The holidays are here and the holiday ads are everywhere you look. Before Charlie Brown can say “Good grief!” you’ll probably see another ad. This year seems to be the year of the self-satisfied mom who one-ups Santa by getting the perfect gifts under the tree before he can. Check out the Game On Santa ad from Best Buy (featuring Apple products) and see the rest of this year’s best holiday ads on AdAge.

What are your favorites this year? Or are these ads making you say bah humbug?!

Alex Charchar over at Retinart has a fantastic article where he gives his own spin on the design thoughts of Bob Gill, co-founder of Pentagram. One of my favorites is “Interesting words need boring graphics.” Charchar writes:

A stupid designer grows intoxicated on their own greatness and self-worth.

Gill gives an example I could not top so wont try; We cure cancer for free.

There is one design solution for this. White background, big, black, heavy as a whale text, left aligned. Want to go out on a limb? Center it (but dont).

I love this. You could write the best copy in the world but if you bury it in too much razzmatazz, the effect is lost. And modern advertising, Lord help us, thrives on razzmatazz.

The real tragedy is that copy is largely ignored today. As I was taking advertising and marketing classes, professors often talked about how hard it is to get your message through. We’ve heard it a hundred times, “In this media soaked culture, people see thousands of visuals a day! Your visual needs to find a way to stand out.” Or maybe this is a time to differentiate by having the visuals take a backseat. If everyone is focusing on flash, why not focus on words?

A perfect example is the Google Superbowl commercial from last year. When I asked people why they liked it, I got one answer over and over. It was cute. Not because there was a young, attractive couple being lovey-dovey in washed vintage colors. It was because it told a story. The hero was the copy. It told a story. It gave the ad a heart and the clean visuals didn’t get in the way. The whole ad is a perfect example of copy can still make a great impact in our flashy, image driven culture.

Below are bits from Bob Gill’s book about the subject of simple graphics for interesting words.

In the marketing world being “the first” is an incredible thing. Whether it is being the first brand in a niche product category, the first to use a new media strategy or the first to make a creative new ad claim, people take notice. Firsts also provide tremendous competitive advantage. The only thing worse than being second is blatantly copying the brand that did it first. We’re talking to you Dairy Queen!

If you haven’t seen Dairy Queen’s latest campaign – take a look. For me, it’s a little too close to Old Spice’s campaign. We all know how popular and successful Old Spice’s use of the sarcastic new icon was with the over-the-top irony of their spots. They scored a huge “first.” They came up with a creative strategy that really worked to grab (and hold) the attention of their target audience. It was so popular many of the spots went viral, topping the most watched YouTube video charts. So I can certainly understand why someone in a board room at Dairy Queen must’ve thought – let’s do that! And granted, the two brands aren’t even in the same product category, but still – did they really think the copycat campaign wouldn’t be obvious? And the worst part? Others (like Edge Shave Gel) have starting shamelessly jumping on the bandwagon.

Lesson learned: do your own thing. Sure, plenty of people say there are no more new ideas out there; that everything we come up with has probably been used in some way, shape or form at some point over the past 100 years (even if we don’t know it). Maybe that’s true in many cases, but that doesn’t mean we’ve lost our ability to create new and impactful advertising. And I’m not saying we shouldn’t use creative ideas and strategies from great campaigns that are already out there. We should be inspired by the great advertising around us, not take the easy, copycat way out.

Have you ever had an irritating little computer problem that you just couldn’t figure out for the life of you? (If you work on a PC, I’m sure you can identify with this more than most). You try for what seems like ages to fix a formatting issue or convert a file properly, but you just can’t make it work. After exhausting all of your creative options (for me that means closing the program and re-opening the file) you finally cave and ask a co-worker for help. And of course, the moment they look over your shoulder they instantly know the answer.

Good agency relationships provide the same vital external input to marketing departments. Yes, internal marketing teams know the brand inside and out. They’ve spent countless hours pouring over research, reviewing sales data, and executing strategic plans. They have an in depth understanding of their product, the competitive landscape, and the target audience. But living and breathing the brand and being that close to a product can take its toll on a marketer’s ability to take a fresh look at things from an outside perspective. Enter the ad agency.

At the onset of a new client relationship, we as the agency are well aware that we don’t know the ins and outs of the brand the way the client does. But therein lies our strength.  We have the unique privilege of being able to take an objective look at the big picture. Ask some new questions. Research the answers to the same old questions. Take (or at least recommend) some risks. Change up the creative execution. Explore a new strategy.

Now of course it’s not all rainbows and sunshine just because we get the opportunity to take a fresh look at things. We have to work collaboratively to leveraging the history and knowledge of the client’s marketing team with the creative and strategic talents of the agency. We may have different perspectives and roles, but in a great relationship we’re able to combine our efforts for an incredibly powerful end result, that ultimately benefits the brand.

Two of the little things I’ve been working on lately are drinking more water and improving my posture. In order to help myself keep these goals top of mind, I used a very simple tactic: Post It Notes (real original, I know). I put one-word notes on my monitor to remind me to sit up straight and refill my water glass (or drink the one sitting on my desk, still full from 2 hours ago).

The first day was remarkable; I corrected my posture at least a dozen times and drank 6 glasses of water. The next few days I still found myself correcting my posture and drinking more water. But by the end of the week the impact started to fall off and by the second week the notes had no effect whatsoever.
I finally realized the problem – my brain adapted to the presence of the notes and after a while just filtered them out and ignored the cues to work on my goals. It’s an unfortunate application of the power of the human brain. I became immune to my own surroundings, without even trying.

This whole experience got me thinking about the minds of consumers today. They work exactly the same way. We all know advertising is ubiquitous. We live in a world where target audiences of every shape and size ignore marketing and ad messages daily. I just never considered how easily consumers do so without even trying. Overexposure has caused the consumer brain to easily tune out even the most intrusive ads. The question is how do you ensure your marketing efforts aren’t just another post-it note that people can ignore? The answer is what it’s always been.

Step 1 – Understand your target audience in deep and impactful ways.
Step 2 – Be strategic. About what you say, how you say it and where you say it.
Step 3 – Be creative. About what you say, how you say it and where you say it.

I’m not expounding some new insight or wisdom here. This is nothing new, I know. But it’s worth taking a look at your strategy and making the necessary changes to get consumers to change their behavior. Then you’ll have consumers that will listen to your message (and maybe have better posture, too!).