Unit of 1 - Avoid the Pitfall of ‘Magazine Style’ Yellow Pages Ad Design.

adamstrange writes "An article appeared on About.com in May 2005 that, I must admit brought, a tear of joy to my eye. The article was called “Yellow Pages Ads Are Not Magazine Advertising.”

As an ad designer for the past 15 years specializing in Yellow Pages advertising design, I can’t tell you how many people I’ve had to explain this to. I’m convinced once business owners finally decide to spring for professional design services, romantic thoughts of glossy full-page color ads immediately spring to mind. They just can’t escape the romantic notion of this high-end advertising medium. The pull is so strong that a slew of Yellow Page Designers specializing in this ‘magazine style’ Yellow Pages ad design have popped up everywhere. Throw a rock—you’ll hit ten. The only problem is they are selling you ‘the dream’.

Business owners should know this. As consumers, that’s what we’re buying most of the time—‘the dream’. But in Yellow Pages advertising it’s a very different dream. Consumers want to know your store hours without having to call. They want to know if they do call, where you’re located. I mean, it’s not as glamorous as some of the dreams you might find spread across the glossy pages of Cosmopolitan, but when you’re a soccer mom with four screaming kids, fulfilling simple dreams can be a godsend.

Yes getting their attention is the most important thing—if they don’t find your ad, who cares when you’re open, right? But that’s just the first step in a chain of events that ultimately should lead to them handing you their money. If they are stopping to bask in the beauty of your famously beautiful Yellow Pages ad, but are handing their money to your competitor, tell me—what’s the point? Yellow Page ads can be expensive. Wouldn’t you rather buy a Lexus?

I learned the Yellow Pages market from an old advertising guru in California. When I first started working with him we didn’t even have computers, if you can imagine such a thing. This was back when camera-ready didn’t just mean, ‘digital’. Even then, magazine style ads where always avoided.

It is important your ad is distinct, but pretty doesn’t often send them clamoring for their wallet. As Barry Maher says in his famous Yellow Pages advertising book, “Layout artists know pretty, they don’t know Yellow Pages.” Who am I to argue with Barry? Time Magazine calls him, “the most widely respected, consultant, speaker, writer on the subject.” Seems to me they have some reputability.

It’s important to remember there are no hard and fast rules for every situation, but what I’ve found in my 15 years of advertising experience is, most the time magazine style ads just don’t pull big response in the Yellow Pages directories.

We have placed them many times in situations where our client is so caught up in ‘the dream’ that we are reduced to nothing more than a mere instrument of the client’s desire. So when we check back in with them to see how the ad is doing, there is little surprise when we here the ad really didn’t do much.

While I know of no magic study that shows exactly why this is the case I have considered many possibilities for this phenomenon. Let me share a few that might not seem so obvious.

Once business owners go for the gusto, they are usually ready to go all the way—ad designer, full-page, ‘magazine style’ layout, and full-color. Let me tell you those full-color proofs your Yellow Pages rep gave you are going to look a whole heap better than any of the ads your Yellow Pages shopper is going to look at. I always run to look at our full-color ads when a new directory comes out and always run to the bathroom to throw-up after I see them. How much did you pay for that full-color ad? Ouch.

Full-color is not a simple process. I can’t tell you how many books I’ve looked at where all the color ads are painfully out of focus from bad full-color printing. And of course your competitors black and white ad looks just fine.

Another thing you should be very afraid of is flesh tones. That perfect picture of your gorgeous daughter sipping champagne at your day-spa is likely to send customers running to your competitor once the Yellow Pages printer turns her skin as green as an extra-terrestrial.

Magazines spend thousands on color correction systems so their flesh tones always look warm and inviting. Yellow Pages directories don’t. You aren’t going to sell a lot of pool services when the beautiful blue waters in your Yellow Page ad turn an algae shade of green.

