I REALIZE that this is not the first time I have done a makeover of an ad for business software. But it presents one of the toughest challenges in direct response advertising.
Brand-image reminder advertising won’t get you very far. But it’s hard to describe products that have no physical presence or are too complex to describe to anyone but the nerdiest of the nerdy. And even that won’t do, because a wide variety of needs require a wide variety of software solutions.
Most print ads attempting to deal with this challenge fall woefully short.
I really don’t want to be unkind to the creative teams who try and fail because there is already enough anxiety involved in the creative process. But one does have the feeling, perhaps unwarranted, that this kind of advertising is considered relatively unimportant to the ad agency and is assigned to newcomers to give them a chance to whet their skills and work their way up the ladder. And they have no guidance
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