creative magazine ads

The Best Print Ads of All Time | Building Better Brands

- In this episode of Building Bad Brands, we're discussing the dead medium of print and the best print advertisements of all time.

What makes a good print advert:

- It should stop people in their tracks.

- It should be memorable.

- It should generate buzz online.

- It should be simple but effective.

Best print ads of all time:

1. Ikea's advert for cots and cribs for expecting families that doubled as a pregnancy test.

2. KFC's ad by Mother London that rearranged the letters KFC FCK.

3. Marmite's Brexit-themed ad that played on their love it or hate it campaign.

4. McDonald's iconic Stacks campaign and Follow the Arches campaign.

5. Stabilo's advert that highlighted the importance of women in historical photos.

6. Volkswagen's Think Small campaign.

7. WWF's Horrifying More Horrifying campaign.

8. Coca-Cola's Share a Coke campaign.

- Print advertising is not dead, but it has changed.

- A good print advert should be memorable, simple, and generate buzz.

- The best print ads of all time include campaigns from Ikea, KFC, Marmite, McDonald's, Stabilo, Volkswagen, WWF, and Coca-Cola.

Ad Design 101: The 8 Types of Ad Design

Advertising Design: How to Differentiate Your Ads in a Crowded Market

Back in the day, ads were created based on hunches, assumptions, or gut feelings. But today, with people bombarded with endless pop-ups, banners, and sponsored social media posts, it's essential to differentiate your ads to break away from all the noise. Advertising design is the intersection of marketing and design, specifically created to sell products and services. In this article, we'll go through eight types of advertising designs to inspire your next campaign.

Types of Advertising Designs:

1. Video and Commercial Ads:

Video ads are everywhere, from YouTube to Instagram, TikTok, TV, and blogs. They require more production than traditional image ads, but the results are well worth the investment. Brands tend to experience a 20 to 30 percent increase in conversion rates when their ads are video instead of still images.

2. Display Advertisements:

Display ads can be found on websites, apps, and social media channels. They can be created in various formats, including text, images, video, and audio. However, they often garner a higher volume of impressions but a relatively low volume of clicks due to banner blindness or poor design. To grab your audience's attention, design something visually captivating and think about where your ad may be displayed.

3. Social Media Ads:

Social media ads offer a massive opportunity to bring leads and sales to the door, but creating ads that capture your viewers' attention is critical to your campaign's success. Use visually exciting images and mix ads up between images and video, be consistent with your branding, and understand your audience.

4. Direct Mail:

Being one of the more traditional mediums for advertising, direct mail is an excellent way to cut through the clutter that is the internet. However, design mistakes here are extremely costly, so be 100% certain about your design before you hit print.

5. Outdoor Ads:

Billboards, street furniture, and transit ads are all different kinds of outdoor ads. To capture the attention of people walking by, engage your audience with creative ads that drive them to take action, such as buying a product with your promo code or visiting your website.

6. Email Marketing:

Email marketing continues to deliver a strong return on investment, with an average return of 42 for every one dollar spent. To create a visually compelling message that drives your audience to take action, study how top companies do it and try to keep your promotional emails to only one call to action.

7. Event Advertising:

There is no better way to connect with your audience than face-to-face, and event advertising can be anything from sponsoring an event to running your own. Get creative with photo booths, branded items, contests, and breakfast for your power users and high-value customers.

8. Newspaper and Magazine Ads:

Newspaper and magazine ads can be extremely effective, but they require careful consideration of your target audience. Think about the type of publication and design something that will stand out and engage your audience.

Advertising design is a crucial aspect of marketing that can help differentiate your ads in a crowded market. Whether you choose video ads, display advertisements, social media ads, direct mail, outdoor ads, email marketing, event advertising, or newspaper and magazine ads, design something that will capture your audience's attention and drive them to take action.

Magazine ad analysis

Hi guys, my name is Christine and I will be discussing my magazine ad analysis on Men's Health and InStyle magazines. One of the trends I found in both magazines was the ideal age portrayed in the ads, which was mostly of young people versus older or middle-aged people. Additionally, the majority of the race present in the ads were that of white people.

