When I got to the office later and discovered the truth I was really irritated. What I had seen was a wraparound advertising section promoting the new King Kong attraction at the park. It duplicated an ordinary Times front page except for the small red “advertisement” at the top that, in my hurry, I had missed.

As annoyed as I was by this initially, as an advertising person, when I sat back and thought about it I actually liked the piece for a very important reason—it proved that print advertising is still alive and working. To paraphrase Mark Twain’s remark about rumors of his demise, the reports of print advertising’s death have been greatly exaggerated.
While there certainly is a marketing shift toward the Internet and social networking, print media still offer space where original and creative advertising can command attention and take the time to tell a more complete selling story.

The Times Universal wraparound was definitely a “Gotcha” but, to me, the point it proved was more important—I’ll bet a lot more people will be eager to see their new King Kong attraction because of it. My grandson Aaron included.

The search engines are always looking for fresh content on a web site, and it’s much easier to add content to a blog than it is to change your web site. Furthermore, if your site is built in Wordpress, the entire site (not just the blog) is built on a content management platform, so it is much easier to make changes to the site as well as add new content. In other words, Wordpress allows you to easily manage your entire web site like you would a blog, without a lot of technical know-how. You can encourage the search engines to give your site a higher page rank by observing the key words that your prospects use to search for your services and inserting them into your blog posts and tags.

Search engines aren’t the only reason to add new content. A blog site with constantly updated content gives your visitors a reason to return to your site again and again. You can publicize your blog posts through email and social media, and even encourage your prospects to subscribe, turning them into regular consumers of your content. By consistently writing on topics that showcase your expertise, you build credibility—and even a following–both on and off your web site.

If you want to start a blog but don’t like to do a lot of writing, there’s an easy solution: develop a list of topics and hire a ghostwriter to pen them for you. A good writer can express your ideas in your “voice” so no one will ever know it wasn’t written by you.

The amount of information we see, hear and read every day has mushroomed a thousand-fold.  That makes the task of creating a unique message that breaks through the clutter even more daunting. In a world where a clever video or a scandalous piece of news can go viral in a matter of hours, how does one get a message through the over-information pipeline?

The vehicles for delivering marketing communications may have changed, but I believe that the four basic principles of good communication that I was taught many years ago as a student at Art Center are still as relevant as ever. If your message doesn’t contain all of these elements, it probably won’t get through.  And it certainly won’t have staying power.

1.    The message must be CLEAR. If people don’t understand what you’re saying or selling, they’ll turn the page, click away, or hit the delete key. This is the first rule of good communication and it doesn’t matter what medium the message is in.
2.    HONEST. Another way to put it is “authentic”. Your audience knows when you’re not being straight with them and they won’t buy it, whether it’s on a billboard, a web site or skywriting.
3.    BELIEVABLE. If something seems “too good to be true” it probably is. People  have learned this, so if you make your message believable, you’re more likely to get a believer.
4.    MEMORABLE. This is where the creativity comes in. It’s the most difficult of the four requirements to get right, but it’s the one that makes all the difference. You absolutely need the first three, but you can’t break through the clutter without this one.

I’ve spent most of my career working to master #4, and it continues to challenge and excite me whether I’m designing a home page, a banner ad, a brochure or an idea for a sales promotion. Getting this one right is what successful careers—and brands—are built on.

Seth Godin’s blog ranked number one in all three categories. And no wonder. As a true thought leader, change agent and author of a dozen or so bestselling marketing books (including Purple Cow, Permission Marketing, Meatball Sundae, and Tribes) his posts are always insightful, entertaining, and thought provoking.

Mashable, to which I subscribe, was number two on the list. If you haven’t taken a look at it, by all means check this one out. Because when it comes to lists, Mashable is known for generating them on all manner of social media topics: Some examples: 5 Eye-Popping You Tube Videos;  Zen and the Art of Twitter: 4 Tips for Productive Tweeting; 5 Superb Social Media Tools for Musicians. There’s no better place to go for information on social media as well as a wide range of other topics.

The MENG blog list is formidable, and contains a few I’m familiar with, some I’ve only heard of and many blogs that I’ve never explored–but as a relatively new blogger, I intend to. There’s so much to learn, and not just in terms of the content but for blogging style as well. Here’s the rest of the list…Happy reading!

