Yellow Pages Advertising: Will Fun Make You Money?

How many times has a humorous radio or television ad led you to buy the advertised product? While some of the most successful ads have used humor: Wendy’s “Where’s the Steak?” Ads, for example: too many “fun” ads fail to generate more business or ROI; more than half of the ads in any Super Bowl fall into this category. Does anyone remember the Petco sock puppet?

For television and radio ads, humor or surprise serve the same purpose as flashy graphics in a Yellow Pages ad. A humorous ad will actually make you consciously listen to the ad, and this is a good thing in an age where more and more of us are disconnecting (physically and mentally) from advertising. Aim, When humor is a separate element of the ad message, prospects remember the joke but not the business. and advertising budget is wasted entertaining prospects instead of persuading them to buy.

So does this mean yellow page advertisers shouldn’t worry about flashy graphics? Of course not! Advertising in the Yellow Pages is a step above other media because instead of ignoring ads as background noise, prospects are actually looking for them! But you still have to break up the mess. Your yellow page ad must have the design skills to visually dominate the other ads, relegating the competition to the background while the prospect focuses on what YOU have to say.

The point is that Flashy graphics are discarded by the reader when they are free. The message carried by the graphic has to be linked to the emotional needs of the customer and has to reinforce and lead to the persuasive message of the copy. Otherwise, your Yellow Page advertising budget will be wasted as people smile at your graphic and then move on to calling someone else.

A true yellow page ad design expert doesn’t think of their ad in terms of separate elements. They don’t use separate or independent strategies to design their chart, then use another strategy for the headline and another for the copy, etc. The yellow page’s “successful” ad design process is simply not modular; All the elements have to work together for your reader to call YOU first!

So forget about “getting their attention” with graphics and THEN persuading prospects with your copy. The graphic elements of your ad must get their attention WHILE SIMULTANEOUSLY establishing an emotional connection with and persuading your client.

Also, notice that I said “graphical elements” and not graphics. Font size and style, spacing, proper use of negative or white space, and visual flow contribute as much to the visual appeal of your Yellow Page ad as the images. Make sure your Yellow Page ad design “pro” has the design experience to successfully orchestrate these elements for maximum impact!

Contemplating humor in your next Yellow Page ad design? Remember, there’s nothing fun about wasting ad dollars on a losing Yellow Page ad that will run for an entire year. A holistic approach that considers both the emotional needs of your target audience and the interdependence of its parts is crucial to your success.