Ad Leaves Buddy in the Dark

An ad inviting a response doesn’t have to be downright poor to be a makeover candidate. It can be one with good and bad points and lots of room for improvement.

Such is the case with this ad for Eton Corp.’s Blackout Buddy, an emergency light and radio designed for use mainly during power failures. I’m sure many readers would insist it’s not a bad ad, and I’m sure it produced a fair number of orders. But it doesn’t have the look and feel of an ad created by someone with deep experience in direct marketing and broad exposure to split-run testing results.

Some might say that’s an advantage