The Secrets of Making Creative Print Ads for Effective Print Marketing

When it comes to print ads marketing the job gets much more demanding compared to visual/video ads marketing. Print ads demand high level of creativity, the term “out of the box” is what you will find yourself dealing with a lot more when it comes to print ads.

While video ads making require the same level of creativity and out of the box thinking but the main thing that differentiate and makes print ad a real challenge is its limitedness in terms of its size/medium (piece of paper unlike video ads that has much more flexibility in terms of size from 10 seconds to 3 minutes etc).

You may also like to read "An Anatomy of Perfect Ad "

Likewise you need to put great amount effort to bring the absolute creativity on one piece of paper (medium) unlike the video ads where you can put different creative ideas in more flexible and sequential ways with a lot more room for creativity. The job is indeed tough; it demands real effort and real creativity to achieve that desired impact on the target market.

Though there are no standard rules or guidelines for print ads that will arm you with knowledge and expertise to help you make those really awesome, out of the box print ads. But still there are some key elements that you can work on to help you get there.

What I am going to provide here is by no means the whole list of elements that you need to focus on while making those really awesome kickass print ads but the major and essential elements that make up those ads.

Now let’s get to it.

Creativity

Print ads are all about creativity; the more you have it in the print the more people take interest in it and so more people get the message consequently more people remember it which means increase in mind share.

Now there are four elements to focus on to solve the creativity puzzle in an effective and creative way.

It is not necessary to focus on all these four elements to make those really cool print ads, sometimes just three will do, other time just a couple and sometimes even one.

I have provided few examples of print ads having all four elements while sometimes three, two and one. So it all depends, on your ad message and your creativity level.

You may also like to read "Advertisement In Visual Media: Five Things to Remember"

Making The Large Small (E1)

In order to make people take take interest in an ad, make them curious, you need to make the large everyday stuff (tangible & intangible) small. In the print ads down below we find that, like the trees, buildings, famous places being made really small compared to small components of a bicycle (European Velo Marathon print ad).

Likewise in Volkswagen print ad we find the similar approach being followed to make the ad creative, the whole safari, the landscape of Africa (image) has been converted into really small miniature (fitted as key teeth) compared to the small key of Volkswagen.

Remember: Consider the message of the print ad before “Making the large small”.

Making The Small Large (E2)

Now here you go for making the small stuff (tangible & intangible) large, this is similar to the above element just the other way around, depicting or making something small large or vice versa is unusual and people will definitely take notice of that.

That’s what you will find in the print ad of European Velo Marathon, Volkswagen ad. In the former one, the whole city has been fitted in the rear cassette of a bicycle and in later whole African safari image in Volkswagen key.

Remember: Consider the message of the print ad before “Making the small large”.

Connecting The Unrelated (E3)

Now here is something that I believe demands the real effort when it comes to creativity in print ads and this is the most common element you will find in print ads. Connecting the unrelated, imagine putting the whole African safari picture in a key teeth, imagine putting in the whole city picture in a bicycle rear cassette and chain, imagine making packaging of the very ingredients of the package (a box of fries carved out of potato), imagine connecting the dog, chow and dustbin or the scary doll or something with long durable batteries.

Likewise consider The Guardian newspaper print ad where a pie chart has been connected to the message of the print ad that is “The Whole Picture”.

Mixing The Imaginative & Real Worlds (E4)

This is perhaps the second most common element of any print ad after the “connecting the unrelated” element. You can find imagination and real world in one place in McDonalds fries print ad(packaging or fries box out of potato is a mixing of imaginative world with real world), in Dogchow print ad (where the ad message is to stop treating your dog like a dustbin or something, feeding it with everything rather feed it with dog chow).

In case of Dogchow print ad, the imagination is impressive, imagining a dog (real world) as bin or trashcan (imaginative world). 

Print Ads

That’s all, I hope you have learned how to make those really impressive, out of the box print ads, This article would have surely helped you or atleast given you a concept on how to make really creative print ads and I am sure you it will help you explore much more the art and science of print ads. I am looking forward to your ideas, contentions on print ads, advertisement strategies, be my guest in comments ;).