Leo Burnett once said: The secret of all effective advertising is not the creation of new and tricky words and pictures, but one of putting familiar words and pictures into new relationships. If you wanted to learn more about building the best advertisements, how would you go about it?
For us, the answer is pretty simple. We learn best by studying and analyzing awesome advertisement examples.
In this blog, we will define 13 important advertisement design elements we rely on to create effective advertisement messages and the best examples of each that we could find.
Did you ever see a commercial that you liked and watched it? Can you remember the brand? We would love to hear what it was (OK to say you can’t remember the brand). Would you do us a favor and tell us in the comments section? It would be greatly appreciated by us and our readers.
It is a great way to learn and stimulate design ideas. Let’s get started:
The Zillow real estate company has built an entire marketing campaign on influencing home buyers with emotional influence. Have you seen any of them? We like them so much that we have searched for them on YouTube frequently.
Related post: Ten Deadly Sins of Advertising Design
“Homecoming” is Zillow’s sixth TV spot, the latest in the company’s highly successful national advertising campaign. You cannot beat these ads. There are no better means of influence or the power of persuasion than emotion. Hands down the best, in our opinion.
Experiences that trigger our emotions are saved and consolidated in lasting memory because the emotions generated by the experiences signal our brains that the experiences are important to remember. Check out the homecoming ad.
The homecoming commercial ending message says it all:
You are not just looking for a house, you are looking for a place for your life to happen.
This commercial focuses on emotional appeal in grand fashion. It is the secret of this commercial’s success. It really creates strong persuasion in our opinion. A great example of successful advertisement design.
Do you ever see a commercial that you liked and watch it? Can you remember the brand? We would love to hear what it was. Would you do us a favor and tell us in the comments section? It would be greatly appreciated by us and our readers.
Written advertisement examples … Grab and hold attention
Did you see Nike’s Re2pect … a Tribute to Yankee Shortstop Derek Jeter?
As most of us know, future Baseball Hall of Famer Derek Jeter recently retired. So, one of Jeter’s long-time sponsors, Nike, released a commercial paying tribute to him. The ad’s name “” RE2PECT” is a tip of the cap to Jeter’s jersey number – and a host of athletes and celebrities can be seen paying tribute to the Yankees captain.
The commercial features Jay-Z, Billy Crystal, and Spike Lee – and even a couple of begrudging Red Sox fans – tipping their cap to the Bronx legend. Of course, the sportswear giant’s original sponsorship king — Michael Jordan himself – also makes a cameo.
Define a value proposition
When Panera began, they decided to bake fresh bread from fresh dough. That made them wonder, what else could they do the right way? A great question that made them think differently.
There are several simple ways that Panera highlighted good things that they could do right. Telling you about creating delicious food that you can trust. And most importantly they ended up coming together with their communities to help feed people in need.
Several unique selling points that truly discriminate them from their competition. It is essential that you give your customers reasons to select you. Paint the picture of value … make the value stand out. And advocate for issues your customer community cares about.
Examples of advertising media … customer end state needs
Focus on customer needs end state and not the means. The end state is the only priority.
A good example of this is this Prudential’s billboard ad. This commercial definitely considers the end state needs of its customers … the retirement needs of target customers are the commercial’s objective. A great interactive graphic drives home the objective.
Simple messages
Make the message as clean and simple as possible. You cannot overachieve on the simplicity of the message. A message that the reader will quickly understand. Keep in mind that pictures are far more valuable than words.
This Guinness “Empty Chair” commercial salutes the character of a community as they honor one of their own who is out of sight, but not out of mind. The choices we make reveal the true nature of our character. Guinness proudly raises a glass to those who are #MadeOfMore.
Relevant to your target market
Misty Copeland is only the third African American female soloist ever to dance for the American Ballet Theatre. But her route to the top was anything but an easy one.
