Effective Advertising … 14 Best Examples of Ad Design

It has been said that advertising is the price to be paid for being unremarkable. That may be true, but I have noticed that even remarkable businesses advertise. Effective advertising design is an essential component of your marketing campaign. It creates awareness and consumer education of your value.

Here is a short video on ad design trends to get you started.

effective advertising
Effective advertising
Check out our thoughts on creative marketing.
Ever written an advertisement, or thought about it? I’ve done marketing for my clients in small businesses for the past 7+ years. In that time I’ve learned a few things about making advertising look professional even on a tight budget.
And the actual measure of effective 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 professionally made ads. But that may be because they make it too complicated. In marketing or advertising, you need to create information that your customers find interesting, entertaining, and worth talking about.
“Last year was marked by intensely emotional events, and video advertising was in some ways a reflection of this. The Olympics brought many uplifting pieces of creative from brands like Hershey’s and P&G, while brands like Zappos and Microsoft tackled social issues like homelessness and female empowerment,” said Peter Daboll, CEO of Ace Metrix, in a statement.
“The presidential election opened the door for brands to deliver messages of inclusion and unity. As usual, the Super Bowl brought us some of the year’s funniest ads, including Doritos final installment of Crash the Super Bowl.”
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.
Here are the best recent effective advertisement design examples that represent extraordinary design elements:

 

Grab and hold viewers’ attention

Catch attention with interesting information.  Keep in mind that people don’t read ads, they read what interests them. Your ad messages must be compelling to your target communities.
At a time when some people might be struggling to gain the acceptance of their family, this Danish commercial about a father getting a gift for his transgender teen daughter is great.
What gets me the most is the initial fear of rejection on both sides and the shy, understanding smiles in the end.

Create curiosity

I was fully prepared to dislike this Mercedes-Benz commercial about a young teen getting his dad to drive him to his date during one of the worst snowstorms of the winter.
But Wow it if I didn’t start to well up when his date, who he thought had ditched him, showed up to the empty movie theater, too.

Effective advertising  … use of story

This “English for Beginners” commercial has been watched over 12 million times, and it’s no surprise why. From the cute dog to the adorable grammar mistakes, the whole ad is as charming as anything I have viewed in a long while.
But it’s the ending that will clutch your heart and twist your tear ducts. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

 

Define a value proposition

Have you ever heard of Safelite Autoglass and their business model? They have created The Safelite Advantage as a bundle of unique selling propositions providing what consumers have identified as their primary vehicle glass service needs. It’s why leading insurance and fleet companies, as well as more than four million drivers, choose Safelite each year.

Consider the end state values to your customers

Not only does this commercial have two old men coming adorably together, but it shows that some things like real friendship and bad knees are universal, no matter your faith.
print advertising techniques
Print advertising techniques.
By the end of this commercial, you’ll be laughing and crying at the same time.

Effective advertising methods … use of music

We used to think of music in commercials as only support. No longer the case in today’s world.
Take this Jeep commercial as an example in point. The music is the centerpiece of the ad and indeed holds you to the script. At least it does me.

 

 

Make your messages simple

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sr6lr_VRsEo

So simple that the reader will quickly understand. Keep in mind that pictures are far more valuable than words.
This silly commercial is from the perspective of Buster the boxer dog who wants nothing more than to jump on his family’s new trampoline but watches in vain as nocturnal animals steal his spotlight. Until it’s finally his turn.
Though this commercial isn’t sad exactly, there’s something about watching this happy dog bounce on a new trampoline that will bring tears of joy to your eyes.
effective advertisement examples
Effective advertisement examples.

Be relevant to your target market.

Keep in mind that one message does not fit all. It starts with knowing your target market.
Here is a very relevant message.

 

Use of surprise

Watching two adorable teddy bears walk through the airport might sound banal, but they are oh-so-endearing.
And when you finally realize who they are, it makes this commercial all the cuter with this surprise ending.

 

Define your positioning

Your positioning is your frame of reference. Make comparisons to your competitors if you can.
Sometimes you want to position yourself as close as possible to your best competitors, as these ads.
Doritos’ Super Bowl commercial “Ultrasound” came in second place for the funniest ad of 2016, while Avocados From Mexico’s game day spot came in second for the funniest ad of the year. Other brands that scored points with consumers last year were Kohler, Microsoft, and Always.

