Open any design annual or check out the award-winning entries in an agency’s portfolio, and you will find gorgeous, full-page, full-color photographs, intricate and beautifully crafted graphics, carefully rendered product shots… and one little teeny tiny eensie weensie blip of copy, usually in the very bottom corner, or carefully inserted in a key portion of the image.
Where has advertising copy gone? The trend in design has gone very much toward graphics-heavy advertising, often with no explanation in actual words. Is this a reflection of our society’s impatience? Lack of quality education? Scarcity of good ad copy writers?
I am inclined to think that it is none of those things. As an avid puzzle-solver, as well as a writer and designer, I find that when I am looking at advertising, the ones that catch my attention the longest are the ads that make me think about them and figure them out. It is very satisfying to me to “discover” the message in a clever ad rather than have it fed to me in a paragraph about features & benefits. I am more likely to feel an affinity toward a brand that entertains me, rather than preaches to me.
Where has copy in advertising gone?
August 6, 2007 by Heather
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There definitely has been a reaction to being “pitched” to and I think that is what you are seeing with the limit on copy. With the average consumer being so saturated with ads many have turned off. I think you are seeing that in print and on-line.
The same could be said about websites and web ads. It’s clear that large amounts of content dont present well and over time companies have moved more to the “entertainment” hook. It has been shown that good web video usually has one of two things; entertainment or emotion. Now how you get to those goals can be subjective, but the point is that presenting through video in this way in the next step.
Thanks for the post.
Nice post and a good topic for discussion.
We definitely live in a resoundingly visual world these days. By way of example, one need only look at the hundreds of “design community” websites in the world, then try to locate the same copywriter communities. Crickets.
Because images say many things without words, whereas copy often limits the reader to one meaning, images have taken on increasing importance in the minds of advertisers.
I also think copy is distilled to so few words these days because copywriters are increasingly called upon to say more with less, due to the failing attention spans of the average world consumer. (One need only look at the hundreds of images contained in a 30-second MTV ad to see this). The more economical, succinct and laser-guided the message is, the sleeker the overall perception of the brand.
For these and other reasons, I pay attention and tip my cap to any long-format copy in ads these days.