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This ad for Rosetta Stone language courses is a puzzle. It surely was not devised simply as a brand-building ad, since no one walks into a language instruction store and chooses RosettaStone instead of a different brand.

Of course I have no way of knowing the ad's real intention, but to the naked eye it appears to be a direct marketing ad. That is, they really want to sell courses directly to the readers of the ad, and therefore must presumably measure the success of the ad by how well or how poorly the ad investment is repaid by resulting sales.

If that is true, what's puzzling is that the ad does not appear to be the work of an experienced direct marketing advertising professional. Both by its sins of omission and its sin of commission, it falls short of what a direct marketing professional would demand.

Let's start with the illustration, the ad's worst mistake. We see a jumble, a tangle, a snarl of type made by piling on and overlapping repetitions of the word “Avion” to form the shape of an airplane. A tiny caption at the left explains, “Avion: French for airplane.” In every ad with an illustration, that image transmits a message, and the message should strengthen and reinforce what the printed words are attempting to get across.

The headline explains, “Words and pictures make a new language easier to learn.” But the illustration doesn't say that to the eye. Instead it seems to say something like, “Trying to cram a new language into your brain results in a tangled mess that makes your head hurt.”

Second, the headline understates the product claim. If all that's needed to learn a new language more easily are words and pictures, then a book of pictured words would do it. But RosettaStone goes much further than that. You see the word in print, then you choose from several pictures and click on the one you think illustrates the word. You get immediate feedback telling you with a check mark or an X whether you are right or wrong, and your running score is updated accordingly.

Meanwhile, you also hear the word pronounced by a native speaker. You repeat the word yourself, and your pronunciation is examined by voice recognition. (Yes, these points are covered in the original ad's copy under a line drawing of a laptop, but in very tiny type.)

Wow. That's a far cry from a book of words and pictures. This is cutting-edge interactivity used to speed up language instruction. But the ad doesn't go nearly far enough in conveying that.

Third, where's the proof? Why should I believe them? It's true that the body copy says the courses are used in 150 countries by millions, “including U.S. diplomats, Fortune 500 companies, and NASA,” and that's worth something. But maybe these customers didn't necessarily prefer RosettaStone as a way of learning and had no choice. I will say again, there is no advertising as powerful as praise and recognition from others.

So, bracing myself for the sneers of readers who accuse my makeovers of being “copy heavy,” I have managed to work in three brief but powerful testimonials.

To leave no stone unturned, I have listed all 28 languages available. If you have a new global job, home or assignment and are desperate to start learning some basic Arabic or Pashto, that alone would be enough to get you keenly interested.

A print ad designed to maximize response is something like a pinball machine, and its creator tries within reason to knock down as many “pins” (reader doubts and objections) as possible.

I say “within reason” because of the law of diminishing returns. At a certain point — when you try to cover too much and hit too many “pins” — the type gets too small and the ad too crowded to achieve maximum effectiveness.

(I say this even though my friend Tom Rollins successfully runs ads for his Teaching Company in The New York Times Book Review with more words in them than the King James Bible, and cries all the way to the bank.)

I have tried to keep all these considerations in mind in doing my make-over, and I believe the result would be a much more profitable ad.

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If you see a direct response or click-response print ad that you think is crying out for a makeover, clip it out and send it to me at 1350 S.W. Upland Drive, Portland, OR 97221. To e-mail comments and opinions: thomas.l.collins@verizon.net.

THOMAS L. COLLINS (thomas.l.collins@verizon.net) has been a direct marketing copywriter, admaker, agency creative director and co-author of four books on marketing. He is currently an independent creative and marketing consultant based in Portland, OR.