The impressions that readers gain from advertising campaigns are as varied as musical notes.

The true value of marketing material is not the quality of the paper, the print or the design.  It is not necessarily about the positioning of the words or the meaning. It is more to do with how the harmony of each of these instruments fits with the score.  Moreover, how you use them to elicit an emotional response from those who are listening.  The closer the relationship each instrument has with one another the more powerful the overture.

When you are setting out an advertising campaign it is worth studying what your competition is doing or has done.  And study intently.  Little things can make a big difference.  Imagine how badly a wrong note sounds.  A series or a combination of wrong notes will leave the reader wishing to or actually changing communication channels.  So what do you need to listen for?

Ad campaigns are built in two genres – the descriptive and the imaginative.

The descriptive ad campaign deals with the mechanisms of a product or a service otherwise known as its features.The imaginative ad campaign deals with the value of a product or a service, it focuses on what those features deliver for the client.

Here are two completely different classified ads and their corresponding websites.  What do you make of these?

People generally buy on emotion and justify with fact so it is likely you will need to incorporate both.  The proportion you use is what is distinctive and relevant to your product or service.  How sophisticated and/or knowledgeable will your target clients be?  What do they need to know that they don’t already?  How much imaginative appeal do you need to generate a want from a need?

In other notes – what musical composition works for your customer base? Study your competition objectively – what works and what doesn’t?

Let’s face it; you don’t want to sound like the Sex Pistols when your clients want to hear Vivaldi.

Published by thehiddenedge

I love words - they can say so much and say so little depending on how you use them. Come and explore them with me in this learning journal. View all posts by thehiddenedge