10 newspaper print ads we love

Since we're not far from the critical end-of-year selling season, we thought it might be a good time to post some ads we've produced over the past year that we think are noteworthy. If your newspaper uses our DesignYourAd Overnight Production service, we can help you adapt these so they're OK to use with a similar current or prospective advertiser in your market.

1. Bakery

We think this is a great little ad that quickly communicates the quality of this restaurant and bakery.

2. Furniture store

While still in spec ad form, this is perfect for those local furniture stores who are trying to compete with the big chains. Sometimes the biggest challenge is just getting an ad to look more like its successful competitors.

3. Cell phone ad

With our experienced ad-agency designers and overnight turnaround, some of our client newspapers have gone a step further by offering our services to their advertisers as a better and less expensive alternative to full-service ad agencies in their market, creating another profit center and increasing control at the same time. Contact us and we'd be happy to show you how your newspaper can do this.

4. Arts and crafts

We love how the designer matched the colors in the art and also extended the look and feel of the art throughout the entire ad.

5. Spa and bath

Similarly, we like how our designers were able to match the contemporary style of the product in the typeface and layout.

6. Fight club

A common complaint of offshore ad production outsourcing companies is that they have difficulty understanding the local culture (and sub-culture). As this ad demonstrates, our designers are great at executing strategies in a wide variety of styles, even when the advertiser isn't even sure what the right one is. We also like how the designer used type as a graphic.

7. Brunch

This ad may look simple, but creating an ad like this that's clear, clean, down-to-earth and elegant at the same time isn't always easy.

8. Jewelry

Whenever we share this ad with prospective clients during our seminars or Web demos of our services, invariably we hear a little gasp. It's just a nice, simple, well-executed design.

9. Automotive

It's always tough to make an ad with a lot of selection look good, especially with automotive ads. That's why we think this ad is so exceptional. Many of our clients have adapted this ad for their own local auto dealers with great results.

10. Real estate

Like many of these ads, this one was designed with little guidance by the ad rep. We think it represents the quality work our people create on a daily basis.

From time to time, we'll be sharing more designs we're proud of. Again, if you're a DesignYourAd overnight production client, we can help you adjust these--and 100's of other great ads so they can be used in your own market. If you're not a client, you should consider contacting us to discuss how your newspaper can get this level of work for a fraction of what you're now spending. Combine this with increased goodwill and ad sales and you'll see why so many newspapers choose us when they decide to outsource their ad production department.

Seeing the competitors' successful newspaper ads can make a huge difference

For those DesignYourAd members who haven't yet attended one of our free seminars on ad sales and design, here's another tip that'll ensure members of our overnight ad production service get back work that exceeds the quality of the slick chain stores your local advertiser is competing with. Send us along the competitors' ads and simply tell us you want your ad to look better than theirs. Since all our designers go through our rigorous Response Oriented Selling ad sales and design course--and are all hand picked for their ad agency-level skills--they'll instantly understand what strategy and design you're looking for.

The appliance store below dropped out of one of our members' newspapers because of lack of response and asked our designers for a new look. Here's the "before" ad":

Since Best Buy was a major competitor of theirs (and creates beautiful and highly successful ads), we made sure the designer had a copy of their latest fliers, an example of which is below:




In particular, see those "groupings" of product, description, and price in the body of the ad? When those groupings look good, it's a dead giveaway that it's a professional place. Unfortunately, the opposite holds true as well. Armed with the Best Buy flier, our designers were able to not only build a great-looking ad (see below), but one with the right strategy. Yes, our designers think about strategy, too. And it paid off in both a happy advertiser and increased revenue for the newspaper, which is certainly a priority for us in this recession.

For those newspapers who have taken our Response Oriented Selling course or are members of our DesignYourAd Overnight Ad Production service, you can use this ad as a template. Just ask for ad 281-Appliance or select it from our gallery of effective product ads.

Redesigning a gourmet grocery store ad

Unlike some services newspapers use for offshore ad production, when we say our DesignYourAd overnight ad production service has agency-quality designers, we mean it.

We better have a vastly superior service, since we're the largest trainer of creative services and ad production departments in the U.S. and Canada, we run the largest Web site for advice on newspaper advertising effectiveness, and a leading advertising sales training firm.

This gourmet grocery store, which considered themselves more of a Whole Foods natural and organic grocery store, was not getting the response it needed and was considering not renewing its $200,000+ contract. Besides a new strategy, it needed a new look.

So, with all the great work coming out of our group, I've decided to create a blog to share some of it with our member-newspapers.

Sure, you can find the same ad in our galleries once you log in, but we thought this might be an easier way for you to be able to check in and see what ads you can adapt for your own current and prospective advertisers.

Here's a high-end grocery store ad that would do well in most any market. They weren't happy with the look nor the response of their ad, so the ad rep, who like all our designers, are trained in our Response Oriented Selling techniques, went out and did some fact-finding first, finding out the supermarket was more like a Whole Foods, a huge natural and organic grocery store.

The next morning the ad rep had her new ad, which the account absolutely loved and decided to remain with the newspaper. It fit much better with the upscale image the account was trying to project.

The ad rep uploaded a rough sketch of the ad (of course she could have faxed it as well) and also some of the images. For others, she sent the designers to some of the manufacturers' Web sites.

The next morning, this is what our designers came back with. We were able to preserve the checkerboard pattern, which the advertiser felt very strongly about, but was able to give it a more updated look. Besides a solid ad strategy, our designers were able to communicate freshness, cleanliness, and gourmet-quality products.

The newspaper, who was in jeopardy of losing this $200,000+ advertiser, was able to instead to win him over and driving response, which, of course, is really what it's all about.

For those who have taken our Response Oriented Selling course or are members of our DesignYourAd Overnight Ad Production service, you can use this ad as a template. Just ask for ad 102-Super or select it from our gallery of effective product ads.