Educational Grants

The other day I was walking through a store and I saw a poster along the wall with two large words spread across the entire front of the poster. It said, "Eat Chocolate."

I had to stop and marvel at what the people had accomplished with this. If you do not know exactly what makes this such an effective use of poster printing, I will break it down to the details.

The first is that this color poster immediately grabs your attention. The words are so large and the message so clear you cannot help but see it. And because the message is clear you only need a second to absorb exactly what it has to say. The best posters are the ones with simple, clear messages, and in this case the message itself acts as a means of grabbing someone's attention.

The second is the strong call to action associated with it. The purpose of this poster is obvious: it is promoting chocolate, which was specifically Russell Stover Chocolates, a very well known brand for chocolate. But not only do you know exactly what the purpose is, but it gives you a command at the same time. After reading it you know exactly what you are supposed to do next: eat chocolate. The message is so closely related to what you are supposed to do there is no ambiguity.

And the third thing is it makes you smile and maybe laugh a little to yourself, because it almost feels like a bit of a joke. Who needs to be told to eat chocolate? So few people need a command like that, so when you receive one, you smile to yourself, and you answer, "Maybe I just will."

Something else to note is how great of a representation this is of a strong brand name. They are not using their poster printing to directly promote their company, per say, but merely boosting the type of product they sell. Yes, their company name is on that poster, but it is not the centerpiece, nor is it very big. It does not need to be big.

Russell Stover is so closely linked to chocolate they do not need to have their name in a very prominent place. All they have to do is tell people to eat chocolate and suddenly they already are going to think of a company like Russell Stover to get their chocolate fix taken care of.

All of these elements come together to make a very effective use of poster printing to give people something that serves every purpose it needs to. It gets your eye, it delivers its message, it tells you what to do, and it makes you smile at the humor inherent in the message itself.

Two words were all it took to accomplish all of this. By keeping it simple and to the point they delivered a poster that does exactly what a poster needs to do. These are the kinds of things to take notice of, and figure out a way to apply it to your posters.

Janice Jenkins is a writer for a marketing company in Chicago, IL. Mostly into marketing research, Janice started writing articles early 2007 to impart her knowledge to individuals new to the marketing industry.

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