December 1, 2016 / como / 0 Comments
With elections just around the corner, Advertising Age published a great article outlining “The Top 10 Game-Changing Political Ads of All Time.” What made these ads memorable and why were they “game changers”? Advertisements like television spots, radio spots and even print advertising (like yard signs, magazine ads, etc.) have mere seconds to make an impact on a viewer make every second count.
Visuals do play a strong role in the world of advertising, but when it comes to politics, the language used plays a crucial role. You have to be very strategic combining your powerful message while using verbal techniques and emotional appeal.
Here is the list that Ad Age published as “The Top 10 Game-Changing Political Ads of All Time” and here are our comments on some of them:
1.Peace, Little Girl (“Daisy”)
Who can forget the most controversial political ad put out by President Lyndon Johnsons team,” Daisy”? You may have not been around in the 60s, but this television spot is famous because it displayed a little girl, who represents the youth of America, innocently pulling petals off a flower, then cuts to a nuclear explosion with a voice-over of a countdown.
This ad instills fear, especially when the spot zooms into the girls wide eyes as she looks up into the sky. Even the language used was meant to be a scare tactic. Words and phrases like “these are the stakes,” “make a world in which all of Gods children can live in or go home in to the dark,” “love each other or we must die,” and “stakes are too high” combines the emotion fear with over tones of taking action.
2.Prouder, Strong, Better (“Morning in America”)
Any time a candidate is faced with economic troubles, their campaigns focus on confidence, faith, and hope with voters. President Ronald Reagans “Morning in America” combined both visuals and language that did just that. If you listen to what was said you can easily identify what phrases were “positive.” “More men and women will go to work than ever before,” “interest rates at about half the record highs,” “2,000 families will buy new homes, more than at any time,” and it continues. What President Reagan did was list accomplishments and showed how he is moving America in a positive direction — which makes this ad and his message very powerful.
3.Tank Ride
This ad is what we see more of and could be labeled as “propaganda.” However, Ad Age identifies this as a definite game changer. This spot combines a somewhat humorous footage of Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis riding in a tank with statements about how he opposes our defense system. The effect there decreased the confidence America had in him to be President. The ad goes on to say how America cant afford that risk and how could he expect to be our commander in chief when he opposes Americas defense efforts. There are overtones of sarcasm while portraying Governor Dukakis as someone who doesnt have what it takes to defend America, much less run America.
4.Yes, We Can
This video is different from most political ads and wasnt actually done by President Obamas team; instead, it was created by Will.i.am. and Jesse Dylan. This video took parts of President Obamas speech and used them as lyrics. During a time of financial crisis and economic downfall, this ad was successful because of the language. Phrases like “Not divided, were one nation” and “next great chapter,” and the entire video had huge overtones of hope. It made America feels like “Yes, we can” make the changes we need to move in a positive direction.
5.Man in the Arena
6.America First
This spot geographically targeted Michigan and at the time President Bush was losing in polls to the opposing candidate, Pat Buchanan. The economy was down, support for the GOP was down and specifically in Michigan, the auto industry wasnt performing well either. At the time, it appeared that President Bushs chances were slim, until this spot was released. It exposed Buchanan contradicting his message “America First” because he had a foreign car and also labeled American-made cars as “lemons.” This ad exposed Buchanan as being deceitful.
7.Hound dog
8.Dean for America
9.Windsurfing
This ad exposed Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry as someone who cant make up his mind. It gives various scenarios where Kerry was opposing and supporting various issues. It pokes fun of Kerry windsurfing in different directions and paired it with “which way the wind blows” to ultimately show that he is unfit for being President.
10.Sleeping Bear
Language in political advertisements is carefully chosen and works with multiple elements (e.g. visuals and emotional appeal) to convey a message. You have to be strategic and most importantly you need to be memorable. The above examples work because they succeeded in all those aspects. They used visuals and carefully crafted language to depict the politicians intent.
Same can apply to other campaign materials and your political yard signs. You need to strategically craft what your message it is and how youre going to make your signs distinct and memorable.
