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January 19, 2008
On truthfully advertising the case
I was putting together a web page about a Summer Ball at Bowood - and what's more natural to use than a photograph of Bowood in that item. How about a picture - perhaps stock art - of some guests at a similar event taken goodness only knows where? Well - I COULD have done (and I see it done elsewhere all too often) but it's not my style as prefer true facts and true pictures in advertising. I don't need to tell you where I took the photo, do I?
I recall a place I used to work as a trainer buying in a model to appear in their brochure / on their publicity shots. "Why?" I found myself asking - and she didn't act natural, was seated in a coat and with a handbag and it eas all very odd! Here's my approach - a real picture of a delegates on a course, to represent what we really do. Sure - the tables at which the delegates are seated aren't artistically clean. There's a cup of coffee at Sharon's right hand and a very obvious network cable from Patrick's laptop that distracts from the picture. But you also see the truth of how much desk space you get, the training notes, pens, and rest of the paraphenalia of a course.
In other aspects of life, too, I see pictures used away from their real environment to support articles and situations. Here's part of a picture that I saw used on the More Train Less Strain web site (I'm allowed to copy small extracts for critical review, by the way) which - sure - helps make a point. Yet my own approach would have been to use a genuine picture take in the Wiltshire / Bath / Bristol area showing their case and their overcrowding. I think I have one somewhere ...
Yep, thought so!
It's not only the pictures that can provide misleading advertising; I'm also concerened at some marketing taglines that I've seen employed, and even web site names. http://www.ihatefirstgreatwestern.blogspot.com/ is a catchy URL, and it provides a very powerful hit ... but does the lady who writes it really HATE the company? No - that's putting it rather strong. And I know it's lost her some potential supporters who have been put off by the apparent mindless negativity (I say apparent because once you start reading past the word "hate" you see there's a lot to it).
This article has strayed a long way for the campaign for a decent, appropriate, train service across Wiltshire. But I do want to leave you with a genuine "TransWilts" picture from Save the Train (perhaps a name that itself needs changing now that we're having to campaign for the return of a servuce that was lost through culpable neglect) ...
Posted by gje at January 19, 2008 10:40 AM