Don’t Put Your Face On Ads

I don’t know why I’m supposed to care about you

I walked down the block on my way home from the train station. My shoulder hurt from carrying my overnight bag, but I pressed on because I was almost there.

I was aware of the signs and ads around me from the moment I got off the train. The constant movement of the screens made them hard to totally ignore.

In particular, I noticed a minimalist ad on one of the columns outside the station. It had a lot of negative white space, which caught my attention. Then I saw it featured the logo for what I assumed, based on the style, was a startup.

The copy read: “Crypto with [Company Name]. You in?”

Underneath was a massive portrait of a man in a black hoodie. And by massive, I mean it took up more than half the ad space. The image was labeled with the person’s name and the title “founder.”

My immediate response was, “Why do I care about you?”

I was intrigued by this advertising approach, so I walked around to the other side of the pillar with the ad on it. Sure enough, the other side had the same message and a large portrait, this time of the company’s ESG advisor.

I wondered if perhaps these were people I should know. Why else would the company choose to feature them in their advertising so prominently?

Alas, I didn’t know who they were, so what they got from me was a big, “Who gives a sh*t?”

Even if I did know who they were (and I’ve since Googled, so I do now), standing on the concrete at the end of a long day, this creative direction makes my skin crawl because it oozes superhero syndrome.

Here’s the problem: Their choice made the ad about them.

It did not in any way convey the value to me as the person joining.

It didn’t even do a particularly good job of telling me what I was joining, let alone why I would want to join it.

If you feature a face in your ad, choose one that mirrors the person you serve after you’ve transformed their life so others like them can see themselves as they want to be.

That’s one of the best ways to show — not tell — your value and get me interested enough to learn more.

Subscribe to get a weekly brief on how to run a purpose-driven business. Delivered to your inbox every Monday morning. Originally published at https://www.matterlogic.co on August 15, 2022.