bad marketing, pt. 1
i must be cursed.
i can't hear a jingle on the radio without thinking about how the ad could have been so much more effective if only . . . npr sponsorships for thrivent financial for lutherans - so the small percentage of lutherans who may be listening to npr know where to invest their money (maybe it's a form of evangelism).
and now it's beginning for design. maybe it's part of that proverbial "fire within."
anyway, i took the following experience and turned it into a little design and markup workshop for myself. and i'm using it to step on my soapbox and kvetch about how in the world a company could press the "go" button on a project like this without thinking everything through.
yesterday, i was driving on eastbound i-94 and saw a billboard. the first thing i saw were the first four words - "does your website suck?" i looked, and looked, and looked and could not make out anything else. if there was anything i was supposed to read that would make me want to go to a website and hire the design/development company, it was not designed in a way that a driver going the speed limit could retain. i seriously doubt how legible it would be even in standstill traffic.
here is my approximation of their billboard. click here, observe, explore, and come back.
i'm not kidding - that is what the billboard looked like. it was that hard to read. small, dark text that went nearly across the entire billboard. couldn't read a company name (if there was one), a website (if there was one), a phone number (are you seeing a pattern). the only other thing i saw was a logo that meant absolutely nothing to me because they have little/no brand identity.
and why in the world would a company want to hire a design firm to fix their website when said design firm can't get their own billboard right?
now, if i go back passed the billboard and notice that it says something like "if your website is as bad as this billboard, you need our help" i'll come back and eat crow - at least some.
i'm happy to note that my web version of their billboard is standards compliant, fully validated xhtml and css, but i'm a geek. more on that later.
v
i can't hear a jingle on the radio without thinking about how the ad could have been so much more effective if only . . . npr sponsorships for thrivent financial for lutherans - so the small percentage of lutherans who may be listening to npr know where to invest their money (maybe it's a form of evangelism).
and now it's beginning for design. maybe it's part of that proverbial "fire within."
anyway, i took the following experience and turned it into a little design and markup workshop for myself. and i'm using it to step on my soapbox and kvetch about how in the world a company could press the "go" button on a project like this without thinking everything through.
yesterday, i was driving on eastbound i-94 and saw a billboard. the first thing i saw were the first four words - "does your website suck?" i looked, and looked, and looked and could not make out anything else. if there was anything i was supposed to read that would make me want to go to a website and hire the design/development company, it was not designed in a way that a driver going the speed limit could retain. i seriously doubt how legible it would be even in standstill traffic.
here is my approximation of their billboard. click here, observe, explore, and come back.
i'm not kidding - that is what the billboard looked like. it was that hard to read. small, dark text that went nearly across the entire billboard. couldn't read a company name (if there was one), a website (if there was one), a phone number (are you seeing a pattern). the only other thing i saw was a logo that meant absolutely nothing to me because they have little/no brand identity.
and why in the world would a company want to hire a design firm to fix their website when said design firm can't get their own billboard right?
now, if i go back passed the billboard and notice that it says something like "if your website is as bad as this billboard, you need our help" i'll come back and eat crow - at least some.
i'm happy to note that my web version of their billboard is standards compliant, fully validated xhtml and css, but i'm a geek. more on that later.
v
1 Comments:
Nicely done. I get so annoyed at bad billboards, not only because I can't read them, I fear getting in an accident while I attempt to read them!
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