Dec 13 2008
Visually Driven
First the answers to the whole “bent / straight” dilemma yesterday. They are as follows:
A, A, B, A, B, A, A, A, B, A, A, B, A
Most people are visually stimulated. This is why most men love Paris Hilton and well-designed sports cars. It’s also why most little girls go ga-ga over that cute little glitter covered pair of pink sparkle shoes. It’s also why most advertising is image based. (Note: Commercials are a completely different thing, which will be discussed later.)
What are some of the reasons visuals usually dominate over type? Well…
When advertising was first starting out, it was much easier to use typed words than to put in a detailed photo. If you had a horse to sell, you described it with words, not a picture. That held on for quite a while, and if you look in magazines now, you’ll definitely still see some boring, three column page with type, type, type and a logo at the bottom. The reputation of copy is still a bad one.
Also, people have a very short attention span (which is why radio and television commercials are so difficult to do) and you need to grab their attention in 2 seconds, before the channel is change or the page is flipped. Images usually do this better than words.
And also… like the saying goes, a picture is worth 1000 words.
Intriguing and successful image driven print ads don’t need words to back them up because the image tells the whole story. Take for example, these:
Hair so strong, scissors don’t stand a chance. You don’t need a headline saying “Your hair will bend scissors.” (even though they through in a small tagline saying “Really strong hair.”)
These for Bic (yes, they make pens, disposable razors, disposable lighters and believe it or not, surf equipment) are great examples. Bic has bragged that their pens have LOTS of ink and in fact, contain enough ink to write up to 2 miles (or between 2 and 3 kilometers) and these ads show it.
The first, Infinity, has been praised by many a people as an expert ad. It’s pleasing to look at and is, at it’s base, simple. Credit goes to TBWA Hunt Lascaris (South Africa) for this masterpiece.
This one for Legos speaks for itself, I think. It’s simplicity is brilliant and the idea behind it takes you back to when you were a kid.
This one for Pepsi isn’t such a powerful image, but it does get the point across with no words whatsoever.
Here are three of a series for Serial. Violent game, but well designed = violent, but well designed print ads.
One for BMW, the powerful horse bowing down and passing the torch to the more powerful machine - the BMW.
And lastly, this one for Timotei, an exceptional styling product. I’m not sure if they have a campaign for this one, but they definitely should.
Next time, I’m going to discuss the opposite of this format - the much harder to pull off Copy Only ads! You will be blown away.
