Click picture to see advertorial sample.

There are basically two types of space advertising: promotional ads and advertorials.

Each has its place in your marketing toolbox. However, while most copywriters and designers have at least a fair understanding of promotional ads, advertorials can pose a challenge.

Designers in particular have issues with advertorials because they’re ugly.

So let’s take a look at a sample advertorial and see what makes it tick.

Just in case you’re not clear on what I’m talking about, here’s a pretty good definition for advertorial from Wikipedia:

An advertorial is an advertisement written in the form of an objective article, and presented in a printed publication—usually designed to look like a legitimate and independent news story. The term “advertorial” is a portmanteau of “advertisement” and “editorial.” Merriam-Webster dates the origin of the word to 1946.

Typical ads are designed to catch the eye with visuals and jump off the page. They are obviously ads. But an advertorial is meant to blend in to the surrounding editorial matter.

To the uninitiated, that may sound strange. Why would you want to create an ad that “blends in” and doesn’t catch your eye? Because the idea behind advertorials is that people often tune out ads. They develop “ad blindness.” After all, people don’t pick up reading matter to see ads.

By presenting the ad so that it looks and feels like surrounding editorial matter, advertorials actually have a far better chance of being noticed and read. And since they are copy-heavy and present more information than the typical ad, they engage the involvement rule: The more time people spend reading about your product, the more likely they are to make a purchase.

In the picture above, you can see an advertorial I recently clipped from a local weekly. The product is a space heater. Click the photo to get a close up view.

You’ll notice a few basic characteristics:

• Big, attention-grabbing headline. It presents a prime benefit and a complete thought.
• Newsy copy. It’s written with what journalists call the inverted pyramid, which presents important information first, then develops that information further with supporting information. It’s low-key without hype.
• Simple, informational design. It mimics the layout of the publication. In this case, it appears in a newspaper, so it uses a multi-column format, newsy typography, and a few photos with captions.

This particular advertorial breaks the rules by including a coupon and a little promotional copy in a grayed box at the bottom. But that’s okay. I’ve done the same thing when I thought it was important to push something a little harder than the core editorial copy would allow.

The challenge for copywriters is to tone down the copy so that it’s newsy while still pushing the product. It’s a balancing act between promotion and objective information. For designers, it’s about understanding that ugly works. This may not be something that goes in the portfolio, but the goal is to sell, not to impress.

You should always look at the publications where you’ll be running the ad and make sure both copy and design fit in. Often one ad can work in multiple publications, but it’s worth the extra effort to create different versions.

The best way to understand advertorials is to study a few. So here are some additional advertorial samples.

Here’s an article I wrote a while back that infuriated agencies and award show supporters all over the country. It generated criticism, diatribes, tirades, personal attacks, verbal abuse … and quite a bit of praise. I guess it really hit home. So I’ve decided to share it with my loyal, savvy readers here.

If you’re the typical advertising type, you can get pretty fed up with all those direct response techniques.

How dare anyone suggest that your job is about something as crass as getting people to read a sales pitch or generating profit. After all, you’re a creative genius, right?

Besides, while you’re pretty sure that direct marketers know a thing or two about getting people to respond to ads, they don’t know squat about what’s really important. Winning awards!

I mean, sheesh! They’re so spastic. Always whipping out calculators and crunching numbers … as if numbers have anything to do with advertising!

Let’s take a quick look at a few sure ways to create ads that impress your colleagues, win pointy plastic prizes, and give you a well-deserved break from all that pesky response.

Start with a “concept.” Ads that have something interesting and relevant to say don’t win many awards. That’s because they get people involved in a topic of personal importance, which can lead to people actually reading copy instead of admiring your handiwork.

Remember, form over function. Instead of researching your audience or uncovering benefits, start with a pun, an obscure cultural reference, a witty visual, or some idea that proves you’re ultra creative and which justifies your salary.

Feature stunning photography or artwork. Years ago, I saw an ad for a fax machine with a huge, sepia toned photo of a woman’s head with tubes and wires and gadgets attached. Not a fax machine anywhere. And the copy was reduced to a few tiny lines hidden at the bottom to explain the picture.

