05 Jul

People won’t guess

I saw this ad, on the tube:
Wellman

Something struck me as odd.

Why is there a picture of a man, on the left of the ad, with the words ‘James Anderson, England’s No.1 wicket takerwritten across it?

Then it hit me; ‘ah, the ad must be trying to say/imply that James Anderson takes Wellman products… it just doesn’t say this anywhere’

With your marketing – if you’re in any doubt whatsoeveryou need to make things fairly obvious to the reader/viewer.
You – as the advertiser – might know exactly what your poster/press ad/direct mail means, but if your audience doesn’t ‘get it’, they won’t waste time trying to figure things out, they’ll just flick past it / look elsewhere.
The general public are not sitting around trying to work out what your advert means. By and large, your advert will be an intrusion into their day – they don’t even want to see it. They certainly won’t make the effort to think about it.
So, they need to get it quickly.

If that means making your ad slightly more obvious, then so be it. It’s more important that people ‘get it’.

In the case of the Wellman ad, they should’ve at least put; ‘James Anderson, England’s No.1 wicket taker, uses Wellman daily’ (smaller font, or move it slightly further up).
As a reader, I don’t have to care about this ad, let alone try to work it out.

It’s simple: if in doubt, be explicit – say what you mean in your marketing.
Above all, your audience need to take away the one message you hoped to get across.

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