Last week, in order to promote the new Coen Brothers’ folk singer comedy-drama ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’, the studio paid The New York Times a great deal of money to run a special full-page print ad in Saturday’s paper. Unusually, the ad consisted primarily of plain white space interrupted only by an abbreviated version of a tweet. The tweet was from the Times movie critic A.O. Scott, praising the Coen Brothers’ film. The tweet read: ‘I’m gonna listen to the Llewyn Davis album again. Fare thee well my honeys.’
While some marketers might feel the ad is a waste of space (or print management budget), we believe the stark, blunt surroundings of the ad only contributed to its effect on the target audience. The print design forces you to look nowhere else but the tweet and to read only what it has to say. While we might usually try to get creative with leftover white space, in this ad there is no need as the white only helps to draw your attention to the importance of the tweet – which incidentally sells the new film perfectly.
Although a full-page ad in the Sunday edition of the New York Times would have no doubt been expensive, it would have also been extremely cheap to create and design! The film’s producers would not have had to pay to use the tweet and the fact that the ad is simply printed text on a white page means that the design elements are minimal. At PMG Print Management we believe that there are times when less really is more, and this was certainly one of those times. We take great care when designing for print, taking into account the message our clients want to present to their audience and why they wish to do so. We don’t just take any old print job, we take the ones we have an interest in and enjoy working with our clients to ensure the job is done right.
If you’re interested in benefiting from our innovative approach to print management and design, contact the team today.
