Istanbul Was Constantinople

Sometimes, an advertisement catches my attention not necessarily because the product appeals to me but because the ad is so good. The ultimate goal of any ad is to sell the product, and sometimes that effort is so brilliant, it deserves recognition.

Here is a magazine ad for Turkish Airlines, with my only contribution being having taken the photo of the ad:

Brilliant Turkish Airlines Ad

This Ad is the Non-Sarcastic Answer to “How Do I Write an Advertisement?”

If you’re curious how to properly write an advertisement (contrary to my sarcastic instructions), this ad has all the answers.

1. It knows its target audience.

It does not matter if this ad resonates with you. What does matter is it resonates with someone. If it doesn’t resonate with you, you skip it and nothing is lost. If it does resonate with you, you’re already online looking at excuses to book a layover in Istanbul.

Do you fly often? Do you travel internationally? Do you appreciate luxury? If the answer to any of those questions is no, this ad does not care about you. You can ignore the ad and go about your day. Nothing is gained and nothing is lost.

However, if the ad did care about you, something would be lost: the appeal to the target audience. The boastful headline and extremely brief body copy of the main points of luxury resonate with this particular target audience. Trust me on this one. If, instead of focusing on the target audience, the ad was directed toward trying to entice people from outside that audience, it would be so hideously cluttered with garbage, it would not only fail to entice someone outside the audience, but it would also irritate those inside the audience, rendering it utterly ineffective.

2. It is brief and intuitive.

To further a point hinted at above, the copy uses brevity brilliantly. Everything you need to know is there. For this point, let’s assume we’re all members of the target audience. We first see the headline and think, “I love airport lounges.” We look at the photo of this fancy staircase and think, “I wish I was in that airport lounge.” We read the 15 total words of body copy, two of which are actually numbers. In 15 words, they manage to give us four crucial facts about the luxury of this place, then tag it with a bit of clever editorializing I’ll gladly support even though it ends with a preposition. Sometimes in advertising, good writing trumps good grammar.

The tendency for many would be to clog this thing with useless language. “The Turkish Airlines lounge in Istanbul provides a wide variety of amenities for its busy travelers. With two floors totaling nearly 6,000 square meters, the lounge offers a vast array of seating options to enhance the productivity of those on the go.”

Please, all writers, stop writing like that. Thankfully, this ad shunned that awful language.

The call to action is a simple, easy-to-find web address. No convoluted “For more information on Turkish Airlines and its luxurious lounge in Istanbul, please visit us at….”

The ad is selling Turkish Airlines. The logo is prominent in the upper right corner and the web address is in the lower left. Because they actually did market research on whom they were targeting, they chose this glorious lounge to entice people to visit their website and buy a plane ticket. They know their target audience values airport lounges. They don’t actually care if you go to Istanbul or this lounge—just as long as you buy a Turkish Airlines ticket to somewhere.

3. It does not batter the viewer with instructions on what to do.

Increasingly in advertising, ads waste time (and annoy designers) by forcing too many words into too little space. Sometimes, the advertiser thinks the audience is too stupid to figure out what to do without step-by-step instructions bordering on begging. Other times, the everything-is-a-priority mentality requires every tiny detail to be mentioned in every medium. It doesn’t matter the reason for the excessive language. All that matters is such verbiage (and I’m using the word properly here) ruins everything.

This ad immediately catches the attention of those it wants. Everyone else moves on with nothing lost. Those who stay and want to either visit that particular lounge or simply know more need less than two seconds to find the web address they seek.

Closing With Obvious Statements About a Target Audience

Advertisements, no matter the medium, should speak only to their target audience. Cliché because it’s true: if you try to please everyone, you please no one.

Advertisements should have a target audience. Too often, ads are targeted at everyone because nobody knows who the audience to target is.

Advertisements should be placed where the target audience will see them. I found this ad in a magazine I took from an airport lounge. I wonder how they knew an ad featuring an airport lounge might appeal to visitors of airport lounges?

And Finally

This ad has 30 total words in it if you count the web address and logo. I’ve now written approximately 900 about it. Because all writers have enormous egos and never want to compliment each other, my admiration alone speaks to the quality of this ad.

Whether the product appeals to you or not, this ad is excellent, largely because it is okay with not appealing to you. If you’d like to discuss further, let’s meet in Istanbul. I know a place that’s a pleasure to get lost in.