them and think it’s ok.
Hey, if you want to waste your money, fine, but I am not doing that.
When you buy a print ad, you are paying $X for it. Divide that into square centimeters, and that is how much you are paying for each little box. But do not try to load every box with visual information either. It all has to work together as one ad.
Pretty graphics do not matter. Generic “Lifestyle” photos – omg. Words over photos – usually can’t read them. Boxes in boxes in borders? Wasted space – and it looks like multiple ads instead of one, especially of the boxes are shaded differently.
Colors like light blue, light green, pink, light orange on important words that have no contrast to the background? Just kill me.
Trying to say too much and your type is small? You will be ignored. (If your reader does not have their reading glasses on…) “Next”.
Communication is what matters. Period, full stop.
Graphics are a way to get your communication to another’s eye and into their brain. But not just any graphics will do. Like we said yesterday, your brand must be right first.
You have to be mindful of the channel. Direct mail, TV, handout, event ad…and be mindful of people’s place and state when seeing your ad.
The eyes need an easy path across your ad. You can’t have elements in your ad competing with each other for attention – the customer does not know where to look.
The headline is the ad for the ad. Does the headline grab your target and make them want to read the rest of the ad?
Is it obvious where their eye goes next?
Say what you have to say, and no more. Don’t add stuff you don’t need and clutter the space unnecessarily. The more you try to say, the less weight any of the words have.
Use contrasting colors for text. Red on white. Black on white. Navy blue on white. Not orange on white! Not baby blue on white! Not medium green on a light green background! Lines and accents and less important stuff can be those weak colors. Use weak colors to drop less important things to the background on purpose.
Test two ads. Tape them on the wall next to each other. Start taking steps back. The one that you can see and makes sense from the farthest away is usually the right one to run.
Ok. There. I said it. And I am not taking it back.
I hope this is helpful.
Another simple trick is to look at your ad in black and white. You’ll quickly see what stands out, where the real contrast is, and so on. If you can’t read what’s important when the color is not a factor, you most certainly won’t be able to see it when the color is re-introduced. Appreciate your daily words Larry. Take Care.
Thank you, Larry! Please add in business cards, people’s mini ads. Simple and clean is best – and don’t use knock out type (black/dark background with light color text) because it looks nice. If your potential customer can’t read it, they won’t be calling.
A book called Scientific Advertising discusses these design principles and takes a similar position as you just outlined. What’s interesting is the book was written over 100 years ago, and most of the rules of the road still hold up. The mediums have changed, but how a human scans/reads has not.
Agreed, but being brutally honest – many of your brands are not what they could be. Many thousands of dollars, I’m sure, are wasted in an effort to force and not-so-rememberable brand into the minds of ‘leads’.
Check out Dan Antonelli (www.kickchargecreative.com) – look him up on YouTube – he’s got a lot of free videos going DEEP into branding, as a whole. He’s got a few books as well that are great – all worth digging into.
Excellent information!