Rate This Ad allows a billboard designer to rate a random piece of billboard artwork using the following scale: 1 (not good), 2 (below average), 3 (average), 4 (very good), 5 (great). Then the designer talks about what they may have done differently for outdoor advertising. This week’s rating is provided by Greg Callaham www.gregcallaham.com) who has over 30 years of experience in outdoor advertising design. Insider has used and endorses Callaham’s services.

Coors Seltzer

Rating: 3 (Average)

• When we speak to our advertisers, we advise them to keep their ad content to a single selling message: Buy Brand A Here, or Car X for $175/mo at Dealership Z, or Get Gas at Next Exit. It’s what our beloved medium does best: inform the target audience of a thing and where that thing is.
• Be careful about trying to do too much in an ad because it diminishes the effectiveness of the selling message and reduce the ROI for the ad space. In the ad pictured here, Coors had good intentions, but tried to do too much. Their PR goal is to help save the Hudson River. That’s admirable. But the visual focus is not on saving the river; the photo of the river barely made it onto the billboard. The visual is a beauty shot of the product. Yes, I get it: buy the product, drink the product, buy more product, the people making the product will make donations to save the river. However, the design doesn’t support the messaging with a connection other than the rectangle around them.
• The photo says Buy Coors Seltzer and the text talks about saving the river. The target audience is left wondering how those things are related. This ad earns a 3 (average).

As always, I do not know the details of the art request or components of the campaign this ad may or may not have been part of. But looking at this challenge with the eye of an OOH graphic designer and through the lens of the target audience, I would have urged the advertiser to run the ad pictured below. By changing the main visual to the benefits of the purchase and the headline to something more succinct, the target audience can make a quicker, more solid connection between the two thoughts. The outdoor setting also ties in with the overall advertising brand identity and really stands out in an urban environment. Adding the web address for more info gives them a place to find out the details about how the program works.

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