Body:

- Men's Health Magazine:

- Physically fit people are the ideal body shape for men.

- The verbiage used in this magazine is focused on getting ripped, gaining muscle, and rebuilding the body in weeks.

- Ads in this magazine were mostly protein products, including supplements and meats.

- The ideal body shape for men is strong and lean with six-pack abs.

- Men in ads all have a rugged look with beards, mustaches, and hair that is on point.

- InStyle Magazine:

- Women in ads were mostly thin with almost perfect skin.

- Ads focused on corrective treatments and wrinkle-free products.

- Gender-specific products such as purses, jewelry, and makeup were being sold.

- Ads portrayed a lot of skin and were mostly gender-specific.

Both magazines had different gender-specific products being sold, but the ideal body images portrayed were not realistic for the average person. Although I had anticipated this from the ads, it was still shocking to see that this is what is portrayed in these magazines every day to everybody who buys one off the magazine stand. It is important to remember that we all come in different shapes and sizes, and aging is a natural process.

Types of magazine ads: A study

Are you interested in advertising in a magazine, but not sure which type of ad is right for your business? With so many options available, it can be difficult to know where to start. In this article, we will discuss the different types of magazine ads available and their benefits for businesses of all sizes.

Types of Magazine Ads:

1. Ad Promotions Page - This type of magazine ad is large and elaborate, with its own list of categories and subcategories. It may come in the form of an article or a series of articles based on the same genre of advertising. This proves to be an inexpensive way to advertise by small companies.

2. Classifieds - In this type of magazine ad, the owner of the company may write a few lines accompanied by contact information and a call to action. This type of ad is very commonly found in newspapers, both local and international.

3. Advertorials - Advertorials take up an entire page in the main part of a magazine. They are told in the form of stories and are interesting to read and catchy. Often, readers gravitate towards advertorials if looked upon as content.

4. Display Ads - Display ads are the easiest to recognize. They are expressed in bold letters and display images and graphics. This type of ad is very popular in newspapers and is mostly used by small businesses and local brands.

Benefits of Magazine Advertising:

- Magazine advertising allows businesses to reach a wide body of people via different types of ads.

- It helps businesses make ongoing communication with their target audiences, allowing them to be brand aware and brand loyal.

- Magazines are a great way to narrow down your audiences and hit the right buying cycle.

In conclusion, publishing an advertisement in a magazine can benefit both small and big businesses. Magazines offer a competitive arena with a lot of diversity among prices, genres, and geographical reach. When considering advertising in a magazine, it is important to know all the types of ads available and choose the one that suits your business the best. With the right type of ad and magazine, advertising in a magazine can have a better impact on potential customers compared to direct mail and outdoor advertising.

Smartest Creative Ads That Will Make You Look Twice!

Product Ads: The Power of Visual Images

Product advertisements are constantly evolving, but one thing remains constant: the power of a single visual image. With only a brief moment to capture our attention, cutting-edge illustrators use technology, camouflage, and clever suggestion to make their ads stand out in the cultural mainstream. Here are some of the smartest and most captivating ads in existence.

Examples:

- Ford Explorer SUV: This ad uses an age-old optical illusion to create a fresh take. By staring at the dot in the middle of the blue silhouette of a Ford Explorer, viewers see the black shape of a perfectly parked Explorer in an empty parking space.

- Berjaya Sky Planes: This billboard from India displays an extraordinarily vivid image of a painter carefully erasing the very background he is seen against.

- DHL Express: This ad features a built-in mechanical device that propels a small red marble through an intricate maze, showing off the company's efficient delivery system.

- Jeep: This ad uses an optical illusion to showcase the diversity of the product. When viewed right side up, the drawing looks like a deer, but when turned upside down, it can be seen as a penguin. The slogan See whatever you want to see is printed upside down at the bottom of the image to help viewers identify the illusion.

