Pioneer ad’s design obscures product news, fails to alert prospects
For too many of today's ad designers (young? or wanting to seem young?), contempt for the power of the printed word seems to know almost no bounds. Words used in “texting,” or in a blog, are A-OK — the more the merrier. But advertising, or sometimes even editorial matter, on the printed page seems to demand that communication be defeated by design.
The Pioneer Electronics ad I've chosen for this issue's makeover is a good example. Pioneer has some really important news to report about its deluxe plasma TV models, details of special interest to home electronics enthusiasts who always want the latest and best of everything.
The ad starts by announcing, in easily overlooked gray lowercase script lettering, on a black page: “seeing and hearing like never before.” It's a broad, vague claim (and also ungrammatical, but never mind) that doesn't say or clearly imply ‘television,’ leaving the alert reader to guess its meaning and keeping the best prospects in the dark.
As your eye travels down the page, you come to a head shot of a beautiful woman wearing a butterfly-wings headdress. The photo is black and white, an odd choice for an advanced color TV ad.
Now I have to admit that the male contingent of my consumer jury was riveted by her exceptional physiognomy. But that didn't tempt him (despite his enthusiasm for advanced television technology), to decipher the copy in tiny gray expanded-caps type that appears directly below.
If he'd taken the trouble, and had a magnifying glass handy, he'd have gotten some information that might've interested him:
Be transformed. By black levels so vast they alter everything forever. By colors so vibrant they twist the very fabric of your being. By experiences so intense, nothing will ever be the same. Introducing the new, blacker than ever Kuro. Followed by Pioneer's logo and the Web address seeingandhearing.com.
As a lifelong copywriter myself, I can appreciate this writer's struggle to communicate a new achievement in television color — imagery that is really, really, really better. And it's fairly good copy, even though it goes pretty far; too bad so few will read it. But I think it needs a little more explanation to be credible. Why does deeper black mean better color? Citing recognition by outside experts might've been more effective, if not as poetic.
I did a little Googling and found the following information on Pioneer Europe's Web site:
“Europe's Best Plasma TV Named…
“The European Imaging and Sound Association (EISA) has granted the prestigious ‘European Plasma-TV 2008-2009’ award to Pioneer's PDP-LX6090 Kuro plasma TV.
“The ‘HD-ready 1080p’ Kuro TV won over the knowledgeable EISA jury with its exceptional black levels that result in finer details and greater contrast.
“EISA is the largest editorial multimedia organization in Europe, with a membership of 49 audio, mobile electronics, video and photo magazines drawn from 19 European countries.
“Every year a panel of judges comprising the editors in chief from all EISA member magazines selects outstanding products and technologies across a wide range of audiovisual product categories.
“The main highlight of the award winner is, according to the EISA jury, its exceptionally good picture quality:
‘The Pioneer PDP-LX6090 is a superb plasma TV whose advanced functions bring out the very best results from Blu-ray, DVD and standard TV signals. Thanks to an amazingly low black level — Pioneer calls it Kuro — this set's contrast ratio is sky-high. The result is an impression of immense depth and crisp detailing, the likes of which have not been seen on a plasma TV before.’?”
I could have made this copy the centerpiece of my makeover and built the rest of the ad around it. But I thought that might be too pedestrian.
So instead I decided to work the middle ground with an ad that would be striking, quick-reading and quintessential, yet without purple prose attempting to convey that this color quality is really, really, really great.
It took me several days to write the headline. Not full time, of course. But I kept coming back to what I'd done, trying to figure out what was wrong with it. I composed a headline in all caps: “SORRY — THIS PAGE IS NOT BLACK ENOUGH.” Then I completed the thought in the first line of the body copy, slightly enlarged.
At the top I put a television screen showing a full-color butterfly instead of Pioneer's black-and-white butterfly lady.
But it still wasn't clear at a glance who I was addressing, or what the subject of my ad or the nature of my news was.
Finally I realized that the thought in my headline needed to be completed in display type so that prospects passing by would be impelled to stop and learn more. And since we know that people are interested in people, I dropped the butterfly and replaced it with a full-color head shot — an intensely colorful and lively photo of a Mardi Gras celebrant.
Then I combed through all the advertiser's facts and phrases to develop succinct copy explaining why deeper black is important in television imagery, and why and how Pioneer's elite Kuro models have not only vastly superior imaging but equally superior sound. All this was stated briefly enough to permit setting the copy in extra-large type. I did that because I was breaking my own rule of no white type against a black background, and I felt that using an especially readable type size would absolve me from this sin while enabling me to keep the black background promised in my headline.
This approach just might grab the attention of general readers who may be prospects without realizing it, while at the same time keenly interesting prime targets who eat up things like proof of technical superiority.
Although Pioneer, like most manufacturers, doesn't sell directly to the public, I thought it was acceptable in my sign-off line to say “See — learn — shop at our home page.” A number of different models and products are displayed, explained and priced there, and it's a shopping experience to browse among them even though any purchase would have to be made from a retailer. This should increase click-response.
I think my makeover would do more for Pioneer than the butterfly lady, no matter how gorgeous she is.
What's your opinion?
See after adTHOMAS L. COLLINS (thomas.l.collins@verizon.net) has been a direct marketing copywriter, ad maker, agency creative director and co-author of four books on marketing. He is currently an independent creative and marketing consultant based in Portland, OR.
