Ad Critique

[surfidaho]

Nadine is absolutely right. But as an imaging pro, I would like to offer an observation (slightly off topic):

 

I wish that we could just give the printing company an image like this, and they would do whatever is necessary to make it print nice.

 

Even if I make a print look exactly how I want it as a CMYK Tiff with a SWOP profile, I always have to do an iteration or two of proofing before they can get it right. It's just frustrating.

 

Later,

 

Paulsky

[toddlaffler]

Colin...TOL, Thanks Out Loud! :)

 

Paul, veto power is nice, but it also means being responsible too! :) My gut says this image

should be ano brainer, but I guess I'm trying to cover all my bases so to speak. Hey, I love

the 80's too, but I'm not sure 20 somethings do.

 

Nadine, I have taken your suggestion about logo placement and it can be seen here:

 

http://www.photo.net/photo/6282062&size=lg

 

I also beefed up the bouquet and the top of her dress very slightly, probably around 8

Cyan 8 Magenta 8 Yellow. They should have no trouble holding an 8 percent dot. I think

they run 150 lpi screens on glossy paper.

[mreul]

if you want to get an idea of how your colors will render in a magazine you can go to a printer in your community and ask them to give you a SWOP....there is now way to usually know how a magazie will reproduce your ad because they don't use "pantone" colors and so color can vary unless someone does a good press check and uses a good press.....a SWOP is a "standard web offset proof" and aims to meet an industry standard for prining on web presses....

 

i definitly think you should atleast go w/ what you had the first time around if anything...all the placement w/ type on the left but if you tried my other idea about placing it bottom right just remember you can scale it down to avoid crowding...good luck... you seem to being doing fine and i don't think the image is dated....

[picturesque]

I think your last rendition looks great.

[colinsouthern]

Todd Laffler Wrote: <i>"Colin, I'm just curious where you were going with you questions? Can you explain some more?" </i><p>

 

Hi Todd,<p>

 

I'm just trying to give you some food for thought - it's a fact that most ads lose money, but people don't measure the response anyway, so they don't even get an education as to what doesn't work.<p>

 

A few of us had a great discussion with your previous post, but I know you don't want to go down that path - so when you posted this time I thought it might be helpful if you at least had a couple of parameters/benchmarks to judge it by. <p>

 

From what you've said, 2 weddings would be perhaps somewhat disappointing, but not a disaster (considering the potential in those to to cross/up sell, and generate referrals) and 5 could be considered a success - just wondering if you'd be so good as to let us know what the actual results were?<p>

 

Again, speaking personally, for that kind of investment I think you'd benefit greatly from investing in one or two books on advertising (a few clicks on amazon.com) - one approach might get you your 5 weddings - another might generate 50 or more (and at higher prices). Advertising is a very specialist area - but having said that there are many time-tested "laws" that the experts know: us photographers can't be expected avoid making common advertising mistakes - unless we make an investment in learning from the masters.

 

Cheers, <p>

 

Colin

[markonestudios]

Todd, first of all, in my opinion, if I were looking for a wedding photographer, an ad like that will preclude any other person in my mind. I'd probably offer you double fees just to make sure you're available for our big day! So as far as selecting an image for an ad, I think you've got it spot on.

<p>Looking through the various iterations of the ad, I like the one with Laffler Photography 1/3 of the way down. Whereas the stairs provide a great leading line, I think putting your name and contacts at the very bottom unbalances the shot.

<p>That's my two cents :)

<br>Mark

[surfidaho]

I might be stating the obvious, but are you also planning on using this ad as your business card? It's very useful to have one image that can serve as your "brand".

 

For example: You might meet somebody at a wedding (such as a bridesmaid) who might be interested in your services, but not know who you are. Then when you hand her your card, she recognizes it from other ads, and you have brand recognition.

 

I haven't measured the image to see how it would fit onto a card, but the proportions look close.

 

As for ad effectiveness, I had to try a few things before I found out that every bride in my area uses one particular book (which is a very good locally produced vendor reference). Half the brides I interview actually carry this book to our meetings.

 

While it's true that most ads lose money, this applies only to the shotgun approach to advertising, where people just starting out place ads everywhere. If you can find that one book that everybody uses, your ad there can be very effective indeed.

 

Finally, I don't think your ad looks dated. I think it looks timeless.

 

Later,

 

Paulsky