Poor Visibility

To start with: Mea culpa, sorta.

In several recent makeovers, I dissected and redid an ad which I later discovered was one of a series of ads.

The presumed theory of a brand-advertising series is that it gradually paints a favorable picture of the brand's personality, one brush stroke at a time. And hopefully that favorable impression lingers in the prospect's mind until the time comes to make a buying choice between that brand and its competitors.

Literally billions of dollars have been spent on advertising this way. And there's no question that at its best it is extremely effective. But there are a few catches to note.

• Its sales effectiveness is hard to measure beforehand. An indication of this is cases where a big brand launches a $500 million campaign with much fanfare — and then six months later fires the agency and starts over.

• It requires big money. Too little exposure has two little effect on the minds of busy, distracted consumers.

• It is misused on unique products and services. If what you're selling is unique and has essentially no competition, then your advertising task should be to create an ad that attracts the most likely prospects and does the best possible job of selling to them. You don't necessarily need more than one great ad, as direct marketers have long known. There are legendary examples of a single powerhouse control ad running successfully over and over for years. (The latest outstanding example is the one for the Rosetta Stone language course which you've probably seen so many times: “He was a simple farm boy…”)

But even within a pure brand-building series, I still believe that each individual ad should be powerfully effective all by itself, regardless of the rest. That way the ad isn't wasted, even if the reader doesn't see or notice the others.

In recent columns I focused on single ads by Dell Computer (January), Bank of America (December 2007) and Dyson vacuum cleaners (August 2007), which I felt failed to do that. But then I saw other ads in the series which were quite effective. Had I seen them beforehand, my appraisal might have been more balanced. That's my culpa.

Now let's look at the PR Newswire ad I've chosen for this issue's makeover.

It may turn out that this ad, too, is one of a series with variations on the “Vis ability” theme. But standing alone, it doesn't do a very good job. And it raises doubts about whether additional ads with the same tag line would work much better.

We see a man sitting on top of a stepladder located in what appears to be a field of corn or other farm crop, facing away from the camera. He is wearing suspenders. He is peering into the distance. A farmer, maybe?

Headline: Increase your Vis ability (two words).

Subhead: Visibility: PR Newswire's tireless media relations professionals climb to new heights every day to get you noticed. (Ad-talk baloney. I don't believe it. Do you?)

I have a lot of trouble with this.

First of all, the photo is too ambiguous. The hint of farming is a red herring. And it's not clear whether the guy is up there in order to see or to be seen — or both. In any case, it doesn't make much sense, since there's no one to see him and nothing for him to see in what appears to be an empty field.

So we go to the headline and subhead for clarification. They offer an ambiguous promise: “Increase your Vis ability.” If it just said “Increase your visibility,” it would make an understandable if not very strong promise. But the root word “vis” comes from the Latin word “to see.” Making a cute pun by changing the syllable “ibility” to “ability” changes the meaning — for me, anyway — to “Increase your ability to see.” The illustration bears this out, but it's not clear what the guy is trying to see.

Then when the subhead says “PR Newswire's tireless media professionals climb to new heights every day to get you noticed,” it seems like it's not you — the prospect — up there on the ladder, it's one of their tireless media professionals, dressed up like a farmer. And he's up there to get you noticed. What a muddle.

Then the copy explains what PR Newswire is and how it can help you get noticed. It never says “your products and services,” although the Web site does. Instead it promises to make you one of the organizations that are “top of mind and tip of the tongue.” (Organizations?) And it ends with the promise, “We increase your ability to see and be seen by those who matter most.”

So maybe the farmer on the stepladder is up there both “to see and be seen.” But what has that got to do with me?

In planning my makeover I started by asking, “Who's the prospect?” I decided that it's most likely the owner or manager of a fairly small or very small company. This must be true; otherwise, the advertiser's Web site would not include anything so elementary as its very good lesson on how to construct a press release. A larger company would have its own experienced PR department or outside agency, which would either already be using PR Newswire or not need it.

I wanted to take the original promise — increase your visibility — and express it more clearly, with a graphic to reinforce it. And I wanted to target small companies and offer them a needed, affordable benefit.

Thus my headline, subhead and graphic. I didn't want the graphic to be too specific because it had to be general enough to apply to different kinds of products and services.

The original ad's copy wasn't bad and made some good points. But PR Newswire's Web site has some “you” copy that talks empathically to the typical small business. I combined this with bulleted items covering their services.

W

Thus I attracted small companies with the reassuring promise in the subhead, “Just $150 gets you started.” Then, to avoid misleading anyone, I made it clear that you will “shop” (pay) for each particular service that's used.

I always like to not only urge a visit to the Web site but provide a tempting reason for doing so. In this case I found an excellent reason buried in PR Newswire's complex and very good site, and featured it directly under the site address: “Find out free online — Six Simple Steps for Turning Your Company Into a Heavily Quoted Source.” Something a small company dreams of.

Altogether, the makeover provides clear targeting and product identification, strong benefit, empathic copy, product details, and a good reason to log on. I believe it would result in considerably heightened response from desirable prospects.

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

Find more Makeover Maven columns at http://directmag.com/opinions-columnists/makeovermaven/.