As a woman I should probably be offended. But as a marketer I can’t help but to see the brilliance behind yet another Volkswagen ad from the 1950s. If you’ve followed this blog at all you probably already know that second only to Seth Godin I think the marketers, writers and designers that were behind the Volkswagen ads from the 1950s and 1960s were some of the most brilliant minds in the industry.

Below I have included the full text from this ad I found on Vintage Ads.com.

Sooner or later, your wife will drive home one of the best reasons for owning a Volkswagen.

Women are soft and gentle, but they hit things.

If your wife hits something in a Volkswagen, it doesn’t hurt you very much.

VW parts are easy to replace. And cheap. A fender comes off without dismantling half the car. A new one goes on with just ten bolts. For $24.95*, plus labor.

And a VW dealer always has the kind of fender you need. Because that’s the one kind he has.

Most other VW parts are interchangeable too. Inside and out. Which means your wife isn’t limited to fender smashing.

She can jab the hood. Graze the door. Or bump the bumper. It may make you furious, but it won’t make you poor.

So when your wife goes window-shopping in a Volkkswagen, don’t worry.

You can conveniently replace anything she uses to stop the car.

Even the brakes.

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Golf Example

We all learn from one another. Sometimes watching what someone else does can change the way we approach things ourselves. As designers we are no different. Often we get inspiration from the work of a fellow artist. Unfortunately, this same principle works in the negative as well! We can easily see what NOT to do by learning from the mistakes of others.

If you’ve been designing any length of time, chances are you’re familiar with 3 basic terms of post-production that have to be accounted for in any advertising design. Got ‘em?

The concepts I’m referring to are, Live Area, Trim Line and Bleed Area.

Live Area refers to the “safe-zone”, this area is close enough to the inside of the page that any text or images that are imperative to the design will not be cut off when the edges are cut off or bound in a magazine or other publication.

Trim Line is the actual “cut-line” where the trim is SUPPOSED to happen. Clearly if that were always precise there would be no need for the Live Area or Bleed Area, but alas, machines are not perfect. When a 100,000 magazines are being mass-produced I’m sure you can understand that a little shifting can occur and the cut will not always be EXACTLY on that line.

Bleed Area is the space on the outside of the Trim Line that accounts for any trim shifting that may occur to the outer edge of the ad. This eliminates the likelihood of there being an awkward white line that is not covered by the advertisement or unintentional edges to the piece.

Recently, I learned an important lesson that really made me chuckle on this particular topic. Now, what made it even funnier this particular time is that the mistake was made by an internationally known brand. They had sent a print-ready ad to be placed in a booklet.

Going what they thought was the extra mile they had added a series of dotted and dashed lines to the ad to indicate the Live Area, Trim Line and Bleed Area, each line was accompanied by a corresponding Word and Arrow. It looked great, until I opened the file in Photoshop and realized that the image they had actually sent me was flattened into a JPEG and their “template” was flattened on top of the ad.

To protect the guilty party here and save any embarassment I have recreated the effect on a generica ‘dummy ad’. The moral of the story? Make sure you remove your templates before sending in your artwork, or send layers. We can all learn from others—the good and the mistakes!

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I LOVED these images found on Toxel.com. I hope you find as much inspiration as I did!

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This weekend, I’m sitting in Nashville, TN with the most recent fruits of my labor in front of me. I’m with the author of Splinters: The Pain. The Passion. The Point. and we are promoting her new book and signing copies for customers.

We have had a great time so far, talking with customers and seeing their excitement when they find themselves within the book.

Our publishing company, Paige1Publishing, has even secured a new client so far and we’ve been set up for just under 2 hours.

The key to the successful marketing we’re experiencing? Get people involved. So far with 50% of the people that have gotten a book, they’ve asked for cards and bookmarks to give to their friends and family. Why? A lot of the customers in Nashville that have worked with the Author’s buisness for years are mentioned in the book. They are innately driven to promote the book as if it’s their own.

We’ve got the traditional marketing pieces as well, posters, bookmarks, cards and postcards. The books look great, the table is full and the crowds are coming!

If you can’t make it to Nashville, don’t worry, the book is also available online at www.SplintersBook.com.

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The Billboard.

Much like the business card, a billboard is “one-shot” advertising. You hope to catch the attention of a driver speeding by. The message must be clear enough to comprehend quickly, but powerful enough to stick in the mind.

Recently a project came across my desk for new billboard. The previous designer had included a whopping total of 22 words in their design. 22?!?!?!  How am I possibly going to take in that much information while driving down the road? Is the designer responsible for any auto accidents that may occur because drivers had to hit their brakes to take in all the information?

In case you didn’t get the point, 22 words on a billboard is a bit excessive. So how do you determine HOW much information to include on there?

Well, generally the rule of thumb is no more than 8 words. That’s about all driver can comfortably take in. Obviously, that’s an average. You will see billboards ranging in content numbers from 5-15, but keep in mind that 8 is the “perfect” number according to researchers and professional marketers.

That in mind, what do you “leave out”. Well, chances are there is absolutely NO reason to include an actual telephone number on a billboard these days. Web sites are prevalent. And most can just as easily surf the web from their phone as they can make a phone call.

On the other hand if you are struggling to decide what TO put on there, here are some vast ideas (some better than others!):

Contact Information:

Name of the Organization
Web Site Address (url)
Telephone Number (easy to remember format 1-800-FLOWERS, etc.)
Physical Location
Slogan or Motto
Tagline
Niche Information

Visual:

Logo
Color Scheme
Person of Interest (or the POC)
 

As I mentioned earlier, you should be careful not to “overload” the reader with an exorbitant amount of information.

