A Few Strong Words…

I enjoy advertising — good advertising that is. Yes, perhaps being a copywriter helps, but I really love the way a good billboard or magazine ad connects with the reader instantly.

Hey, we’re bombarded with ads 24/7, and most of them are annoying. Perhaps that is why the engaging ads are so much more, well, engaging. A little bit of creativity goes a long way to helping increase both impact and stickiness.

I am going to dedicate some posts to taking a look at creative ads, and dissect them to see why they work. The point is to gain some insights into the creative process, whether it is through advertising or otherwise.

Today’s ad: a FedEx poster from Germany.

Came across this ad last week. As far as I can tell, this isn’t actually a truck wrap (though that would be really cool…) but simply a poster. It was produced by BBDO Germany, and apparently won an award, according to the company profile.

Why It Works

The message is direct and to the point: even its competitors rely on FedEx to get their deliveries there on time. There are some nuances worth pointing out here though that really help make this ad work.

First, the FedEx logo is bigger than the UPS logo. This is very important — if the logos on the sides of the UPS trucks were bigger, I think the ad would lose its impact. It is fairly risky putting your competitors directly in an ad anyway. But if you are going to go for it, you need to ensure that the company appears bigger in every way from the competitor.

The other way they have accomplished this is with the use of white. Not only is the banner with the logo at the bottom in white, but the “inside” of the truck, the outside edges, and the tractor truck itself are all white. The UPS brown is there, but it is completely enveloped in white.

Second, this ad does not rely on any advertising copy (though the ad credits do list a copywriter — strange!), so it works in any language. This is important in a place like Germany. As part of the EU, there will be many visitors and even people living there who do not speak German. In fact, adding a tag line (in any language) might lessen the impact anyway. The ad really does speak for itself.

Why This Inspires Me

As a copywriter, I tend to think in terms of words. When it comes to advertising though, especially billboards and posters, brevity is key. You have to find the true “essence” of the product, and find a creative way to let that come out. FedEx delivers packages — which is obvious in this ad.

But this poster takes it one step further by implying that it is so good that it delivers other companies’ packages too. Now every time you pass a FedEx truck, you’ll wonder if there are UPS trucks inside.

What do you think? Does this ad inspire, or is it just cheesy? Let us know below!

~Graham

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I caught a couple of debates on the state of The Writer today. Doree Shafrir at the New York Observer makes the case that the old days of rising up through the magazine ranks are gone, due mostly to the fact that they can just blog. The article even suggests that recent graduate and “successful blogger” can make $50,000 per year. Hmm…

New York Magazine, on the other hand, suggests that bloggers are blogging in order to land those plum magazine jobs. It cites Doree Shafrir as the perfect example, moving to the Observer after a successful run at the media blog Gawker.

Both touch upon the fact that magazines themselves are changing (though they don’t delve into this nearly enough). Yet the writers of both articles also have that vaguely haughty attitude that magazine positions really are the be-all and end-all of writing, and every writer is after their job. New York Magazine seems to turn it into a debate about magazines as a medium rather than the death of the [magazine] writer.

Straight up — if someone offered me a position at a magazine, I’d certainly consider it. But I think there is more to being a writer than bylines and cover stories. My bottom line is that if I am making a living as a writer — no matter what I write — then I will likely be happy. And since this will be the case for many of us in the foreseeable future, there is no decline and fall of a writer, only a shift in what writers can and want to write.

~Graham

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