To make money, the first thing your ad must do, regardless of how great the product or service is that it promotes, is to grab a reader’s attention. Typically we think of your headline as the most important element that does this.
But we mustn’t forget the importance of your ad’s layout in this process. You mustn’t make the wrong choice… Let’s use print ads to illustrate this principle.
Consider the ads you see in newsstand magazines you might pick up from time to time. Flipping through them, you’ll notice that they’re probably full-size photos with some text on them. There’ll be photos of beautiful women and handsome men, maybe a photo of a pristine car on display in a showroom.
If you were going to run an ad for your product in one of these magazines, how would you setup your layout?
If you answered that you’d run a similar ad . . . . then you’d probably be making the wrong choice.
You see, any reader flipping through that magazine is going to quickly grow numb to the repetitive nature of the look of the ads — if they haven’t already.
But if your ad looks completely different from the others then you might stand a chance at causing a reader to pause and give your ad a quick glance. And a quick glance is all it takes to capture their attention away from your competitor.
As a seller of goods and services this sounds appealing to you, right? After spending the big bucks on buying the ad space and creating the ad, I’m sure you’d rather have readers stop and look at your ad rather than blow by it — to pause and read someone else’s.
What does it take to achieve this? The answer is simple, but it’s often overlooked.
For example, if most of the ads in the magazine feature full-color vibrant photos, maybe your ad should be a 3-column page of condensed black text on a white background — something that resembles a newspaper.
The point is to STAND OUT. Images that feature symmetry are pleasant to the eye, right? Ones that are equally divided, balancing objects on one side equally with the objects on another.
But symmetry may actually be less likely to catch your reader’s eye. If your ad contains off-balance elements and is in egregious violation of the laws of symmetry then you are going to increase your probability of capturing attention. If you capture attention, then your ad might be read…and someone else’s won’t.
Is that an offensive idea, or what?
I realize that this may seem counter-intuitive at first read, but take a moment to think about it. Do you want your ad to be an example of high-art, or do you want it to sell your product? Do you want awards from organizations commending your exemplary taste in artistic display, or do you want to gain more customers who buy more products?