I’m taking a course in Advertising Copywriting this quarter. It’s pretty interesting but I’ve found at times it can really be a challenge to not write a boring or painfully obvious ad. The first three shown below are for my visuals/headlines assignment and the last two include body copy. I’d love to get some feedback on these. One of the things we discuss when talking about strategy is the idea of “CTB” or “Convince….That…..Because”. Your ads should always relate back to your CTB statement to make sure that you’re sticking with your strategy. We had to pick a product or service for this class that was fairly unknown or local. I’ve found myself spending a lot of time in the Chicago Architecture Foundation shop over the last few months and I thought they’d be a nice change from the CSO for awhile.
CTB #1: Convince Chicago-area mothers with young families that a CAF membership is more valuable than a museum membership because it provides their family with a valuable variety of active group learning experiences the whole family will enjoy.
This ad’s headline is an example of parallelism-where you repeat a sentence or portion of a sentence. This sometimes can be sort of a surprise headline at the end.
This one I just love because it has giraffes. I also was trying to follow my strategy of convincing families that the CAF membership is more valuable than a museum’s (or in this case, a zoo’s)
This one is pretty blatantly a stab at museums. (Love you MSI!)
CTB #2: Convince downtown professionals that CAF is their workweek escape because of the variety of engaging programs that fit their work schedules.
I really wanted to find images of talking food (ala the muppet tomatoes) but that’s hard to make work in a print ad.
This one is supposed to be a “spiral” print ad. While nothing in this particular image is twisty, the copy follows the lines of the building and draws attention up to my headline.
Please leave feedback in the comments section. The goal of advertising is not to make you go out and buy something, but to influence your attitudes and beliefs. Are you intrigued and thinking about checking out the CAF website? (you should, it’s pretty cool). If you work downtown, on a beautiful day would you maybe consider taking a walking tour on your lunch break or before you go home for the day?
While my heart is with museums, I am really tempted to check out the CAF now! I’ve heard their tours are fabulous…
Is it nerdish of me to know that your spiral ad is a shot of OTC from Canal Street? Nice work.
No! That means it works! Next time you’re standing there about to get on the train maybe you’ll re-think going home so soon.
Well played, my friend. Well played.