ErinIs.com

Nothing I love more than simple creative executions that say everything there is to say about a brand. Creative is hard, I certainly don’t have the chops to design or any sort of skill set outside of one class of InDesign in college. But when I see simple ads make it to print – makes me infinitely happy and at peace with the ad world. With that I want to share these Fed-Ex ads I stumbled across on Ads of the World.

No copy. Two logos. Perfect brand messaging.

I’ve gone on many a “I hate Facebook ad” tangents which often result in some post-tangent regret. After all FB is just trying to monetize; we can’t expect these awesome little companies to be poor because I don’t like their ads. And all the crappy/ugly/inefficient ads are little businesses trying to get “in” on social media and may not realize what they’re doing wrong. I’m no expert and maybe I’m the only one annoyed by Acai Berry Diet Plans and gross pictures of obese people or the endless stream of dating site ads just because my FB says I’m single. Hey, maybe I’m the only person not clicking on those.

So I feel bad and I think that maybe this little companies are just trying to make it and I should check them out….but then they remind me all over again why I have FB ads. Its not that I don’t like the idea that they’re easy enough anyone can do them. And hey Google annoys me with their “standards” and “regulations” because sometimes a text ad really does need two exclamation points!!

But just because you can do it, doesn’t mean you should. The FB advertiser that sent me into this particular rage is MyInteriorDecorator. Their ad was pretty basic and one of the few actually got be to click (unfortunately I can’t get it to show up again). This is a screen shot of the landing page (check out the link if you can’t see much off this picture).

Did you instantly recoil from the huge font? Or was it that the generic header and the bright red font clash How about the incredible amount of text but OMG they can help me RIGHT NOW! Apparently there is such a thing as a design emergency.

This company asks you to pay $15-$125 for a complete stranger to tell you how to design your house, but they cannot even match a blog header with a font color.

I’m really trying hard to be a nicer person and less critical of others work, but you’re a design company! Please spend just a little bit of money with a freelancer to design your blog/landing page or just take 10 minutes and find a better header, turn off the caps lock, change the font back to a normal size and change the red font color.

Interesting article Neuromarketing about the power of the word FREE. Read it here.

It raises a really interesting point about how easily we are swayed by the idea of Free even choosing Free over the better bargain. It’s fascinating to think that consumers really only care about convenience and a lack of investment when making their purchasing decisions. Should every item come with a ‘Free’ bonus offer?

Infomercials seem to have grasped this concept and include an endless amount of free items with every purchase, as long as you act fast and call within the next 20 mintues.

But while free will get you to try a new product or service, what will keep you coming back for more? Once a company starts giving things away, are they only able to retain their customers by continuing to give away items for free? Will a free offer keep you loyal to a brand?