Reading: 02 + 03

In these two chapters we learn that strategy is very important in advertising.  You really need to know your client before you dive into the campaign and a strategy will help you with that.  A strategy is the most basic of information that you need in order to start building the ideas that you will use to make your advertisements.  These are usually broken down into information such as client, audience, competition, and the product or service you are promoting among other things.  The strategy is the most important part because it is the skeleton or framework for the rest of your campaign.   A good strategy will result in a good campaign.  From there you can start working on actual ad ideas and then form those into a full-blown campaign.

            The third chapter is all about print media.  You should always focus on print media first because it is the most difficult to use.  It must contain an entire idea in 8 words that will take an average of three seconds to read.  If you can do this with your idea then you can definitely make it work in a thirty second TV ad (and even make it more interesting).  There is also a large focus on headlines and what you can do with them.  An example would be headline twisting which I found especially interesting.  You take something that is clichéd or obvious and twist it at the very end, turning it into something completely different and unexpected.  We are also taught to simplify our ideas by giving only what information is really needed to relay the idea.  I like to hear this because I love simplicity.  Finally it talks about how to use test and images together so that whichever is important catches the eye first and so that one does not distract from the other.