Update #2, Thursday, Sept. 23, Hong Kong 21h
TAKEAWAY: It is the one element on the page every newspaper designer has to deal with, for better or worse——and it is usually for worse: those ugly ads that somehow destroy the overall effect of what one does with the rest of the page. Australian designer Simon Mellick has taken profitable action. Take a look. PLUS: It’s all about babies, birds and bodies, so we have a bird story for you.
Going bananas with those supermarket ads?
Simon is very proud of the work these designers have done under his coaching
Simon says: The conceptual art of the woman is to demonstrate that low-carb beer will make you look as good as this. (Australians enjoy hearing that beer does great things for your body.)
“The top half is optional ad is typical cheeky Aussie humour. A chick wearing half her clothes is a good way to attract attention to a half-price sale.”
I have dreamed about them, truly, those unsightly supermarket ads with dozens of bananas on top of milk cartons, potatoes and detergent bottles, all clamoring for space, describing the product and proclaiming the sale price, or, even worse the black and white square liquidation sale: everything 70^% off.
The designer is 100% off usually, as no matter what you do with the top of the page, the horrific ad destroys the effect. Of course, we all have heard the arguments: can’t touch the ads, Mario, nothing we can do. Or, if you approach some advertisers, they will tell you: the uglier and more packed, the more effective. You go ahead and use the white space and the pastel colors on your side of the page, friend, and leave us ugly ads at the bottom. Forty years of this and I was almost ready to give up on solutions.
But, alas, today’s mail brings a wonderful show and tell from Australian designer Simon Mellick, who has managed to get his hands on the ugly ads, transform them, and see the profits come in as well.
Simon had written me about four years ago asking if I knew of any newspaper that had taken the issue of ugly ads into its own hands, to fix them, to design them better and to teach the local advertisers a lesson or two about the impact of good design. Simon writes that an initiative at the time with other newspapers failed to gain traction because the economy was very strong and the money was coming in, so why rock that boat full of unsightly but profitable ads?
Here is his story:
“Things are different now,” Simon writes me, “people are prepared to listen to anything that might enable us to hang onto our advertisers and perhaps attract more.”
Simon redesigned the NT News in Darwin earlier this year, and, as part of the editorial training he did in advance of the relaunch on July 19, he says he also kicked off an ad redesign program in Darwin. “You rarely get the chance to lift the bar for both editorial and advertising at the same time in a relaunch, and this was one of those rare occasions,” he tells me.
How he did it
“I did one-on-one coaching sessions with all 16 ad builders and several sessions with the sales reps and gave them an ad design manual I had compiled. My aim was to encourage advertisers to at least accept better-looking ads rebuilt to the current size, as well as enticing them with bigger upsell versions. Either way, the paper would look better … and there was potential to make more money,” he says.
He also worked with the display and classifieds managers to identify the bad ads in their papers, and rebuilds of those became part of the training program for ad builders. Actually, he says, ” the ad builders just needed a bit of encouragement … they already had the talent.”
The ads you see reworked in this posting were all carried out by the designers in the team. Simon says he initiated the program and coached them in one-on-one sessions leading to the rersults shown. “I would rather have these results from encouragement, and their own ability, rather than me overseeing each design. Darwin actually has set up their own review team (which I recommended) and this team checks the redesigned ads before they are sent to the client,” he said.
“Darwin latched onto this with enormous vigour, and the general manager, Grant Galvin, made a weekly report-back a locked-in feature of his executive meetings. Grant told me that businesses have heard about the ad redesign program and are bringing their ads in to be redone.”
In fact, Galvin reports that nearly every one of the redesigns taken back to clients was approved nearly immediately. He also has in place a measurement process which allows the creative team to see how much their work is positively impacting on the growth of the business.
The result$
NT News advertising manager Narelle Neville reports that she feels good about the ad redesign program, with a progressive tally of an additional $26,000 per week through ad redesign upsells. (These are ads redesigned into bigger shapes, and happily accepted by the advertisers.)
“Not only are we improving our results, we are providing a better service top our clients, improving the look of the paper to appeal to more readers and ultimately driving stronger response to the ads our clients are booking and growing their business – and guess where they will spend their advertising dollars next time!,” Neville wrote her staff.
Of course, such success does not come easy. It is, obviously, a team effort involving various departments coming together, from editorial and design to the commercial/advertising side.
A team consisting of four staff (Narelle Neville, Helen Deutrom, Tina Urvet and Stuart Thornton) from different areas of the business including advertising, creative and editorial meet weekly as a committee to drive the weekly discipline of implementation of this program. They work with all parties to identify the core ads that can benefit from a redesign, how this fits into the overall editorial redesign process and then ensuring the execution and follow up of the creative pitch to the clients.
For those interested in getting more information:
Simon is national design editor for News Community Media of Australia. You may contact him at mellicks@qst.newsltd.com.au, or check their website, www.whereilive.com.au
A bird lives (again) in Luxembourg
Frank Deville proud of his heroic act: saving this little bird
See the little Luxembourg bird get refreshed back into life
When I was a rookie reporter at The Miami News of the late 1960s, there was a cantankerous editor who would recite his favorite phrase daily to anyone who would listen: “it is all about babies, birds and bodies”, the three B’s as he would call them. Of course, the best birds would be the pretty pink flamingoes, and the bodies referred to cadavers, of which there were plenty to be found, and from time to time one would show up floating in the Miami River, behind the newspaper building.
So, in memory of that editor who has probably left us a long time ago, I have a bird story for you, directly from Luxembourg where Frank Deville wrote me that he “saved a bird today”. I inquired about the circumstances.
“Well,” said Frank, “this little bird tried to get into the house, but crashed into the glass of the window and dropped to the floor. I thought he was dead, looked dead, but obviously was not, so my father suggested that I give him some water. I put a bowl of water and sat him on the edge, but nothing doing, then I dipped the bird’s head in the water once, then again. After the second time, he was ready to fly again.”
Ok, thanks for the bird story of the day, Frank. Another bird lives.
By the way, if you think the old editor and the Three B’s of what makes a good story are something of the past, only ten days ago, while in Delhi, India, a manager in the Hindustan reminded me of the following:
“Mario, remember that for Indian newspaper readers what is important is the ABCs of content: Astrology, Bollywood, Cricket.”
There you go! But, alas, no birds?