Talk about award-winning! Irrelevant visuals and minimal copy are the keys to stifling response and stocking your lobby with those clear resin obelisks!

Design it first and fill in the copy later. Sometimes, a cantankerous client will demand that you bring in an outside writer. But be careful. An experienced copywriter may give you lots of powerful words that send response through the roof. Not only will you have less room for pictures—a design nightmare!—you may be expected to produce results with every ad.

To keep copy, and your writer, under control, begin with a layout. Leave little blank spaces and tell the writer to fill them in. And if your writer is still overwriting and risking response, let your designer edit the copy to fit.

Get fancy with type. This helps when you’re stuck with a bunch of copy that goes on and on about benefits, the offer, a call to action, and other award-losing techniques. You see, you can easily discourage reading with tiny type, unusual typefaces, lots of all-cap text or white text reversed out of black, text over artwork or running in odd directions, and huge blocks of copy in unbroken lines that span an entire page.

In other words, treat the copy as a visual element instead of thoughts and ideas you want to communicate clearly. Who reads all that stuff anyway?

Make your phone number really, really small. Nothing is more gaudy than a big phone number. I mean puleeeeze. It just screams, “Call me now!” And nothing is more off-putting to judges than appearing too eager to conduct business.

So if you can’t talk the client out of eliminating the phone number altogether, set it in small type, buried in the three lines of copy hidden in light gray text waaay down at the bottom of your artwork … er, advertisement.

Use a coupon with an unusual shape. Actually, there is something more gaudy than a big phone number: a conspicuous coupon! Will the shame never end? A square coupon with a dashed border is so old fogy. I mean, it draws attention to your ad, highlights the essence of your offer, and shouts, “Cut me out and send me in!” Again, way too eager.

If you have to include a coupon, try some odd shapes. If you’re selling dog food, shape it like a bone. If you’re selling clothes, shape it like a pair of pants. If you’re selling a drug to treat impotence, shape it like … well, maybe that’s not a good idea.

And by the way, one big advantage of winning pointy plastic awards is that your office will always be neat and tidy … unlike those know-it-all direct response types who are often buried under piles of coupons and order forms from paying customers. Bunch of slobs!

I’ve always been in love with print ads.

Like radio advertising, print ads are relatively easy to create and place. They offer a simple and elegant platform for selling. And with an endless array of niche publications, you can target prospects better than ever before.

But print advertising can also be expensive. You could buy a house for what you’ll pay for a one-page ad in an AARP publication.

Plus, you generally have to plan and place your ads months in advance. You can’t make last minute changes. So it pays to evaluate your ads carefully before you commit to an advertising schedule.

Here’s a 9-point checklist to help you make sure your ad is good-to-go:

Let your ad “cool off.” You can’t evaluate anything objectively the moment you create it. Set your ad aside and look at it again when you’re fresh. Is it still as good as you thought? Have you forgotten anything? Is there a problem you didn’t see before? You’ll be surprised how clear your vision gets after a few days or weeks.

Use the 5-Second Test. Show the ad to a few people who are not in the advertising business, preferably those to whom the ad is meant to appeal. If they don’t understand it at a glance (in about 5 seconds), it isn’t going to work. Don’t play with body copy. Revise the big things. Make your headline more clear and direct. Be sure the graphics telegraph your message. Highlight your offer.

See how it looks as placed. After all, people won’t see your ad tacked to the art director’s wall. They’ll see it in magazines or newspapers along with lots of other ads and editorial matter. Mock up the ad and insert it into some of your target publications. See how the ad works in context.

Try the Stop-or-Go Test. You should generally speak in the second person, using words such as “you” and “your.” And you should avoid speaking about yourself too much with words such as “we” and “our.” So circle all words referring to your reader with a green pen. Then circle all words referring to you with a red pen. If you see a lot of green, your copy is a go. If you see a lot of red, stop and edit.

