The Art of Advertising: Ideas & Plan

 This week we are creating an advert, therefore, I am going to advertise the book I would like to create later in the term.  This book is called 'The Book of Lost Things' and will be a collection of poetry and prose.  

I have looked at how books are advertised and I shall discuss those here.  I will start with Philip Kerr as Bernie Gunther is one of my favourite detectives!

The Berlin Noir Series Philip Kerr

This is an advert for the three books and shows the title of the series clearly and the author so immediately I know who they are by and which books it is advertising. The books themselves are set down the right side.  The advert is made into three sections on either side.  The quote in the middle by another author champions the books and this is the selling point of this advert. The black and white of the background match the style and background of the three books and the colour scheme uses the orange from the third book in the title cleverly using the rule of thirds composition to draw the reader's eye.  The author's name is in black all the way through and the font matches the fonts used on the covers. 

Lauren Lakely Mister Q

I do not know this book but the cover suggests a sexy story of some kind, this would be aimed at women and the photo of the man on the cover the elegant script, and the tagline all suggest a female audience.  The advert again uses another author to praise the book and to encourage sales adding that it is a 'sexy, delicious, good time' 

Waterstones Book Advert

This advert is like many from Waterstones where it advertises 'book of the month' type adverts to lure customers into the store.  Here it is a thriller of the month so the reader knows the genre of the title. The backdrop again matches the book cover itself and all the typography is in yellow to match the title of the book linking this in the readers' mind.  There are no additional quotes or taglines on this - the tagline on the book 'you won't want to leave until you can't..'  supplies the concept for the story. 

Skeleton Crew by Stephen King

This is a vintage advert for Stephen King.  At the top there is a quote that is clearly from a review - the title and cover picture and author name come from the book cover itself.  National Bestseller is saying that everyone is buying it.  This makes you want it as everyone else might have read it! 

These adverts show how books are advertised mostly through good reviews that are quoted or endorsed from other famous authors.  The most important thing is the book itself and in modern ads the book is the feature and then there are quotes placed around this.  All the adverts use typography and composition to draw the reader's eye to the most important point in the advert.

My own advert will show the book cover and then add a quote from a review.  I am intending to use a black and white photographic image and then I will need to play with fonts and colours to really draw the reader's attention.

I will make a logo for the publisher which I will also add to the piece.