Use of emotion

If you haven’t seen Apple’s full Frankenstein Christmas commercial, get ready to weep. It follows Frankenstein as he tries to make a human connection by replacing his neck bolts with light-up Christmas bulbs.
Watching him on his lonely mountaintop finally have the courage to journey down and connect with the townspeople is haunting, but sweet.

Unique

Make your ad as unique as you dare. Note we believe you can never be too unique, as this ad shows.

Clearly link your messages

Link your messages to your brand. Remember the AFLAC duck or E-Trade’s talking baby … these are excellent linkages to the brands.
Hershey’s “Hello From Home” ad featuring US Olympic wrestler Jordan Burroughs was linked to people who like to be motivated. The ad, created by Arnold, features Burroughs as he opens a care package filled with chocolate and words of encouragement from his family.

 

Inspire

According to Ace Metrix, which conducted the research by measuring the frequency of emotive words and phrases in viewer comments on nearly 8,000 videos, Nike’s “Unlimited Scout Bassett” ad was the most inspirational ad of 2016. Created by Wieden + Kennedy Portland, the video was part of Nike’s “Unlimited” campaign that ran during the Olympics.
 

Employ humor

One of the funniest ads recently was Cheetos’ “The Lie Detector,” according to Ace Metrix, which features a husband who catches his wife and kids sneaking Cheetos behind his back.

 

Creative

Johnsonville Sausage took the cake for the most creative ad of 2016 with its “Regular Speed Chase by Brett” video that launched last spring. Created by Droga5, the video was part of a campaign for the brand that tasked employees with coming up with ideas for the brand’s ads.

 

The bottom line

 

Ace Metrix scores every national television ad, and an expanding proportion of digital ads, across 96 categories creating a complete comparative database—Ace Metrix LIVE®. A unique panel of at least 500 consumers, demographically balanced to the U.S. Census, scores each ad in the same manner.
The results are presented on a scale of 1–950, which represents scoring on creative attributes such as Attention, Likeability, Information, Change, Relevance, Desire, and Watchability. Ace Metrix applies a natural language processing algorithm to the hundreds of qualitative verbatim responses collected for each ad, deriving additional metrics related to emotional engagement.
 
 
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?
 
What are some of your experiences with advertising as a component of an integrated marketing campaign?
 
Do you have an advertising experience to share with this community?

ad_strategy

Need some help in capturing more customers from your advertising? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with your clients?
 
Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job.
Call Mike at 607-725-8240.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that struggle 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. Call today.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to improve 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?
 
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change.  We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed how reasonable we will be.
  
More reading on advertising from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
What to Expect from a Creative Advertising Strategy
Creative Secrets from Budweiser Advertising Examples
Prudential Ad Makes Visualization Design Central to Story
Ten Deadly Sins of Advertising Design
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+FacebookTwitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.

Advertising Campaign … Are the Geico Happiness Ads Effective?

Have you seen the recent Geico happiness advertisement series where the theme is Geico creating happiness? Three of these are shown in the image: the Roadrunner and Coyote with Gecko; the witch in a broom factory; and Christopher Columbus discovering America in speedboats. There are more, but we thought three would be enough to analyze the effectiveness of the series. The question for you is … is this advertising campaign effective?
effective advertising
Effective advertising?
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.
–      Leo Burnett
Examining these TV commercials, it seems that Leo Burnett’s words ring true. At least on the surface; but they are only necessary, not necessary and sufficient.
It has been said that advertising is the price to be paid for being unremarkable.  That certainly seems to be the case in this series.
Let’s evaluate other elements to determine the effectiveness of these advertisements in the Geico marketing strategy:

Advertising campaign … effective advertising

Be relevant to your target market  keep in mind that one message does not fit all.
It starts with knowing your target market. Here the target market is not at all clear, are they?

 

Effective advertising methods.

Define your positioning

Your positioning is your frame of reference.  Make comparisons to your competitors if you can.
Geico, for sure, knows who its major competitors are, but makes no comparisons in this series.
 