Compare your ad to your objective. What do you want the ad to accomplish? Do all the elements of your ad lead to that goal? If something doesn’t belong, delete it. If there’s something missing, add it. And don’t let the designer dictate the message or copy length. Words sell.

Consider one other way to write the ad. Even if you have a successful formula, there are always other approaches that will work. If you keep an open mind, you just might find a better way. Or you may discover improvements you can incorporate. One advantage to writing a second ad after completing the first is that you will feel free to experiment and try something different.

List all the negatives. What’s wrong with the headline and copy? The layout? The illustrations? The coupon? The look or tone? Be brutal and honest. Don’t get attached to particular words or images. After all, this isn’t art. It’s not your personal vision. It’s business. If something needs to be changed, change it.

Ask a consultant for a copy analysis. It gives you a level of objectivity you simply can’t get from staff and employees. And since there are as many ways to write an ad as there are writers, you’re sure to get some good ideas. Even one small improvement can mean the difference between success and failure.

Make corporate ads work. If you’re going to all the trouble and expense of “branding” your company or products, why not distribute some literature and give your salespeople some leads at the same time? Offer a free fact kit, video, brochure, report, or anything to generate a response. This doesn’t hurt your image. It shows that you want to make a connection and that you want to help.

The money wasted on do-nothing “corporate” advertising is truly astonishing. Here’s a “corporate” style ad I chose completely at random from Target Marketing magazine.

Okay, quick … what’s it about? Don’t know? Of course not. You have to read the teeny little block of type to find out it has something to do with email. I think it’s software, but I’m not entirely sure.

This is typical of what I call “corporate” ads. These are ads that look pretty, say little, cost a lot, and don’t work very well.

Now I want to make it clear that I’m not a direct response knuckle dragger. I do not think that everyone has to sell everything via direct marketing. Mass marketing, retailing, and other selling strategies are perfectly valid.

However, as a pragmatic marketing guy, I think that you should get what you pay for when spending money on advertising. You should know what you want to accomplish and demand that your ads use the best techniques available to get the job done.

“Corporate” ads are ads that waste money because even if they have a goal, they do very little to accomplish that goal.

The ad above, for example, wants to introduce you to a product or service and even has a free white paper to offer you. But is that instantly apparent? No. Are you likely to take the time to decipher the ad to find out what it’s about? No. Will you download the white paper? Probably not.

What does this ad do wrong? First, it’s not designed to be read. It’s just one big piece of eye-candy. Second, where’s the headline? Is it that light, gray line in 9-point type below the photo? Third, there’s an offer, but it’s hidden waaaay down at the bottom in gray, 7-point type. Fourth, the copy itself is short, small (also 7-point type), and generic. It just doesn’t tell you much.

Like most “corporate” ads, its existence is probably justified by an ad exec somewhere saying it takes “frequency” to get a message across or that the ad establishes an “image” for the product. Or maybe there’s a creative brief somewhere claiming this is a “positioning” ad.

But you know the real reason? The company doesn’t know how to sell or they’ve been convinced that selling is “lowbrow” and beneath them. They probably think that you can either position your product OR sell, but not both, which is a common misconception.

Any competent copywriter could write a benefit headline, copy that explains what’s so great about this product, and a call to action that makes you want to get that white paper. Nearly any designer could lay out this ad to catch the eye, make reading easy, and highlight important items, such as the headline and offer.

And you know what? It would not only get a better response, it would do a better job of establishing an “image” and “positioning” the product because it would actually engage readers, communicate clearly, and entice people to get involved with the ad.

By the way, the title of the white paper is “Engagement Marketing: Partnering With Your Customer for Success.” Is that irony or what?

Direct response design is all about getting people to READ the text. If no one reads the words, why bother running the ad?

While flipping through some magazines recently, I came across this ad for a laser sighting device. I know what the ad is about because of the photo, but certainly not because of the text. This ad ignores virtually every convention for designing readable copy.

Notice that it wants to be a direct response ad. There’s an offer for a DVD at the bottom, but the Web address and phone number are tiny and hard to read. There is no headline. The text is “justified,” meaning it’s stretched to line up with both margins. Copy is set in all caps. The background is dark. And the main text is framed as if it’s artwork.