November 26, 2016 / como / 0 Comments
Have you ever wondered why Americans eat so much? Well, the food industry is one reason and an important one I’d like to discuss. The growth of the food industry has made high-fat, inexpensive meals available throughout the world, and bigger size has become a major selling point. McDonald’s sells the Big Mac, Wendy’s offers the Big Classic, and Burger King pushes the Whopper. Do you notice anything similar with the names of these burgers? A large coke at most fast-food restaurants is now 32 ounces and 310 calories and at one time not too long ago was just 12 ounces and 180 calories. If fact 20 years ago kids drank an average of 8 ounces of soda a day; today they drink an average of 24 ounces a day. The food abundance we’re surrounded with has secured a spot in your mind, causing intense cravings and compulsions, and you must do something about it.
Astonishingly, a 12-ounce can of soda contains 8 to 10 teaspoons of sugar and many teenagers consume as many as 7 cans a day, which equals nearly 1000 empty calories and 60 teaspoons of sugar. Try this on for size: kids today drink almost twice the amount of soda as they do milk.
To make matters worse, the fast-food industry makes promotional links with leading toy makers, giving away simple toys with their kids’ meals and selling higher profile toys at a discount. It’s a clever way to target kids, and a successful toy promotion can double or triple the weekly sales volume of children’s meals. Did you know that the second most recognized fictional character is Ronald McDonald, second only to Santa Claus? Ninety-six percent of American school children can identify Ronald McDonald before they can recognize their own name! Doesn’t that tell you something?
The fast-food industry spends about 33 billion dollars a year on advertising and most of it is done subliminally, meaning that the messages affect you without your conscious awareness; without you knowing it. You may notice the contents of a commercial, but they go right over your head and infect your subconscious with a “virus.” The purpose of advertising is to hit you where it hurts — emotionally. Recently, I watched a particular fast-food commercial showing a mom and young daughter eating burgers and fries. It seemed innocent enough, but here’s what the real message was: The mother was dressed in a business suit with her briefcase, and the young girl told her mom that she appreciated spending quality time like this with her. The mom guiltily looked at her daughter while both of them smiled and ate their French fries. A working mother watching this commercial would have subconsciously absorbed this message, felt guilty without even realizing it, and perhaps paid a visit to the fast food restaurant without consciously knowing the real reason.
November 26, 2016 / como / 0 Comments
Solo ads are one of if not the best way to bring traffic to your website. Purchasing a solo ad can bring results to your companies business that you never thought were possible. It is easy to tell the difference between a beginner marketer and an experience marketer based on how their solo ads perform. A beginner might buy space in an area that gives them traffic but no results. An experience marketer will find both traffic and results because they know that the results are all that matter in the end.
1.) How Can You be Sure that You are Buying A Legit Solo Ad?
Buying and selling solo ads is can be a dirty business. There are plenty of solo ad sellers out there who sell you an ad space, and simply redirect traffic to your site from the use of generic advertisements. This is not what you want for your company and you should never pay for this. This will lead to random traffic on your website and not the target market specific traffic that is going to make you money.
Accidental clicks on ads are useless to both the seller and buyer of the advertisement. Pay per click advertising is not done simply between a seller and buyer so it will not benefit either of them when dealing with solo ads. That is why your ad needs to be custom made to ensure that readers know what it is you have to offer. If they like what you have to offer, they will click the ad, be redirected to your website and hopefully make a purchase.
Make sure to ask your solo ad seller all kinds of questions before agreeing on a deal. If they have intentions of setting you up to generate lots of useless traffic for your site than you should back out of any deal. Sellers who do this usually specialize in it and cannot be trusted to use your advertisements in the way you intended them to be used.
2.) Who is Going to See Your Ads?
This is one of the simplest questions that you need to talk to your sell about when buying a solo ad. Far too often people do not discuss this and the people that they want to see their ads never end up seeing them. Find out exactly where your ads are going to be placed and if the seller uses any type of email list, like most of them do, ask them when they built their list, who is on their list, and lastly, how they built their list.