Effective advertising campaigns

They must grab and hold viewers’ attention with interesting information.  Keep in mind that people don’t watch ads … they watch what interests them.
Your ad messages must be interesting to your target communities. These ads are, at best, average at grabbing, but not holding attention.
They certainly don’t provide interesting or entertaining information (in fact, they border on annoying, based on the frequency).

 

Define a unique selling proposition

This proposition must truly discriminate you from your competition. Give your customers reasons to select you.
Certainly, none is shown here in this series.

 

Effective advertising strategies

Advertising strategies must make messages simple … that the reader will quickly understand. Keep in mind that pictures are far more valuable than words.
Creating customer curiosity by lacking any real message or point doesn’t count.
Any effective marketing campaign whether it’s a series of Web videos, direct emails, magazine display ads, banner ads, outdoor billboards, television and radio spots, or any combination thereof, will only work if it focuses on a single message.
At the heart of all advertising is the promise you commit to delivering to your clients.
No matter how clever or memorable your marketing, if you fail to deliver on that promise, you will fail.

 

advertising campaign example
Advertising campaign example.

  Advertising campaign example

Learn a lesson from the politicians. The general publics’ opinion of politicians is about on a par with having a prostate exam.
Politicians can’t help themselves; they promise the electorate what the electorate wants to hear, and then fail to deliver on promises that can never be kept.
Consequently, people become cynical and distrust everything politicians say.
Failure to deliver on your promise to be the cheapest, the best, or the guy with the most features, is like a politician promising no new taxes.
Read my lips! Those kinds of promises are a prescription for a marketing disaster.
Taking the conceptual approach requires a certain degree of confidence and an understanding that you are going to have to give something up to get something in return.
If you present your identity as the Timex of widgets, inexpensive and ubiquitous, then you are giving up the audience looking for the Rolex of widgets, expensive and exclusive.

Advertising campaign … make your ad a component

Your advertising methods need to relate to an integrated marketing campaign. There are a series of similar ads in this campaign … all geared to address the theme of happiness.
But with no real message other than awareness of Geico, where is the integration?

Consider the end state values to your customers

Target your end state values to customers and particularly the target customers that are looking for value and message.
Where is the beef? The marketing strategy certainly is missing this end state in our opinion.

 

Effective advertising campaign

This list could go on, but I’ll end with one last powerful principle that is useful in reshaping opinions and getting people to rethink brands or categories — one of the best reasons to invest $5 million in a Super Bowl ad in the first place.
In early 2011, selling an American car was a tough ask. Most people still associated Detroit and American automakers with failure and bailouts.
The principle of “two-sided messaging” was brilliantly used in Chrysler’s “Imported from Detroit”(No. 13). We are more likely to engage with a message that fits with what we already believe.
If someone feels negatively toward a brand, they’ll be resistant to hearing a direct, positive message.
By first acknowledging a few of its flaws, they’ll be more open to changing how they feel and what they believe.
The Chrysler spot tells us that, yes, Detroit has been through some tough times, but it’s also strong, resilient and knows a thing or two about art and culture and luxury.
By validating the viewers’ impressions of Detroit and, by reflection, Chrysler, the brand was able to turn “Imported from Detroit” into a “hell yes!” rally cry for the Motor City everyone felt proud to get behind.
Whether or not any of these ads were developed with the conscious use of behavioral science, it’s clear to see that when ads work the way our brains work, they capture our attention and make a lasting impact.
Think how much further ahead you can be if you start your ideation with behavioral science in mind.

 

The bottom line

Remember, it is not what advertising does with the consumer; it is what the consumer does after viewing the advertisement.
  
It has been said that advertising is the price to be paid for being unremarkable.
After looking over these enablers and this Geico advertising series, we believe Geico is paying the price of being unremarkable twice. What do you think?
 
 What are some of your experiences with advertising as a component of an integrated marketing campaign? Please share one with this community.
 
 
Need some help in capturing more customers from your advertising? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with your customers?
 
Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job.
Call Mike at 607-725-8240.
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. Call today.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to improve 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 them on G+Twitter, and LinkedIn.  
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change.  We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.
  
More reading on advertising from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
 What to Expect from a Creative Advertising Strategy
Creative Secrets from Budweiser Advertising Examples
Prudential Ad Makes Visualization Design Central to Story
Ten Deadly Sins of Advertising Design
 
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