Be warned. The Yellow Pages directories can be a huge black hole for quality. Just because you paid the most for that full-color Yellow Pages ad, doesn’t mean you got the best ad.
Ads that you have to “get”, decipher, or have a sense of humor to understand are painfully annoying in the Yellow Pages. If I have the Yellow Pages in my hands the time for clever headlines and snappy rhetorical is over. I don’t want to know a clever reason why I might need something—if I didn’t need it I wouldn’t have looked under “Pest Control Services”.

Magazine style ads often sacrifice the obvious for ‘cute’ or ‘pretty’. Clever headlines that might entice someone to read an entire ad as they flip through Popular Mechanics down by the swimming pool are not going to thrill someone looking for a difference between you and your competitor. Save that clever, cute, ‘magazine style’ banter for magazine headlines and cocktail parties.
Sometimes people go for the ‘magazine style’ ad as a way of ‘keeping up with the Joneses’. I see this a lot in certain sections of the book. Attorneys and Day Spas always fall into this trap. Someone will get talked into a slick ‘magazine style’ Yellow Page ad and the whole section will turn into the pages of Cosmo. This plunders the whole concept of distinction. Weren’t we trying to standout from our competitors?

As any Yellow Page guru will tell you—if you are doing what everyone in your section is doing, you can’t expect to be getting any better response. Don’t think, because your competitor is running a magazine style ad this year you need to get one next year. Think about how you can distinguish yourself in a better way. Who knows, if your sales are solid, maybe his ‘clever’, not so clever, magazine style ad has already given you a leg up.
Another simple problem with ‘magazine style’ ads is the actual layout itself. In addition to publishing your Yellow Page ad the directories like to litter your friendly neighborhood Yellow Pages with their own ads for products and services like Internet, Telecommunications, Publishing, etc. Advertisers must really love competing against the same people they’re buying their advertising from. If the phone company does it, you can bet they’re running an ad for it.

The only saving grace is you can be sure that ad is most likely running concurrently in a dozen or more national ‘magazine’ publications, so you know it is always going to be a ‘magazine style’ ad. As consumers we learn to sniff them out pretty fast. After flipping through three full-page, full-color, ‘magazine style’ ads on my way to find a local printer, I quickly mastered the art of tuning them out completely.
Okay. I’ve fought the good fight—did my best to discourage this whole ‘magazine style’ thing, but in the end the customers always right, so I’m going to give them what they want. I’m going to warn them about flesh tones, caution them about clever headlines, make the fight to get the phone number a little bigger, warned them they are but just a few pages from a phone company trap, but in the end, next year rolls around and they say, “Well it just didn’t perform”. When the dream doesn’t pan out for any of the obvious reasons I often conclude the sinister forces of psychology are at work here.

Advertising has trained me in many subconscious ways. I just have to see one second of a commercial before I start salivating for the remote control. There might be something better on, right? Why do I want to listen to this commercial? When I’m ready to buy I’ll go to the Yellow Pages like everyone else. I’m a smart guy. I’ll find it when I need to.

This is why I think magazine style Yellow Page ads fail if all other aspects are on target. People see this style of ad and they respond to it as if it was in a magazine. No one is going to put down there magazine to call you. No one is going to pull off the freeway after driving past your billboard. And they aren’t going to stop to figure out your clever headline in the Yellow Pages when they really need someone to come tow their car to the shop.

‘Magazine style’ advertising is a very specialized form of advertising that works very well in its very specialized environment, but the Yellow Pages is not that environment. It’s kind of like wearing a tuxedo to a baseball game. You might get a lot of attention, but are you really going to get a lot of respect?

If you focus on making your Yellow Page advertising distinctive, attractive,informative, and reputable in as many ways as humanly possible, you will always have a Yellow Page ad that makes both you and your customers happy. Leave that ‘magazine style’ Yellow Pages advertising for your competitors.

Adam Strange
Yellow Page Ad Design
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www.AdRevamp.com
18565 Soledad Cyn Rd Suite 270
Santa Clarita, CA 91351 USA
1-800-339-2410
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