Our advertising partner is an award-winning copywriter with a background in blue-chip agencies. The concepts are written and designed in-house and placed by proven media associates in London or Cornwall.
Too many ads are like too many wedding speeches: they make you cringe or send you to sleep. They use second-hand mantras and imagery. They compromise the key principle of singlemindedness by cramming in surplus detail. They fail in their duty to differentiate the product that pays their wages.
Hartleys, near Wells in Somerset, happen to be a specialist food retailers but could be any business with a consumer outlet. When we met, we discovered they had talented, extrovert owners who were very good with customers. They had ranges that were simply not available on supermarket shelves. And they majored on West Country food, or sources of food, to emphasise their local identity and sources. All good copy. Trouble was, nobody knew where they were. When they advertised, other people benefited from the customers' ignorance.
We showed their food but highlighted their location. With small space colour ads in local press (you read that right) we made a hero of an unlovely strip of local tarmac called the A39. Read and reap - like the hundreds who flocked to Hartleys once they knew where it was.
One last thing. The campaign cost £10K to write, art direct, shoot and run. For the bean-counters among you, that's spelt COST-EFFECTIVE.
