Does Billboard Advertising Work?
We frequently hear, “I tried billboards once, and it didn’t work.” What separates the winners from the rest?
Dominate Your Market Like Rolex — 4 Powerful Branding Lessons
Who are you NOT for? Who do you NOT want as a customer?
Brand Codes in a World of Continuous Partial Attention
We are all, as T.S. Eliot wrote, “distracted from distraction by distraction.” So how can you craft ads capable of working?
Hathaway Shirts and the most interesting man in the world, coincidence?
The picture makes you read the headline, encouraging you to read the first line of body copy.
Putting Funny Ads To Work For Your Boring-Ass Business – Pattern Interrupt
When you shatter a pattern, their meat-computer snaps into focus.
The Long And Short Of Persuasion
The wrong question is “Which sells better? Long copy or short copy?" I’m a long copy proponent. That is, I’m opposed to the “nobody will read more than 300 words” school of advertising.
Art is Not Subjective.
If you have the right artist, they make their decisions consciously and objectively for the purpose of drawing attention. And they do it using an invisible ally.
Ad Templates
According to the published research, 89% of award-winning ads could be classified into 6 basic templates. And the use of these templates boosted subjects' abilities to positively affect audience perception by 55%.
The media is NOT the message.
I remember a Marshall McLuhan quote of “The Media is the Message.” So I asked Roy, what about McLuhan? The skies darkened, the floors parted, and a fiery hell appeared as Roy screamed.
Avoid Scrapbooking Your Brand Visuals.
A “scrapbook company” doesn’t have the emotional connection to your brand that you do; so they give you a templated product that looks like everything else. Unremarkable.
Everyone You Know (is a liar)
"NOBODY reads the newspaper." Beware of anybody who speaks in absolutes. Statisticians look for something called a “representative sample.” And you don’t have one (no offence, I’m sure you’re a lovely person).
Emotional, Rational, or Aspirational? Yes, Please!
How exactly did appealing to the whole person fall out of fashion in advertising? Somewhere along the lines, people began to separate out Reason-Why or logic-driven ads from emotionally galvanizing ads.
How to 3X the Memorability and Impact of Your Ads
Give people a list of random words to read, take the list away, then ask how many words each person can recall. On average they’ll recall three words. But this technique increases it to nine.
Making and Breaking Patterns For Fun & Profit
Before the launch of the campaign, Absolut sold just 20,000 cases annually in the U.S. By 2008, they were selling 11.8 million cases per year.
Learning from the Legends — MacManus and The Penalty of Leadership
Too often inexperienced copywriters and advertising clients want to persuade with copy points — with information being pushed at the reader.