72: Beware These Advertising Stocking Stuffers

Posted on: December 10, 2010 /

Categories: Auction Marketing, Design

I found the most expensive Christmas gift I’ve ever received stashed in the bottom of my 1995 Christmas stocking. It changed the way I looked at the baby blue quilted stocking I’ve had since early childhood.

Despite their gift-filled heritage, though, stockings generally get a bad rap as the leftover gift bag, the present you open after you’ve pitched your wrapping paper projectiles at your brother but before Mom initiates the chorus of “Thank you, everybody!”

During this gift-giving season, I want to recognize the auctioneers and real estate marketers who stuff a lot of cheap extras into their advertising stockings—junk that keeps alive that bad rap stockings get. Seriously, here’s a list of things not to give your clients and prospects in your advertising.

Photoshop “Eye Candy”
The 90’s were great. We got Seinfeld and Ross Perot graphs, a muscle-bound home run frenzy and the Dodge Viper muscle car . . . and aesthetically-atrocious Web sites. Bubble lettering, embossed photographs, cartoony drop shadows, feathered pictures—if Photoshop could do it, amateur designers (me included) were doing it. Sadly, some Web and print designers today struggle to let go of the of their Saved by the Bell College Years. No matter who designs your materials, don’t approve pieces where design elements draw more attention to themselves than to what you’re saying or selling.

Gunslinger Lingo
Unless you’re selling a ranch or cattle or holding your auction in front of a saloon, there’s no need to use “noon” in time notifications. A.M. and P.M. get covered pretty early in elementary school and are already the default time demarcations on your Web site. You wouldn’t talk like a soldier and say “at twelve hundred hours;” so, why go the cowpoke route? Same goes for “situated” and “more or less.” Try “located” or “built” on the former and “+/-” or “approximately” on the latter.

Ransom Note Grammar
I scratch my head at some of the capitalization I see in auction and real estate marketing. Unless using ALL CAPS or Title Caps for headlines and categories headings, the only letters that should be capitalized are those that start proper nouns—official names of places and people and vehicles. Directions like “east” and “northwest” stay uncapitalized in complete-sentence use, as do “auction” and “buyer’s premium.”

Phone Book Listings
Research has found that Americans are ironically less likely to make a purchase the more choices we’re given. Someone labeled the phenomenon, “choice paralysis.” So, it stands to reason that the more phone numbers and/or URL’s you put in your advertising, the less likely you are to be contacted. If you do use more than one phone number or URL, signify what’s different on the other end of that information. Maybe it’s “toll-free” and “local” or “24-hour info line” and “during office hours” or “general auction information” and “agent access.”

Ninja Star Bursts
Even if you are a crouching tiger or hidden dragon, it is far easier to handle one star being thrown at you than multiple stars at the same time. Why? Focus. Maybe not women, but most men can only process one thought at a time. So, if you must use a star burst in your advertising, choose only one to draw the recipient’s focus. Same goes for other emphasis devices. Use the boldest element for the primary information and aesthetically draw down the emphasis as you move through the subsequent levels of importance. (Hint: “auction” and the date are almost never first and often not even second.)

Hey, you’ve got some time before 2011. Why not resolve to give clean design and professional presentation to the buying public advertising next year? It might just get you off Santa’s 2011 naughty list.
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I usually squirm and cringe at family Christmas gatherings, as the “Christmas story” is being read. It feels like a ceremonial first pitch or honorary coin toss before the game we paid to watch or play. “So, here’s the transcript of the Christmas cantata and a shout out to Jesus on his birthday. Let’s pray. Okay, let’s open our loot.”

That’s why I’ve grown more comfortable with the concept of spending our gift money on items Jesus can actually use, like water buffalo and bicycles for Indian missionaries to use in their outreaches. I want organizations like Gospel for Asia to be able to show people—who are accustomed to a religion that takes from them—a God who wants more for them than from them.

I’m proud of my family for giving me chickens and rabbits and foreign print materials for my birthday and Christmas this year—gifts that will keep on giving physical and spiritual hope. At the nativity, God gave us a tangible gift that brought the promise of Life. Do our Christmas presents do that?

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