Your Relevance Please

In an earlier post, I talked about the importance of great imagery in communications. This post is to discuss the importance of RELEVANCE. I wouldn't think it would need to be said but the image you use should not only tell a story, it should tell the right story.

First off, I don't want to make a habit of criticizing other people's work in this blog – there are others who already do a good job of this including the guys at emailcritic.com. That said, the following postcards are two recent examples from which we can learn something. The first is a postcard from KwikKopy about their Direct Mail services:

While the whole "message in a bottle" image is intriguing and really tells a story, it tells the opposite story that it should. The last time I put a message in a bottle was when I was stranded on an island with a professor, a movie star and a millionaire. We didn't care WHO got the message, in fact we sent hundreds of messages in bottles and coconuts and not one made it through. Also, the "on time" message is not supported by the pictured aquatic delivery method that even the USPS can outperform. I had hoped that the other side of this postcard would redeem itself by acknowledging the contrast and saying something like "Your customer swims in a sea of advertisements, don't just drop your message in a bottle and hope for the best. Hook 'em with Direct Mail that's sure to reel them in." ... but they didn't.

The second example is really clever. It has all the qualities that cause me to pause and read the little card. There's just one little problem: It's an ad for a stock photo library and it has NO PHOTOS.

Seriously, I like the ad. It's printed on a cool, seed-infused paper that grows when you plant it. It has clever copy to go with the whole growing/weeding/planting theme of the paper. But why, oh why, does a stock photography site use a big yellow box instead of a clever picture? They have thousands of pictures at their disposal, don't they have one picture of a Marigold? My takeaway from this is that I can send clever messages without having to pay for a single picture. It's bold and simple, colorful and clever and doesn't need a stock photo to succeed. Is that really what they want me to think?

So here's the deal. Think about what kind of story you want to tell with your ad. Work on the imagery in conjunction with the headlines and bullets. Make sure everything leads back to the call to action and that the creative doesn't take on a life of it's own going in an unintended direction. Consider running comps by people that are disconnected from your creative team: your receptionist, a friend or your kid's soccer coach and then take their comments to heart.

Feel free to comment on this or send me examples of your GOOD creative. That would be much more fun to review anyway.