20: Fair Advantage

In the wake of winning seven more national awards, I have been again asked what makes a contest-winning piece of advertising? I’d rather answer, “What makes a brand-building piece of advertising.” But the more of the following attributes your piece contains, the better its chances for garnering a plaque or trophy:

Photogenic Property
I’ve seen template pieces win year after year. Because contest judges are usually rotating, they don’t know what’s template work and what’s custom design. I’d like to whisper like the girl on the DLP commercials, “It’s the mirrors,” as your pictures just reflect what you’re selling. If you have a beach front or signature property—and the design gets out of the picture’s way—your piece will beat the foreclosure sales, the main street real estate, and the rural acreage. If your tractors are new or your cars are classic, you’re going to trump the estate collections and consignment groupings. Pictures sell the judges the same way they sell your auction.

Quality Photographs
You can overcome a property’s lack of shine or accentuate a showcase offering with some creative and/or quality photography. If you can’t afford (by time or budget) a professional photographer, you can still get professional results with your point-and-shoot camera.

• Take more pictures than you need.
• Take pictures only during proper lighting hours.
• Take pictures from angles and perspectives your competitors don’t.
• Take pictures at your camera’s highest resolution.
• Take pictures proactively. Spend time on the site, and plan ahead.

Premium Media
While you can’t control the quality in the production of all your media, particularly in newsprint and on niche web sites, you can control direct mail. The paper on which your piece is printed matters both in the marketplace and on the judges’ tables. Extra touches, like coatings and metallic materials grab attention, as do non-standard orientations and folds. These do not sell properties, but they do sell the piece—and your brand.

Professional Layout
Design can be a double-edged sword. You want design that draws attention to your brand but only as much as it doesn’t draw attention to itself. You want a layout that accentuates the property—which doesn’t necessarily require technical, expensive work. Your designer should be able to explain every font, color, line, space, and arrangement with intentional reasons. Those answers should all correspond to the nature of your brand and, if possible, to the mood of what’s being sold.

Self Control
Less is more. The less text and information you have on the outside panels of a direct mailer or in between the borders of an ad, the easier it is to build a captivating mood. Let the picture(s) breathe; rely on the image(s) to sell your property. Words rarely trump photographic proof. Don’t try to buck that law of nature, especially in our ADD culture and visual world. Pare as much from the piece as possible, publishing an exhaustive information package on the internet. If they aren’t sold in the first few seconds, they won’t care about the details. Neither will judges. They rarely read entries—just trying to grab overall creativity and readability.

Subjective Luck
Judges have human eyes with unintentional biases. I find politics typically NOT a factor on the contest level. (If anywhere, you’ll find sour grapes pettiness in the committees that draft the competition rules.) The prettiest piece I’ve ever printed lost this year. An already internationally-awarded piece lost this summer to a humble, white brochure. I’ve had pieces win in years past that I was embarrassed to have even entered and publicly recognized. I can’t explain judges’ reasoning; I just give them lots of options from which to choose.

This past year has been a banner year for awards granted to biplane and its clients’ work. It’s a fickle process—advertising contests—but it can be honed more predictable with a little work and an intentional budget. Advertising awards can build your company’s identity; but a professional, recognizable, and consistent brand in the marketplace is far more likely to build your company’s revenue.
[tip]

Many Christian leaders motivate their American followers with the rewards of heaven. The Bible mentions crowns and compliments as potential compensation for lives well lived. As someone who has always been easily motivated by reward, I used to share that eternal retirement account view.

Then I stumbled on the irony that everything we win we give back to Jesus, laying it all at his feet. This coupled with the warning that anything done for ourselves will be consumed (rather than available to give back to Jesus), creates a symbiotic irony: the less we care about eternal reward, the more we receive.

Advertising’s success is measured by its effectiveness with its audience, not by the accolades of judges. The success of our Christianity, likewise, is not measured in how it looks either now or in heaven—but in how its observers are moved to salvation through it.

Once our sanctification becomes motivated by the amassing of personal heaven points or structured around the trappings of faith, it is religion. Religion is the largest idol used to distract mankind from a relationship with God. So, we need to guard against improper motives as much as against improper actions.

[footer]Stock image(s) used by permission through purchase from iStockPhoto.com ©2008[/footer]