- Heineken: This ad creates the illusion of a hand reaching through a pliable background to grab a cold beverage. The material on which the billboard is printed seems to be ready to burst, but the ad is actually quite flat.

- Expedia: This British ad plays on several puns based on airport city codes to suggest an amorous date on a faraway beach. The familiar bag check tickets jog the reader's specific memories of flying away on vacation.

- McDonald's: This elevated outdoor billboard captures the attention of travelers with its spotlights. The red horizontal billboard combined with the yellow cylindrical streaks of light suggest an order of delicious McDonald's French fries, making the company's iconic menu item literally part of the skyline.

- San Cobb: This print ad references a famous MC Escher series called Metamorphosis to remind the audience that many aquatic animals are endangered without our help.

- Jane Payne Lingerie: This ad sets up a clever gimmick by featuring a close-up of a model's chest with a lace undergarment ready to slide off. However, the small photo in the lower right reveals that both images in the ad are of a woman's elbow, setting up the slogan If our lingerie can make an elbow look sexy, imagine what it can do in the right place.

- Jobs in Town: This ad shows a squeezed and stressed worker manually pumping gas for an unwitting customer, reminding readers of the difficulties of trapped and thankless jobs.

- Trail and Tina Building Supplies: This deceptively simple billboard features a birdhouse positioned on top and drawings of birdhouses to the left, containing six combined images of birds, including at least three owls. The background is made to look like an eye-catching finished grain that woodworkers relish.

- Chupa Chups: This ad encourages people to suck on lollipops instead of chewing their sunglasses.

- Interbest: This Dutch company threatened business owners with a very unsightly striptease if they didn't rent their billboard space. The ad featured a modest male model in various stages of undress with the tagline, The sooner you advertise here, the better the payoff.

- Samsung: This monumental ad turned a skyscraper into a billboard displayed on an entire office building in Moscow, displaying information about the handset.

- Lyft: This ad uses a double meaning with the phrase This is a bad sign to make fun of itself for putting up a simple text billboard. The company promises an affordable solution just an app download away.

- O'Donovan's Irish Pub: This ad is a clever take on the legendary slogan Sex Sells. The giant bold lettering of naked waitresses flirt with you is offset by the fine print that becomes a modern punk feminist statement on foolhardy men attempting to flirt with their waitresses.

These ads demonstrate the power of visual images in capturing our attention and conveying a message. Whether using optical illusions, clever puns, or hiding multiple images in one, commercial artists are becoming masters of depth perception, telling stories without words, and creating unforgettable ads.

Print Ads vs. Digital Marketing (RESEARCH-BASED)

Digital Advertising vs Print Advertising: Why Digital is More Effective

When small business owners think about spreading the word about their business, they often automatically think of placing an ad in their local newspaper. However, getting the word out is so much more than just placing an ad in the local paper.

Why Print Advertising Is Ineffective:

1. No Data and Insight:

With print advertising, you get virtually no data and insight on how that ad is doing and what the customer perceptions are of that ad. The customer path to purchase is much more complicated now than it was thirty years ago with the advent of the internet. Customers have far more choices and the internet makes it easy for them to look at 30 of your competitors and then decide.

2. Digital Has More Bearing and Weight:

According to Pew Research, only 23% of Americans read the paper anymore. Digital interactions influence 36 cents on the dollar for every single in-store purchase, and that number has definitely gone up since 2014.

3. Digital Has More Advantages:

Digital content is flexible and adaptable. Digital advertising is far more efficient in customer targeting, has a higher reach per dollar spent, and you have so much more power over how much you spend.

Final Thoughts:

Print advertising can still be effective, especially if you're trying to get customers on a local level, but with all these factors in mind, it might be beneficial to put more of your budget toward digital. Content marketing is truly where it's at - it points customers in the right direction instead of just shouting at them through a static ad.

Digital advertising is more effective than print advertising in today's marketplace. With the complicated pathways to purchase, businesses need data on the demographics and psychographics more than ever. Digital advertising offers that insight, while print advertising leaves companies feeling like they're flying in the dark.