One a lost opportunity; the other perfect for purpose
Stephen Leacock called advertising the science of arresting human intelligence just long enough to get money from it.
Most people who write or design posters seem unaware how fleeting that time is. If you’re travelling at 40 miles an hour whilst trying to avoid killing yourself or anyone else it is seconds at most.
That is why, as I have commented before, a good poster is mighty hard to find.
The one on the right is perfect for purpose. There are few words. You take in the subject and promise as near instantly as dammit.
Nature programmes us from earliest infancy to look at a face. It is one of the easiest ways to attract attention. The picture demonstrates the proposition: free sunglasses. And it is animated.
Only one thing beats a face. That is a famous face.
Imagine how thick, then, you have to be when you have a subject involving famous faces and eating, which appears, from the wobbling mounds of lard trundling around on our streets to be a national obsession. I cannot understand why it was omitted from the Olympics.
The other poster could have shown a famous chef doing something spectacular, like flambéing a spectator. Why they chose a silly title like “Closer to food” when they could have said “Meet famous chefs” I cannot begin to conceive.
I might add that it would be hard to find a less appetising or appropriate combination of colour and type than we see here.
The ways of men are infinitely mysterious, and one is why one earth people paid to do this sort of thing don’t bother to learn their craft. It really doesn’t take more than 10 minutes to know what a poster ought to do.
You may be surprised to know that there is a parallel between posters and AdWords, a subject I shall bore – but I hope also inform you helpfully about – in the days ahead.
The Specsavers poster’s brevity is really only enabled by the fact that it’s a well-established brand. So no call to action is required (the tough part of poster creation for high-traffic locations) — the viewer knows whom to contact.
That said, it’s still a terrific poster.
I once read some research claiming that the average outdoor poster viewing time is 2.7 second. Not sure how they reached that precise figure, but it seems reasonable, unless the figures are skewed because the location is close to traffic lights or some other traffic interruptor.
The ‘Closer To Food’ poster indicates no budget. It’s a one off event, they won’t have the spend. I bet the design was first conceived for tickets or flyers or something small and whichever numpty who came up with the revolutionary idea of drawing a pan on it said – Hey, we could do a massive version of this and use it as a poster! All you’re doing here is criticising some dope with no cash. And now you’ve got me doing it.
And that handle is too short for the pan, btw.
When I got my first big copywriting job in London – 1961 – I was hired by a brilliant, somewhat cynical lady called Nella Bowen – formerly a figure in the Communist party. She said to me “Drayton: you’ve got top know the facts in order to distort them.” In this case you don’t. There is quite a significant budget, as this is all funded by the shopping centre – one of the most profitable in Britain – and they have new posters out which are somewhat better.
No communist spends anything like the equivalent promoting a two day event as they would on a national promotion for their entire business.
Your point being?
The best poster ever, so good in fact that it had to be removed from major traffic intersections, was Sopie Dahl’s picture advertising the perfume Opium. As Drayton has missed a major trick by not allowing one to post pictures or videos (come on webmeister!), here is a link http://www.graziadaily.co.uk/fashion/archive/2012/05/31/revealed–the-10-most-controversial-ads-ever.htm