Make your creative really work for you, Part 2
Posted on July 14, 2009 | Permalink
By Lane Casteix
Let’s face it, creative, including art and photography, can be expensive. Get as many miles out of it as you can. Not only does this enhance the effectiveness of your advertising dollar through an increased number of impressions, but it can also reduce the cost of your advertising and promotions.
Use your creative in different applications. This stretches the cost over many more units. You will tire of it loooooonnnnng before your customer will. And it will be effective loooonnnng after you are tired of it, because your customer will not see it nearly as much as you will. He will need to see it about six times before it will make enough of an impression on him to act. Give the creative time to be effective before you dash off and change it.
George Lois, a famous art director in New York, was called to task by one of his clients. “George, it is time to change the creative. It is getting old.” George smiled and replied that the first ad had not yet run. The client had only been seeing numerous layouts and variations on the theme for approval purposes. Sure he was tired of it, but the campaign had not had a chance to make ANY impressions on his customers. Give it a chance to be effective before you change it. When you are getting sick of your ad is about when it is becoming effective with your customers. Changing the creative too soon damages graphic continuity and weakens the effectiveness of your efforts.
You paid for it, get its full benefit.