Prospective Ad for Kops Records

Expect big things, because I’m doing some freelance!

 

 

Click Me.

 

 

 

Lemme know what you guys think.

Copy for LSAT Tutoring Course

 

This is not actually what Jer looks like. Although even if it was, he'd still need to advertise.

 

 

A friend of mine, who I call Jer, has solicited my help for a couple simple posters to put up around the city for his LSAT tutoring. Jer himself got a perfect score with time to spare on his first test and I pointed out that we really wanted to emphasize this. We are trying to stress 2 major points:

1. The program offered is cheaper than the big competitors.

2. a. That the program is more effective at getting results, because it worked for Jer.

2. b. That Jer is so confident in his program he is willing to offer the first session free to those not satisfied.

In response to point 2. a. I have asked Jer to include his LSAT score on his posters, and will circle them with big red markers. This re-emphasizes that he is himself a confident practitioner, and not just a guy with a guidebook on how to teach a course. From my research I discovered that Kaplan has a practice of giving out snacks to their pupils the day of the test, useful as stress relief and to provide them with one thing less to worry about the day of the test.

What follows is lifted from the e-mail conversation between us and my copy for his campaign: 

“Hey Jer,

Thanks for getting me the LSAT score in a timely fashion, You should see something from me in poster form by Monday. I want to go with some slogan like “Perfection has a price, and it’s $40″ and in the body copy explain a little more about your rates. I have two major ideas right now. I want to do one where we have a little paper bag with the Kaplan logo on it (I’ve seen them give out these bags with snacks to test-takers on the day of) on the top of the poster and put underneath in big bold words: 

Ad#1:

YES, IT’S CUTE THAT OUR COMPETITORS OFFER SNACKS THE DAY OF YOUR LSAT. BUT AT $1200 ISN’T IT LITTLE STEEP?

Especially if you don’t get the score you want. 

At just $40/hr Jer will show you how he got his perfect score with time to spare. The most effective way to get the best results in the least amount of time. For your first session we won’t charge if you’re not satisfied. 

No Snacks. No B.S. No Risk. TRY US.

JERXXXXXXXXXXX: Perfection has a price, and it’s $40

email:xxxxxxxxx@gmail.com

This text will go over your LSAT sheets, which I will fade out except for your score. We can circle the score with a red pen after you photocopy the posters.

Ad #2:

Take the hardest logic game we can find (the one that only 1% of people are supposed to get), and you will show on paper how to solve it in your most efficient manner:

YOU HAVE TO FIGURE THAT A GUY WHO DID WHAT 99% OF LSAT TAKERS COULDN’T IN LESS THAN 30 SECONDS CAN SHOW YOU A THING OR TWO BEFORE IT’S YOUR TURN TO TEST. 

Jer solves answer answer here… giant red check mark next to your scantron bubbled answer. “% people who got this right: 1. Person who got it in 30:05 seconds: Jerxxxxxxxxxxx”

WHAT WE CAN’T FIGURE OUT IS WHY HE’S ONLY CHARGING $40 AN HOUR FOR IT, AND OFFERING YOU YOUR MONEY BACK AFTER SESSION 1 IF YOU’RE NOT SATISFIED. THIS WHEN HIS COMPETITORS ARE CHARGING AT LEAST THREE TIMES AS MUCH.

STILL, WITH NO RISK, WHY NOT TRY HIM OUT? 

AFTER ALL, IF JEREMIE CAN DO THIS IN 30 SECONDS, IMAGINE WHAT HE CAN DO IN 60 MINUTES.

JXXXXXXXXXXXXX: Perfection has a price, and it’s $40

email:xxxxxxxxx@gmail.com

These are my two main ideas, lemme know what you think.

Hope all this helps,

aRTie”

Incidentally, I will post these ads here when they’re finished, so expect to see something next week.

While a lot of it seems to be body copy, it will nonetheless be effective because we will have incorporated a visual element, and what better way to catch the attention of potential LSAT takers than with a perfect score promptly displayed on a poster? 

With Ad #2 I pun off the ‘figures’ sketched out for the purpose of solving a logic game, and the ‘figuring out’ of people wanting to learn. It may not be clear enough, so I may add a little ‘fig.1′ beside his demonstration. 

Ad #1 is a bit more direct, while the second is a little more subtle. Ultimately it will be interesting to see which people respond to better. I want to make ads that are unpretentious, to which people will respond personally. I will likely write a post at some point explaining how I believe ads in future should try to interact on a personal level.

I welcome all comments and suggestions. Please let me know how you might improve this or what your thoughts are. Once the final versions are up I hope what I’m saying will make more sense.

Super Bowl Sunday: Go Big in Small Markets

 

Not the only time when football might blow up in your face...

 

Super Bowl Sunday, the one day a year when ads really seem to matter to people outside the ad industry. Or at least that’s what the sports fans in the US think. For the rest of us in Canada and everywhere else who might happen to be at a bar or looking for an excuse to exhibit our machismo, the ads will be the same schlock we get everywhere else due to CRTC regulations that mandate we watch the Canadian stuff, so cable companies just splice in their scheduled sponsor interruptions. Yet the hype and the extent to which these commercials are touted before they are even aired would lead you to think this was blockbuster summer condensed into several 10 minutes segment over the course of a few hours of football. Truth be told, outside the world of advertising and American football fans, nobody cares unless you fuck it up.

Sad, but true. 

Sure the US is a major market, and there is a veneer of shared interest around the world for just about everything American, but the whole business of media people blowing huge chunks of their budgets on buying a few minutes when viewers are likely to be drunk or watching the nachos getting nuked by the second-most important box in their house has always struck me as rather bizarre. 

Almost as bizarre is the risks agencies take when the stakes are high, you’d think somebody that has just gotten the Super Bowl spot would go with something they know everybody watching will like, but instead creatives start foaming at the mouth for the craziest demographic. Maybe it’s because they get a blank check for whatever they want to produce. Check out some major failures below:

http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/custom-reports/superbowl/e3ic96aa80f511fb30f1e475f5ac985d78f

Ironically enough, these are the ones that people do remember, and some might even be able to name the men behind the curtains. Especially if their names are on the endside of the vs. in lawsuits plastered over papers in the coming days. With so much already spent, the cost of the ad itself probably becomes relatively insignificant, but planning-wise I’d keep in mind that it’s the word-of-mouth an ad generates as much as the ad itself that sells the product. The ad is there to sell the product, not the ad itself. People may want to watch your suicidal ad campaign after they’ve heard all about it, but few will actually buy the product. If I had to choose between a conservative commercial that nobody sees or a crazy commercial that everybody hates, or worse–turns the product into a boycotted one–the choice is obvious. Sure, lots of people do stupid shit during Super Bowl Sunday, but stupid shit on such a stupid scale is a lot of shit you’ll come to regret. Don’t just take it from me:

 

Here's how to make every day after this one a Monday...

 

This is not to say advertisers shouldn’t take big risks, but with market fragmentation and time-shifting, why not save them for when the people you know who want to will see them while the people who don’t will not? As for being everywhere, there are cheaper more effective ways to do this, use them.

Meanwhile, you want to see the most effective Super Bowl ad? You probably already have, several times. Just think of what you are going to do next.