A Recipe For Fail...

Bank of America must've spent a lot of money to take out a full-page color advertisement in the Sunday paper. Those things aren't cheap! However, they can still attract a lot of attention. There's a big pay-off, if the customers take notice. So, why put out an ad that looks like it belongs in the back of the local penny saver?

Look at a copy of the ad below. Now tell me, doesn't that photo look terrible?!? Did my grandmother take it back in 1987, right before she had her cataract surgery? The basic gray (or grey, if you are British) background would normally be complementary, but it seems to make this particular image look even worse!

Don't get me wrong, I understand the idea of making a photo look more like a "snapshot" than a slick, fancy, high-dollar production piece. The "it looks like something from my Facebook wall" aesthetic is in vogue with large corporations and their advertising agencies right now. They want to appear to be your buddy, so their advertising imagery is trying to emulate what you would normally see from your friends and family - not some $10k photo shoot with models, assistants, make-up artists and a fancy craft services table.

I was hired last year by one of the largest retailers in the world to take feature story and cover photo images for their monthly employee magazine. This publication has a circulation bigger than most major city newspapers! I was constantly being reminded by the art director and communications director that "these images need to feel like the average employee took them", but still feel professional and clean. It was a balance to make the images pop and grab the viewer, but still connect with the average person... not make them feel like they were being talked down to.

So, what's wrong with this BoA advert? It skewed way too far on the snapshot side of things and forgot about the fact that it still needs to grab the reader's attention (at least in a positive way). Harsh light, squinting eyes, tons of distracting background items... it just fails on so many levels. On a positive note, I like how the ad is tailored to the North Texas market. It says a lot that BoA found a local success story to champion.