Dec 12 2008
What’s bent?
“Advertising is the most fun you can have with your clothes on.” Bill Cosby
I thought that right off the bat (well, not really, but we’re still close to the beginning) I should spread out some basics I learned. I will save a history lesson for another day, but for now, let’s talk about the creative process.
In school, I was told over and over again that a terrible ad tries to do too much. For instance, a strong image paired with strong copy is TOO much and has no sense of hierarchy. Either the image needs to be bent or the copy - never both. So… bent image / straight headline. Or straight image / bent headline. The idea behind this is that either a) the headline makes the image make sense or b) the image makes the headline make sense.
Most of the time it’s pretty evident which is which, but some get a little more confusing. See if you can guess which is which? Answer in the comments if you feel so inclined.
A - Straight headline/bent image
B - Bent Headline/straight image
1. Farbraum - Grabarz & Partner in Germany says “Up to 100% image editing.”
2. Two ads for Formula (A Renault (French Car) Dealership) done by Exclam Comunicacao in Brazil. Let’s dissect this a bit and assume that the image we’re talking about is the car, as well as the banner of web address across the page. The copy is everything else.
3. A print ad for mmMafia Italian food. Let me state that there’s a whole campaign of these with the same headline. If you leave out the tagline about sexy food, it makes more sense.
4. An ad for fire-etc.ca (a division of Lakeland College) If you click on the image you should be able to see a bigger version, but the tagline at the bottom reads - “Maybe emergency training is for you.”
5. Big Dog Motorcycles - This one is credited to Pocket Hercules in Minneapolis
6. Children’s Run (A 2K run held to prevent disease and sickness later by staying healthy now.) This is an annual event put on by the Hospital Aleman and may take a little bit of thought. Or at least it did for me.
7. This one done by Percept/H in India. (It’s for a powerful stain remover)
8. Janapriya - an engineering school ad by JWT, also in India.
9. VW ads from DDB Paris. These are recent, by the way. VW has been holding onto their same print format for a long time. Big image on top, bold centered headline, two or three columns of body copy. (The ads look old, because they’re celebrating the VW being 60.)
10. Bingo Bahiti’s VIP Club - this one is done by McCann Erickson. The headline reads “Treat Yourself.”
11. This is actually spec work from someone. They had the idea, client never bought it. But it’s still pretty brilliant.
12. These for Hard Rock Karaoke night by NMA Canada.
13. And lastly, this one for Dorian’s Lingerie shop.
Hopefully you guys had fun guessing at these. Obviously the visuals are much more dominant than the headlines. This happens for a bunch of different reasons - ranging from how to catch attention, short attention spans, a bad reputation of type, imagery giving off the “higher quality” vibe and more. The next blog will be dedicated to successful ads that use only imagery, followed by the flip side of that coin: Copy only! Wow, that’s going to be exciting.
2009 and no comments!?
Here’s my guesses (I’ll await your comment)
1.B
2.A
3.A
4.B
5.A
6.B
7.B
8.B
9.A
10.B
11.B
12.A
13.A
Here are the answers:
1. A - Bent image - a huge bee with swarming humans.
2. B - Straight image - just a picture of a car, with a headline that’s bent.
3. B - Straight image - just a plate of pasta, the headline is bent.
4. A - Bent image - a man trying to revive splattered groceries.
5. B - Bent headline - normally a motorcycle does NOT raise tank tops.
6. B or A - this one is difficult. Both are straight (image of nurse with needle, headline about a children’s 5K run) and play off of each other to be bent.
7. A - Bent image - the nail polish is disappearing as hit runs onto the ground.
8. A - Bent image - an architectural structure made out of books
9. B - Bent headline - the image is just a plain VW Van, the headline makes you think of it differently.
10. A - Bent image - pearls, that upon closer look, are bingo balls.
11. A - Bent image - an chalk outline of an ant - something that is usually not seen.
12. B - The headlines rule these ads - the image is completely straight.
13. A - This one is a bit tricky, and needs both to definitely make sense. The headline itself, “Bring out his Wild Side” is very straight, so I’m tempted to say that they image of a woman and lion in bed are bent.
@ Rashid - thanks so much for your participation! I think you mixed up the A’s and the B’s, because if you switch them around, you’re almost 100% right on. Let me know what you think!