Finding online advertising/creative experts ...

Are there such people out there?

[Hawkgirl]

(**Disclaimer! This is not a solicitation - I'm not (yet) looking for this type of person.**) :)

Right now my company has no real brand identity. We've been in business for a few years and we've done a lot of different "experimenting" to see what might or might not work when it comes to online advertising.

It's now time for me to reevaluate and possibly (probably) revamp our creative standards for our online ads. Specifically, I'm thinking about:

banners,

boxes,

pop-ups (sorry 'bout those),

HTML-based emails (sorry 'bout those, too), and

other types of online ads.

I'm thinking of a variety of elements that I'd like guidance on, including:

colors,

graphics vs. photos,

types of images to use (people? widgets? etc.),

fonts (Arial is always good as a header, never use Lucida, etc.),

messaging,

etc.

I'm trying to advertise a product that has a VERY low interest level. In fact, people have anti-interest in my product. So there's some product-and-target-market-specific help I need, too.

Apart from doing my own ad testing (which I have neither the time nor the money to do), are there other ways to do a creative eval? Are there people who specialize in creative optimization?

I know the book-learning basics, but I think I could get a real pop in my click throughs and conversion with some expert help.

Any ideas from you guys? I'm taking this up with more marketing-specific folks, too, but I thought y'all might have some thoughts.

Thanks.

[hurlimann]

For the most part marketing online is much the same as offline just adjusted for the medium.

If your product induces an anti-interest then the answer lies in making it interesting. Do that, get great placement, and you have cracked it.

[Hawkgirl]

the answer lies in making it interesting

People would rather have teeth pulled than read an ad about my product. There's almost no way to make it interesting. :)

That's one of the reasons I'm trying to optimize everything else in my ads!

[hurlimann]

Sticky me the product and I will see if I admit defeat ;)

[pageoneresults]

> People would rather have teeth pulled than read an ad about my product.

Hawkgirl, if its the one from your profile email address, I'm going to have all of my teeth pulled today! ;)

If I get one more unsolicited phone call at 7:00 p.m., I'm going to cancel my account!

[Hawkgirl]

Pageone, that's it. Heh heh. My biggest product is named by the two words that makes most people run screaming into the night.

The thing is, and this is the frustrating part of my job, my company was founded to help *solve* the consumers' problems with this industry, not confound them.

I can't get that message across easily, though, because people hear the subject and tune it out.

:)