Some pitfalls to avoid:
Be wary of certain colors  . . . For instance, you might want to be careful of sky blue unless you really want your billboard to “blend” in with it’s surroundings.

Know where your billboard will be displayed, be familiar with trees/buildings that could obstruct the view.

As with everything else, billboard design will be subjective. You may be loved or hated. But hopefully, you will get read.

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Okay, I know this is supposed to be a print design resource, but i think inspiration can come in many forms. I love this advertising campaign that was done by the Washington State Department of Health for their anti-smoking campaign.

Instead of using the typical "stop smoking cold turkey" cliche, they literally show you how to do that. I think the result is truly what Seth Godin refers to as a "Purple Cow" in his book about remarkable marketing.

Midnight Snack from JP Jones on Vimeo.

Dark Alley from JP Jones on Vimeo.

Cocktails outside of the box! from JP Jones on Vimeo.

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Among some of the most creative and impressive marketing moves of all time, chances are you will hear tales of early Starbucks. While trying to increase brand awareness, they hired people to drive around with a Starbucks cup glued to the top of their car just above the driver’s door where it would be found if the driver had inadvertently sat it down while getting into the car.

Brilliant? Not yet, it gets better. As other drivers and those considerate enough to marvel at how he had gotten this far, and motion or speak to him regarding the cup, they were given a coupon for a free coffee at their local Starbucks. Now, it’s brilliant. Not only did it raise brand awareness but also drove new potential customers to the store who had the potential of being turned into loyal customers.

Recently I read a similiar story of brilliant marketing in Deliver magazine. After reading the article, I searched for a more information on Prospera Credit Union, what I found was a small chain in Wisconsin that I thought were behind the marketing expenditure. Fortunately a reader (see the comment below) was kind enough to let me know that the Credit Unioin that was actually responsible for this marketing is actually a much larger bank with 21 branches actually in Canada.

Whether large or small, the company was still faced with a problem. They were assigned the task of making their new equity shares sound exciting. How can this be accomplished?

See for yourself!

As Deliver put it, few things say freezing your taxes like a freezer pack.  In case you can’t read the text, in addition to the the logo of the credit union, the pack boasts, "Paying taxes is a big headache. That’s why we’re freezing them for 10 years."

Was the campaign successful? You better believe it. In a short 7 weeks they had surpassed their revenue goal!

Simply Brilliant!

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We’ve looked at a lot of billboards and large format advertsing. You’ve probably noticed that the advertising that have made it to our list are the ones that are incredible, startling and unique.

In that same vein, here are some "thinking outside of the box" billboards and advertising to inspire you!  Enjoy!

Creative juices flowing? Quick! Go design something brilliant!

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Recently while attending a series of sessions relating to design, technology and marketing, I was confronted with an interesting question.

Why do people wait until the last minute?

Where did this procrastination society spring up? It seems like we rush around to get things done, to meet deadlines. That’s when it hit me.

When I’m approached with a new task, let’s say a design competition that I want enter, the first thing I do is check the deadline date for entries. Do we put things off because we’re just too busy to get to them or do we put them off because we no longer get an "early bird special" for being on time? Somehow being late has become the norm.
 

I love this from Seth Godin:

"Airlines and others penalize people for planning ahead by instituting non-refundable fares. We don’t get treated like royalty for signing up early, and the penalties for waiting often seem fairly small."

As marketers do we offer enough incentive for someone to purchase our products NOW? Or can they walk away from our information and feel that they can catch it later?

We’ve all heard way to many TV Special commercials. Most likely you can quote the last words, "and if you call in the next 10 minutes we’ll DOUBLE this offer."  We roll our eyes or better yet, change the channel. 
 

Let’s strive to be different, when you hear about an opportunity, jump on it. When you get  a notice in the mail that you’re interested in, act!
 

Similiarly, let me throw in a little shameless self-promotion here, students who are reading this blog, don’t wait until the day before the Student Identity Competition Deadline.
 

If we each strive to avoid putting things off another day, do you think our clients will do the same? As designer’s does the poignancy of our work dwindle over time if not acted on immediately?

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Whoever said, "the best things in life are free" was probably referring to Word of Mouth adverstising. Few things go farther and have a bigger impact that a positive referral from a client, colleague or friend. As a designer/web designer it’s important to me that my clients always feel like they can refer me and my work to their friends.
 

So far, so good. Since I’ve been in business, I’ve spent very little money on advertising, instead I’m constantly receiving a steady stream of clients through "the grapevine". Someone in Oklahoma knows someone in Alabama who knows someone in England. Yep! Word of Mouth advertising is so powerful that it even crosses the big pond!
 

The secret to positive referrals and good testimonials? Treat the customer with respect and integrity, both in business and personally. That’s it. It’s very simple. If you give your word, bust your butt to keep it. If you make a mistake, admit it. If you miscommunicate, pay for it yourself.

Above all the client should never be charged for a mistake you make.  But what about the clients that just don’t seem to like you and can’t be pleased? Evaluate yourself. If you’ve done everything you knew to do, and worked with integrity, shake the dust from your feet and go on.

I heard recently some interesting statistics:

• 25% of people will like you, but could be persuaded not to
• 25% of people will NOT like you, but could be persuaded to
• 25% of people will like you and stand by you till the end

and finally

• 25% of people will NOT like you no matter what you do.

So chalk those clients up the that last 25 and continue to do what you know is right!

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