3.) When Will Your Ads be Displayed?
This is very important for you to know not only so that you can be sure that the ads you are paying for are being displayed but also so that you can prepare for any bursts of traffic and or customers coming to your website. If you are running a promotion that is only good for 24 hours and expect to let people know about your promotion with your ad, then you need to make sure that your ad is going to be displayed before your promotion begins to allow people the time they need to prepare for it and spread the word.
The value of high quality clicks should never be underestimated. One million redirects and clicks by non target market members will only slow down your websites webpages and you will not profit from it. A smaller amount of high quality clicks from interested potential customers will earn you more money than a large amount of useless clicks because the high quality clicks are from being who might actually buy you products.
4.) Is Your Website Prepared?
If your website is not prepared to sell a lot of products or services to customers in a safe, easy, and reliable way, then you are not ready to be advertising your products and or services. For example, if you have ten interested buyers come to your website from clicking on your advertisement and no quick and easy way for them to pay, they will leave your site and likely never come back. You want to make everything as simple as possible for your customers.
One way to do this is to create a series of offers that are clearly explained in detail to your customers at the top of each page. The technique is explained below.
1.) First, a customer signs up for one of your offers. After doing this, they are immediately directed to a new exclusive offer that they have never seen before. Your customer has the choice to either accept or decline the offer. After they make their decision they are sent an email asking them to confirm their subscription for the original offer. The customer is informed that they have to confirm this subscription in order to receive the gift mentioned in the original offer.
2.) As soon as they confirm their subscription, they are directed to a third and final offer that is of a product related to the first one they signed up for. Once again, they will have the option to either accept or reject this offer. Once they make their decision on this offer, they will receive another email regarding the original offer they signed up for. Instructions will be included in this email to tell the customer how to get their gift.
3.) The customer will then receive a third and final email for a follow up message to thank them for signing up and giving you some of their time. The follow up then nicely asks for the customer to unsubscribe from your service after they receive their gift if they do not intend to take advantage of any more of your offers. This will make your customer feel a little bit guilty about leaving and it will help you gain their trust. This also will weed out the customers who are just looking for free gifts. The customers who stay on your site will be given a download link for their free gift and this link will also take them to another optional offer.
Setting up this sales funnel properly is the key to making it successful. Any mistakes or errors in your setup, no matter how small and insignificant they may seem can be the difference between success and failure.
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November 24, 2016 / como / 0 Comments
The Ad formats which are used on Google advertising, the key area of bidding and budgeting for a campaign, along with measuring outcome and optimizing the results are also key areas which are discussed in the study material.
The Google AdWords Advertising Fundamentals is one of the four exams which can be taken in association with Googles AdWords platform. This exam focuses more on the basic aspects associated with the advertising framework associated with Google and thus tends to include all necessary underlying details. The exam is also denoted by the code AdWords Fundamentals Exams and has been utilized by online advertising specialists to demonstrate their understanding of the framework associated with Googles AdWords framework. This article focuses on some primary details associated with the certification and also talks about the preparation options in this regard.
Basic Details:
The AdWords Fundamentals Certification Exam is a 120 minute long exam which entices exam questions from the fundamental aspects associated with advertising via Google AdWords. You need to score at least 85% marks in order to pass the exam. Furthermore, if you fail the exam, you can re-take it within the next seven days. Lastly, you need to renew your certification every two years by giving the exam again in order to stay certified as a Google expert.
What is it About?
The Google Adword Advertising Fundamentals exam focuses on the groundwork which you need to establish if you want to advance in the online advertising industry as it provides an introduction to the AdWords platform followed by the key aspect of account management. Furthermore, the test material associated with the exam also talks about defining what a campaign is and how to manage ad groups which are a key instrument in the advertising process. Moreover, the AdWords Fundamentals Test Material also includes keyword targeting which is the primary gist of the AdWords framework.