If you want to design an ad no one will read, this is how it’s done. I’m writing a blog post about it and I’ve still not read it!

Now here’s another ad from the same magazine. The product is grass plugs. It’s not going to win any design awards, but notice the difference.

Here you have an ad that IS designed to be read. Not only is there a headline, there’s a headline with benefits. The text is a bit small, but it’s legible and set in three columns, which makes text lines short and scannable. Subheads spell out benefits and organize the copy. There’s a clear, highlighted call to action and an order form. The designer was even smart enough to use black type on a yellow background, which is a high-contrast combination in print.

If you want people to read an ad, you must follow the conventions of readable type. If nothing else, look at a newspaper or high-circulation magazine for ideas. There’s a reason popular publications are popular: people READ them.

Some of the best advertisements are built around a story.

This is an advanced copywriting technique and takes a deft hand to pull off, so I don’t recommend it to novice copywriters. But when you can do it convincingly, it’s a thing of beauty.

Here’s an ad I ran across while rifling through some folders this morning. This is probably too small to read, but you can click on it to download a PDF image of the entire ad.

Let’s take a look at a few things that make this ad work.

First, the headline is newsy and intriguing. It introduces the idea of losing a lot of weight, but it teases you with the promise of an interesting story. A headline is supposed to draw you in and make you read the body copy, so this sort of headline does its job well.

Notice the specificity of the headline. It’s not just a housewife, but an Atlanta housewife. She didn’t merely lose weight; she lost 73 pounds.

Second, note the simple layout of the text. It’s intended to look like an article in the magazine where the ad appeared. While most ads should stand out, this sort of ad is intended to blend in. Why? Because it’s aimed at people who are reading the magazine and looking for interesting stories.

This type of ad is usually called an “advertorial.” It calls for a newsy tone, long copy, and minimal design.

Third, (assuming you’ve read the entire ad above) note how the explanation about why the Atlanta housewife was almost arrested is only revealed after you read about two-thirds of the text. The writer didn’t want to satisfy curiosity about this too soon. This helps to keep readers reading.

Fourth, the call to action is saved for the end. This is no surprise to those experienced at story ads, but it’s something many copywriters would screw up. The trend today is to spit out the call to action immediately, and that works in many circumstances. However, it would kill a story ad like this. You have to hook the reader, tell the story, and only then ask for the order. It takes faith in the format.

Fifth, the copy is written in the first person. Normally, you avoid this in typical copywriting since you want to put the focus on the reader. In a story ad, though, the copy is personal and works like a testimonial. It’s like a friend talking to you.

Story ads are not appropriate for every product or publication. But if you have the chance to write one, keep these ideas in mind. This type of ad can be fun and highly satisfying.

Let’s take a look at a few principles for writing and designing effective print ads. And instead of rehashing “classic” ads that you always see in advertising and marketing textbooks, let’s just pick an ad out of the newspaper. That’s where a lot of the ad dollars go anyway.

Here’s one I ran across today in my local paper. It’s not pretty. And it ain’t Shakespeare. But it’s a damn good ad. Why? Mostly because it’s all business. The copywriter isn’t trying to entertain. The designer isn’t trying to impress. Take a good look.

The ad copy here is doing smart things:

1. The headline selects the audience and identifies a problem.

2. The subhead promises a solution.

3. The body copy suggests the solution is easy.

4. The offer is simple and direct. And it’s free!

5. The title of “Dr.” and the testimonials establish credibility.

The ad design is smart as well:

1.The headline and subhead are big and bold.

2. The illustration ties directly to the headline.

3. The body copy is in large type and bulleted to make reading easy and scanning effortless.

4. The offer and call to action are highlighted and cannot be missed.

5. There is not one hint of cleverness to distract from the message.

This print ad won’t win a single award. Most ad agency copywriters or designers couldn’t bear to be in the same room with a print ad like this. But this is solid advertising. This is the sort of ad that works!