The Frankenstein Ad
For advertising creatives, it’s a story known all too well. A room full of too many people with too many titles and too many opinions. When an ad is presented for review everyone feels obligated to chime in with the first thought that comes to mind in order to justify their reason for being in that meeting. A cacophony echoes forth that’s not too disimilar to:
- I don’t like the font.
- Can you make the logo bigger?
- I don’t like the colors.
- Is the call to action clear?
- This doesn’t fit with our brand image.
- Will the audience feel motivated to buy our product?
And the list goes on.
It’s no wonder that, after a series of these meetings, the final product more closely resembles frankenstein than a succinct, well executed concept. The ad may reflect the many subjective opinions in the room, but does it speak to the real world? The tendency is for agencies’ ad creative to become all about selling and not about serving — a transaciton and not a relationship.
Raising the bar of the first impression
This focus on the last action, the conversion, has caused us to neglect the first action: the moment of perception. That moment when someone chooses to ignore what we put in front of her face or chooses to absorb it.
Most advertisers and agencies know that you only have a fraction of a second to capture someone’s attention before they move on. What if we asked ourselves, “How can we deliver value in that brief moment? If nothing else, if this ad is not immediately acted upon, how can we still make it something that someone would not object to seeing, and may even actually enjoy experiencing?”
A picture is worth a thousand words
It’s a world where brands have become like people and people have become like brands and the line often blurs. It’s a world where you give to get. And this giving “creates leverage for the future”, as Gary Vaynerchuck puts it.
Instagram is the perennial example. It delivers value in the most simple, yet powerful way — the visual. Instagram content isn’t first and foremost about selling, it’s about creating a positive experience for people through an image.
So when designing for a positive experience, design for a first impression that gives people something. It may be worth more than you think.
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