Have you seen the latest Prudential ad design? You know … the one with the best graphic design central to their story. Quite clever isn’t it, and likely one you will remember and maybe even talk about, right? It is a commercial part of the Prudential Bring Your Challenges Campaign.
You just can’t say it. You have to get people to say it to each other.
-James Farley
Ever written an advertisement, or thought about it? I’ve done marketing for my clients in small businesses for the past 4+ years and I’ve learned a few things about making advertising look professional even on a tight budget. And the true measure of successful advertising design is having customers remember and talk about the message.
Many small businesses don’t have a lot of time or resources to create ads professionally made. Marketing or advertising, you need to create information that your customers find interesting and worth talking about and remembering.
Check out our thoughts on creative marketing.
Related: Some Great Story and Storytelling Examples to Study
Does a commercial have the power to encourage the right sort of conversations? That is the objective, isn’t it? Let’s explore why this is so important.
According to Nielsen, there are 27,000,000 pieces of content are shared each day. And Statistic Brain says that our average attention span has dropped from 12 seconds in 2000 to 8 seconds – one second less than a goldfish!
We check our phones 150 times per day. We check our email up to 30 times an hour. And the amount of information in the world continues to double every 18 months.
All this available information and data is creating a battle for customer attention between brands, publishers, and every one of us who creates marketing content. But more importantly, it’s forcing businesses to think more and more as creative designers. And designs where they utilize visual analogies to help carry their messages.
It has been said that advertising is the price to be paid for being unremarkable. That may be true, but I have noticed, despite the growth in online marketing, that even remarkable businesses also advertise the old fashion way. It is a key component of your marketing campaign, for awareness or consumer education of your value. If everyone is creating content, how does a business break through the noise? How do we reach our customers in a way that engages them?
And, oh, by the way, it must be more interesting than the millions of other advertisements out there. Now that is a daunting task, isn’t it? Prudential marketing has sought to overcome this dilemma with advocacy advertising as its power of persuasion.
Prudential is no stranger to using awesome visualization in ads. Or to breaking through the noise to capture customer attention and engage them. Check out our earlier blogs on some of their commercials here:
But note that this commercial visualization is the best yet for Prudential in my opinion … applying the best analogy and visuals. If you would like to see this commercial, you can check it out here.
Let me explain why I believe this commercial is so successful:
Ask thoughtful questions
The ad starts out with the commentator asking people a simple, yet thoughtful question:
How much money do you have in your pocket right now?
After he collects everyone’s answer, he asks a second, more probing question:
Could something that small make an impact on something as big as your retirement goal?
Most people have less than $50 in their pockets and don’t believe this amount of money could significantly impact their retirement goal.
One of my favorite experts in the field of creative advertising is Edward Bouches and Creativity Unbound. You’ll find lots of good examples and case studies to learn from in his blog.
Best graphic design … first mental impression
These are interesting questions and you are immediately wondering what the commentator’s point will be. But despite your views, it still grabs attention and your thinking.
Visual design … message
You know what … if you put away this amount consistently, or a regular basis for 20 to 30 years, well, that retirement goal may not be so big after all.
And what is the subject of the marketing message that Prudential wants to promote? It is an issue with a simple motivational message to be consistent with your goals and never give up.
Best graphic design … create a visual analogy
Now to make this point with a visual analogy, the commentator points to a series of dominoes, smallest to largest. When he makes his point on putting away investments consistently over time, he knocks over the smallest domino, which causes the chain reaction to topple all the dominoes.
A great analogy to the retirement goal being achieved … as the dominoes fall the emotion rises.
A good emotional story provides a very good connection between the issue and the company promoting their message. The ad does explain the action in the story for the audience. And it allows each member of the audience to interpret the story as he or she understands the action and the emotion.
This is why people find good stories so appealing and why they find advertising that simply conveys information boring.
Experiences that trigger our emotions are saved and consolidated in lasting memory because the emotions generated by the experiences signal our brains that they are important to remember. And create a good reason for you to want to back the Prudential message, yes?
Connect the dots
Making powerful motivational messages to your target audience, as in this ad, is very effective in getting the viewer to relate to the issue in their own lives and to inspire.
So simple that the reader will quickly grasp the motivation. Keep in mind that the analogy is far more valuable than words.
Say exactly why people should contact your business and what you can do for them. For example “Let’s prepare today to do what we love tomorrow”. These ads make the desired call to action a part of the story.
