Durable Advertising

A picture is worth a thousand words. Unfortunately sometimes those are a thousand of the wrong words. Check out this poster from a 1919 prohibition campaign.



Now I'm not one to call another man's wife ugly but this is supposed to be marketing. This is an early example of trying to use sex to sell, and I think they just might have sold a lot a people on a life of celibacy. What happened in 1919 happens every day in businesses across America. Someone comes up with a great ad idea, a great slogan, a great tag line or offer. Then they go to design their mailing pieces, email, or brochure and they use some piece of clipart that ruins the piece. Why do they choose bad photos or clipart - well, mostly because they're lazy. They limit themselves to the Microsoft clipart package that came with their PC. Or maybe they go online and search for stock photography and find out that the picture they want will cost them $500 to use.

Here are two quick tips for getting great images for your
advertising -

1) www.istockphoto.com
This site features almost 6 million royalty free photos. They have a great search engine and you can get exactly what you want. The best part is royalty free images only cost you a few dollars for images sized for postcards or online/email use.

2) Take it yourself. Want a picture of a smiling kid, holding a puppy and getting a bucket of water poured over his head? Line up junior and take the shot. The more creative you get the more often you'll need a custom photo. Chances are you have a digital camera capable of taking professional quality photos, a camera that would have cost $10,000 five years ago but is commodity today. Use it!

So here is the same ad with the correct photo.



Sobriety is looking better now?