When photographing products, flat light equals flat sales.
That advice came from Trevor Pitchford, editorial director for The Territory Ahead, during the popular annual session “This Worked. That didn’t” hosted by Herschell Gordon Lewis yesterday at the 17th Annual Catalog Conference & Exhibition in San Francisco.
At the session, three catalog executives showcased their biggest direct marketing successes and failures including Pitchford’s advice that sunlight best shows off The Territory Ahead’s fabrics and that Vancover, Canada, which has two seasons, fog and clouds, was discovered not be the premier spot for a catalog photo shoot, Pitchford said.
Pitchford also advised using a free-form approach to design such as running products across the center gutter. He said the catalog’s tradition of not using models to sell clothing allows the location of the catalog shoot to anchor the clothes by capturing a sense of place. In addition, more of an emphasis has been placed on crafting sidebars and insets that highlight stories, both good and bad, that occurred while on location.
What doesn’t work? Make sure you don’t send the customer somewhere that they don’t want to be. The Route 66 theme, shot in Arizona in August, which featured a wool tweed jacket was not a big hit, he said.
Alec Glover, president and CEO of Hello Direct offered a look at a series of prospecting covers. Some worked, some didn’t.
For best results, he recommended throwing a wide net by featuring a variety of products on the cover to attract as many new customers as possible. A busy-looking creative approach that even Hello Direct was surprised to find outperformed a cover that featured one product. “We tested that cover three times before we believed the results,” Glover said.
Glover also advised allowing the marketing and creative teams to take some risks even if they don’t always turn out to be the best performers. “Home run hitters often do strike out,” he said.
The San Francisco Music Box Co. gained some big lifts in response by downplaying price points and sales on its cover to focus on the unique appeal of its brand, said Jack Dodd, creative director.
Attendance at the conference, which ended yesterday, was 5,500, down slightly from 5,640 last year. The number of exhibition booths rented however increased to 672 from 572 last year and included 330 vendors.
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