Good and bad advertisements

This weeks assignment was to find three good ads and three bad ads.
Why don't we get the ugly ones out of the way first, shall we?

BAD:
The first bad ad I found is for Vermont Catholic Homes. They are a retirement home. One reason I dislike it is because the name of the company is on the bottom of the ad and makes you search for it. Another reason is that they provide a lot of text, if I wanted to read a news story on retirement homes I would have found one. Also the text is awfully small, the ad is directed towards older people. Older people often have bad eye sight, so small text is a bad idea.

Bad ad number two is similar. It is for Edward Jones. There is nothing to catch the readers eye, upon first look it looks like a small story. There is a ton of text and nothing to excite the reader or get their attention. It also has a lot of business jargon written all over it, things that I don't understand. Ads should be simple not hard to interpret.

The third bad ad I found is for VCAM board of directors elections. They are looking for candidates to run for the board of directors. But the ad is way to busy. The text is hard to read in places and is kind of boring in others. It just doesn't do its job.

GOOD:
The first good ad I found is for a radio station. It is a full page ad and is real simple and easy to read. It gets the point across real quick and catches the readers eye, making them stop and think about the radio station. It leaves a good impression on the reader.

The next good ad is for a red cross blood drive. It brings people in with its color and it gives plenty of detail with out being boring. It gets the reader to think about giving blood and makes them want to know where and when they can do such a cool thing.

The third good ad I found is for Infinex financial group. It is a investment bank and does a good job at attracting the reader. It is simple and draws the reader in with a graphic. Unlike the Edward Jones ad it is simple and doesn't overwhelm the reader with information, it makes them curious and want to call for more information.

Meet a pro!

Bill Johnson is the Sports and information director at Lyndon State College. His main job is make sure that he gets out a press release after every game the Hornets play. He sends these releases to the media outlets throughout Vermont and the New England as well as to any areas where student-athletes may be from. 

Johnson is in charge of keeping an accurate data base of player and team states from Lyndon State College. He keeps track any school records and championships the school may have won. Johnson is in charge of making sure local media outlets have access to all of the coaches and players at the college. During games he keeps in touch with NSN sports who often broadcasts the games live and gives them any information they may need, such as player’s season stats, injury updates and just basic information. 

He updates the athletic web site and writes releases on players when the earn conference honors, he makes sure that all local media outlets also know about these honors. 

When athletic alumni come back to visit, such as hall of famer Rick Sutton, Johnson makes sure that he has scheduled interviews with the different outlets and that he is available to the public. 

Johnson graduated from Lyndon State College in 1987 with a bachelors in Sports Management. He was the Sports Editor at the Adirondack Daily and Lake Placid News, prior to his job at LSC. Johnson also served as the Olympic Training Center Supervisor for the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid. He was also a college basketball coach before becoming part of the media. 

Johnson credits his former jobs for preparing him with the knowledge he needs to do his job at LSC and make sure he keeps the media happy. 

Disaster

Private jets are expensive and usually reserved for the rich. Someone should have told the auto industry these facts.

In November of 2008 the CEO’s of GM, Ford and Chrysler showed up to a hearing to ask for a government bailout in a private jet. A California representative asked them if they flew commercially and opened the floodgates for the press. The CEO’s were ridiculed for not spending their money in a smart manner. The CEO’s then drove hybrid cars to their next meeting.

Obviously this was a bad move. The CEO’s should have thought of a more economical way to travel, maybe taking commercial transportation would have been the better option to make it seem like they were just like the little guy, but they were not like the little. These CEO’s were asking for millions of dollars to fix their problems.

How would I have defused this situation if I were the PR person for any of these companies? Easily. The quote released would look something like this: “Our company already owns the jet, it would not make economical sense to just let the jet sit on the runway at an airport, that would be the true waste of money. Currently we are looking at downsizing in order to save money and we have addressed transportation issues as a budget cut.”

Even if the jet was not for sale, it would not be unfair to say we are looking at the possibility of downsizing, because at the time the company was cutting employees and other expenses.