The AdWords Fundamentals Study Material associated with the exam also takes into account the targeting options such as location and language to enhance the advertising approach. The Ad formats which are used on Google advertising, the key area of bidding and budgeting for a campaign, along with measuring outcome and optimizing the results are also key areas which are discussed in the study material. Lastly, there is also a PDF document associated with Google Adword Advertising Fundamentals which is available on This Link.
How to Prepare?
The exam might look easy at first but the exam questions are quite tricky in nature, and thus it is recommended that you should prepare thoroughly from various sources. In addition to the AdWords Fundamentals PDF link mentioned above, you can also take a self-study route as well. In this regard, you can at first create an account on AdWords and look around to get familiar with the exam since signing up is free of cost and you will be able to familiarize yourself with the outlook of the platform.
Furthermore, you can also utilize AdWords Fundamentals Sample Questions which are easily available from online resources. The advantage of using these sample questions for preparation is that they are an ideal choice of finding out the nature of the AdWords Fundamentals Test Questions that you might have to face in the actual exam.
Conclusion
To conclude, it can be suggested that this certification is a key milestone in the Google Advertising framework and will develop the groundwork that you require to excel in the realm of digital marketing.
November 24, 2016 / como / 0 Comments
Roller banners are portable display systems that are used everyday in a wide variety of environments, including shopping centres, retail outlets and of course at exhibitions and trade shows. These portable displays are incredibly popular thanks to the fact that they are lightweight, easy to assemble and very portable.
Banner stands are usually supplied by large format print companies or exhibition and display related businesses who purchase the base unit that is essentially a spring-loaded mechanism and attach a custom printed banner, sometimes referred to as a ‘graphic’.
With the popularity of these banner stand displays at an all-time high, there are a wide variety of companies who can provide your business with a banner stand and it is therefore important that you select a company who can provide a good quality display, guaranteed to look professional and advertise your product or service in the best possible way.
The base unit for a banner stand is nothing more than a carrier for the message that you are displaying and the purpose of this article is to describe the various ways that these graphics can be produced and to illustrate the associated benefits.
There are a wide variety of materials that can be employed for a typical roller banner stand graphic and these include polyester based films, polypropylene based films and PVC. One of the biggest problems with many roller banner stand graphics is known as ‘edge curl’. Quite simply, this is the effect caused whereby the long edges of the print either curl inwards or outwards, thus negatively impacting on the geometric correctness of the print. Edge curl can vary from a minimal variance of between 10 and 20mm, through to severe edge curl which can obscure up to 25% of the overall printed image in some extreme cases. Almost universally, edge curl is caused by the thermal properties of the material being influenced by changes in temperature and this effect is accentuated where the print is is protected with a laminated film.
Generally speaking, polyester is the best choice for a roller banner stand graphic because the base material is very dimensionally stable and does not vary according to external temperature. It is worth noting that should a protective laminate film be used to over the surface of the polyester film, then the laminate should have a polyester composition rather than PVC which will otherwise have different thermal properties and could lead to edge-curl.
With the introduction of new print technology such as UV printing, many providers of roller banner graphics are able to supply prints onto low cost materials such as PVC at a lower cost of the polyester counterparts. An added benefit of a UV print process onto a PVC base material is that the ink possesses both UV stability and water-fastness, thus a protective lamination is not required. For these reasons an unlaminated banner stand graphic is unlikely to suffer the negative effect of edge curl.
If you own a banner stand and find that edge curl is a problem then you can take some simply steps to try to minimise the effect before the display is used. As mentioned previously in this article, edge curl is a fault which is caused by the thermal expansion/contraction of the base material or the lamination film that is used. The banner stand should ideally be stored at room temperature prior to use to allow the printed graphic to stabilise. Furthermore, the print should be assembled a few hours or preferably overnight prior to use which will allow the substrate to ‘relax’. By taking these preventative measures, you can help to minimise the negative impact of edge curl on your banner and ensure that your display has the best possible impact.
When sourcing a supplier for a roller banner stand or a replacement graphic for an existing banner stand, it is important that you select a company who have experience with the production of such printed display graphics. Ask to see a sample of work or some testimonials from previous satisfied customers and you can be assured that you will purchase the best possible product.