Reaching out to target audiences
About a year ago, I decided that I wanted to get into advertising. I think it was probably around the time I saw Art & Copy for the first time (which Mr. Science and I saw again yesterday. It’s an excellent film). I was a Rhetoric and Communications student; I love words and languages and messaging and communication and I’m fascinated by the way that we are influenced by what we see and hear. Advertising and media communications seemed so exciting and fun and creative. It was something I decided to work towards.
This logo is so clever - do you see the arrow between the E and the X?
Just a couple months ago I started my new job at a non-profit promoting food justice (I think I’ve mentioned before how much I love it, and no doubt this won’t be the last time :)). Then, last week I found myself in a brainstorming session where we were planning a communication strategy – and pretty much an advertising campaign – and it occurred to me that I got my wish. I get to do some work in advertising! I get to apply my creativity and come up with super awesome campaigns!
…well, I must say, it is tough. It’s really challenging to get those creative juices flowing. But, at the same time, it’s just as exciting and fun and creative as I imagined it would be. Communications in advertising requires a completely different mindset. It’s like learning a brand new language. I have so much to learn (another bonus!).
One of the things that hit home for me last week was that the thing about advertising is it needs to be all about the target audience. What appeals to you might not appeal to your target audience. I’m very used to writing to a target audience (in my novels, on my blogs) that includes me, so it comes fairly naturally. But writing to a target audience that you aren’t quite a part of is another thing altogether. I think that once I understood that, I started to grasp the “language” of advertising a little better.
I adore our FLM logo! Courtesy of the super talented www.melodymorrissette.com.
And all of this brings me to a big question I want to ask YOU. The Food Label Movement (FLM) is getting an upgrade and a whole new lovely website design, which I’m really excited about (special shout-out thanks to Natural Healing Veterinary Care and the mother dear for their/her sponsorship!). We’re looking at website templates and trying to decide which one is perfect for the FLM website.
It would be awesome if you could head on over to the FLM site for 30 seconds to two minutes and then return here to leave a quick comment saying what your initial thoughts are of the website, what you would change to make it better, and what appeals or doesn’t appeal to you. Please help me out on this! You’ll get to be a part of my focus group AND you’ll get to have some input on the redesign of the FLM site 🙂 It’s always nice to have a say and get a voice in this types of things. Thank you all!
I like the clean look of it. The borders make it easy to see that this information is separate from that. But I hatehatehate anything that moves! The sliding top stories would drive me mad in short order.
Good to know! Thanks for your input, Mary Anne.
OK this is my 2nd try
I like the clean look of the site and the fact you can find what you want within a few clicks (my measure of a good site). I don’t mind the moving pieces, just need to stay still long enough to be able to read the whole thing. Often on TV there is more news on the bottom banner than the actual news.
I would put the contact info (email, phone, address) at the very top when you click on contact us, not at the bottom. The stories are good and the sidebar allows you to choose other newsletters or posts from earlier months.
and yes, i saw the FedEx arrow some time ago, so some do pay attention.
good luck
Barry
Thanks for the feedback! Good thinking on the contact info – I’ll do that.
It looks good to me and I agree with all of Barry’s comments. You might want to slow down the speed of the moving banners a bit, one of them moved off screen before I could read all the text.
I’ll have to look into if I can change the speed of that… thanks!