She only danced ballet for the first time at the age of 13, a full eight years later than most ballet pros start training. And when she started to grow into a woman, she developed muscle tone, large breasts, and big feet – not exactly the accepted shape for a ballerina.
However, her refusal to give up on her dream is celebrated in this awesome new campaign for sports brand Under Armour, called ‘I Will What I Want’.
Have you seen this commercial? If not, take the 60 seconds to review it. It will certainly create a topic of discussion for you and your friends. That is certainly Under Armour’s objective, isn’t it?
Define your positioning
Your positioning is the current frame of reference. Make comparisons to your competitors if you can solidly substantiate the claim.
The uncola campaign, the Avis campaign, or Apple’s think different campaign are all great examples.
Advertisement design examples … visual elements
Use pictures/visuals to convey the message much better than words. “Seeing is believing” and “actions speak louder than words” are two common sayings that reflect a bias and preference for visual presentation.
Here is a 3 minute Samsung ad with 15-20 new features shown for their iPhone. No talking. And so simple that you quickly grasp the features and don’t lose interest. And the coordinated music has a way to keep you tied in emotionally.
Creating customer interest doesn’t get any simpler than this, does it? A very simple, yet entertaining design, don’t you think?
Letting the visuals totally carry the messages.
Advertisement design examples … storytelling
Have you seen the remarkable branding video design from this South African business? The Bell’s TV commercial features a father whose intrepid spirit demonstrates just what it takes to be a true man of character.
The video was created to market and build the brand. It is a very simple story. It advocates learning to read no matter your age or status in society. To us, it creates pure magic with the story, the visuals, the music, and the emotion. It certainly finds emotional triggers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1gxHQlJn3I
If you haven’t seen it, watch it now, it is only 2 minutes and it will inspire you. It is certainly easier in our top 5 of all time.
Authentic advertisement design examples
What do you feel is the single most significant factor in the design of an advertisement? Being the most authentic advertisement design is probably not the top factor, but it is certainly in the top 5, don’t you think? It certainly influences the action taken considerably.
We like to examine advertisements to learn what drives the best ones to be the best and the terrible ones to be that bad. Today we will examine one of the best we have seen in a while. Perhaps one that is the most authentic we have ever seen.
Here is the commercial:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSI2AZQmEsU
Integrated campaign
Your ads should be integrated components of an integrated marketing campaign. Remember, stop interrupting what people interested in, and be what people are interested in.
It was in early 2009 when IBM began its Smarter Planet marketing campaign strategy. At the time, the strategy seemed very ambitious … maybe even a bit risky, even for IBM. But their success was based on a strategy to build out a long term campaign.
To do this they defined a theme around their vision (Smarter Planet). They used the theme to craft a marketing strategy connecting and integrating many smaller marketing objectives and tactics as they could. They also linked their core competencies to this theme, vision, and challenge.
This very successful campaign continues today, 5 years later.
A great ad design element is to match what viewers see with what they hear. Check out this recent Budweiser commercial for great coordinated music and video:
The Budweiser puppy love commercial was, by most accounts, the biggest winner from the 2014 Super Bowl. Check out this ad here:
A great example of a successful advertisement design.
People expect and prefer coordinated audio and visual messages because those messages are easier to process and understand. Audio and visual messages that are out-of-sync may gain attention, but customers usually find them uncomfortable.
The bottom line
Remember, it is not what advertising does with the consumer, it is what the consumer does after reading the advertisement. After looking over these enablers and Allstate’s mayhem ads … how do you think they did?
Look for ways to optimize.
Did you ever see a commercial that you liked and watched it? Can you remember the brand? We would love to hear what it was (OK to say you can’t remember the brand). Would you do us a favor and tell us in the comments section? It would be greatly appreciated by us and our readers.
Need some help in capturing more customers from your advertising? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with your customers?
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to improving your advertising design?
Do you have a lesson about making your innovation better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find him on Twitter, and LinkedIn.
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