Ugly Little Ads that Sell

Eric Gagnon has a great little article entitled "Ugly Little Ads that Sell: How to Make a Smaller Ad Pull Better Than a Bigger One" on the Business Marketing Institute site.

"If you flip through successive issues of any trade publication, you’ll often see the same smaller half, quarter, and one-eighth page ads repeating every single month," he says.

"This is often a telltale sign these fractional-space ads are paying their own way by generating solid sales leads for their advertisers, where larger, prettier, full-page ads in the same pubs often appear and disappear like footprints along the beach," he says.

In fact, some fractional ads have become legendary for their pulling power and longevity. According to top ad executive Fred Poppe, the late co-founder of Poppe Tyson, an ad displaying gears and wheels for Downs Crane and Hoist ran in trade publications for 35 years, outpulling the average ad in these publications by 50%.

Just about any type of service can be advertised effectively in a smaller page size. Plus -- fractional ads are cheaper!

Eric Gagnon has a great little article entitled "Ugly Little Ads that Sell: How to Make a Smaller Ad Pull Better Than a Bigger One" on the Business Marketing Institute site.

"If you flip through successive issues of any trade publication, you’ll often see the same smaller half, quarter, and one-eighth page ads repeating every single month," he says.

"This is often a telltale sign these fractional-space ads are paying their own way by generating solid sales leads for their advertisers, where larger, prettier, full-page ads in the same pubs often appear and disappear like footprints along the beach," he says.

In fact, some fractional ads have become legendary for their pulling power and longevity. According to top ad executive Fred Poppe, the late co-founder of Poppe Tyson, an ad displaying gears and wheels for Downs Crane and Hoist ran in trade publications for 35 years, outpulling the average ad in these publications by 50%.

Just about any type of service can be advertised effectively in a smaller page size. Plus -- fractional ads are cheaper!

Comments

[Laura Mosiello]

Just as our culture is hip to tv commercials and commercials have to work harder to catch attention, so does print advertising. In the case of size, I believe that the full-page ad can get lost because it feels like a part of the publication to the point that you flip past it. But a small ad has shared space, and while you might think that means competition for mindshare, it's more that the mind is not just blowing past the page.

However, size doesn't matter as much as content and visual flair. Without a strategic message that has an emotional connection, an ad will still be just another ad.