• Chris Brogan

• Guy Kawasaki(“How to Change the World”)

• Tom Peters

• John Jantsch (Duct Tape Marketing)

• David Armano’s Logic + Emotion

• Mack Collier’s The Viral Garden

• Steve Hall’s AdRANTs

• Joseph Jaffe’s Jaffe Juice

• John Moore’s Brand Autopsy

• Jeremiah Owyang’s Web Strategy

• Shelly Palmer’s MediaBytes

• David Meerman Scott’s Web Ink Now

• Brian Solis’s BrianSolis.com

• Denise Lee Yohn’s Brand as Business Bites

• Andy Beal’s Marketing Pilgrim

• Valeria Maltoni’s Conversation Agent

• Ben McConnell & Jackie Huba’s Church of the Customer

• Avinash Kaushik’s Occam’s Razor

Now you have to understand I’ve spent my whole career working hard to create advertising that has stopping power — ads, commercials, direct mail pieces, etc. that have a unique graphic, message or story that attracts people’s attention.

But the study found that what draws people to a web ad isn’t fancy graphics or animation. It’s text. Plain ol’ text.

The study tracked people’s eye movements while they were on the web.  It found that ads that featured  text only or text and an image drew almost twice as much attention as ads that featured any kind of motion or animation.

To me that seems to fly in the face of common sense…and real life experience.   No way you’re going to miss seeing that guy in the yellow chicken suit waving at you outside the fast food restaurant.  And the motion in a good television commercial can keep you from taking a much-needed refrigerator break.

But, according to the study, the same people who chuckle at the chicken guy on the street are likely to bypass an animated chicken in a web ad.  What’s the difference?

One possible explanation is that until now, we’ve been more or less passive when exposed to advertising…browsing through a newspaper, couch potating in front of a TV, listening to the radio while driving.  We’re not focused on anything in particular so we’re more easily diverted.

But when we’re on the web we’re more likely to be on a mission.  We’ve chosen to visit a website for a reason.  We’ve entered a search term with a purpose.  So we’re less likely to be diverted from that mission by an ad.  But if the ad has something to say— text—we’re more likely to take a look.  (“Maybe it has something to say about what I’m looking for?”)
So I learned a lesson: keep doing that traffic-stopping creative work for our clients in other media. But when we’re working on web ads, keep it simple. Apparently, glitz doesn’t grab.

Note: This post is reprised from the first issue of our newsletter, “On the Level”.  So many of our readers commented on how valuable they found the information that we’ve added it as a blog entry. What have your experiences been with subject lines? Let us know if you have anything to add.

Yes, it’s been on the to-do list. I’ve made a commitment to do it, and have told my colleagues I’m going to do it. I’ve made a list of possible blog topics to write about so I’ve got a backlog of ideas ready to go.  And yet…

As creative people who come up with advertising and marketing concepts to solve our clients’ problems, we’re faced with the empty blank page on a daily basis. Experience, practice, habit and necessity have made it easy to jump into the creative process on a clients’ behalf.  I don’t even think twice about it:  there’s no fear that I won’t get a good idea, find the solution to the problem, come up with a unique perspective: it’s expected and assumed. Why, then, is it so much more difficult to fill that blank page when I’m doing it for myself?

My partner and I have given workshops on creativity where we teach professionals and business owners how to use brainstorming techniques to get to unexpected solutions that they otherwise might not arrive at. One of our suggestions is to get out of your office, away from your desk, and put yourself in a different environment (a good reason why so many screen writers work at coffee shops and major corporations do off site retreats).  So here I am on a Sunday afternoon, sitting on my patio writing my first blog post. My idea was to kick off the blog by writing about my experience writing my first blog post.  Wow!  I just looked up at the four paragraphs of text on the page and realized that I’ve actually done it!

For those of you who blog on a regular basis, I invite you to share your experience of writing your first blog post.  What was it like for you?  How has the experience changed as you continue to write on a regular basis?  Where do you get your ideas?  I welcome your suggestions and feedback.

And I look forward to becoming a better blogger…now that I’ve finally become one.