We all know that men and women were created equal in the beginning. However, when it comes to buying habits, are men and women really from two different planets? This article will show you what type of ads appeal to men and women.

Women purchase over 85% of all products. They also influence the buying decisions of 95% of all goods and services. Surprisingly, women purchase over 50% of all products classified as “male products.”

Females pay more attention to details than males do. They always seem to notice when something is out of place or missing. Women tend to remember the exact arrangement of the furniture used in an ad, and they even notice the small vase behind the actors or models.

Women do not compete as much as men. Instead they are usually more understanding and sympathetic. Females also like objects of sentimental value. They like to feel special and unique.

Since women are able to use both sides of their brain more equally than men, they are able to communicate with others better. This will increase their emotional response, which will then cause females to purchase certain products.

Most women are very concerned about their appearance. They like to have a wide selection of products to choose from. An example of this is shampoo. It comes in varieties for dry or damaged hair, blonde hair, fine or oily hair, colored or permed hair, straight hair, curl enhancing, volumnizing, etc.

Women respond more positively to advertisements than men do. They also tend to believe ads more than men. For these reasons, research has shown strong evidence that advertising is most effective when it targets women.

Males tend to see the big picture of things, and they do not notice details. Males love shortcuts and anything that can make their life easier. Men like objects that signal leisure and financial gains.

Competition is a common thing with men. They hate to lose, and always want to be their best.

Men do not want to seem concerned about their appearance or fashion. They are very concerned about their images. Males do not want to appear weak or to self-involved. For this reason, they like simple thing with few options.

More males are colorblind than females. They usually can not see red and green as two separate colors. For this reason, you should separate red and green items or text in your ads.

Men tend to recognize the Sponsor of ads more than women do. However, men also have a greater resistance to advertising. Males think advertisements are dull and boring (unless an attractive person is in the ad).

The colors you use for your advertisements are very, very important. This is because the colors and graphics in your ads capture the attention of your consumers. In order to produce an effective ad, you must make it appeal to your target market.

Studies have shown that men prefer bright colors and women like softer colors. Remember that men like simple things. The same is true with colors. For example, men prefer red to burgundy, or blue to turquoise. Most men only know the basic colors like red, blue and green. They do not know (or care) what color flax or salmon is.

Advertisements with yellow and blue are more effective with men than women. However, men like orange better than yellow.

Females like yellow better than orange and red better than blue. Orange is the least favorite color for women. Yellow and red is a proven effective color combination.

Blue is the most popular color for both men and women. Green is also a good color for advertisements that that target both men and women.

When you create advertisements that target women, you can put a few more details in them. Be careful, don’t go overboard. Too much information can be confusing and hard to read.

Advertisements that are designed for women are more effective at catching the attention of men.

Remember to make women feel special and important. Men like simplicity, so give them fewer options and more action.

Learn more about designing great ads, and find out what colors mean to your customers.

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People today are living longer than ever. In the United States, 12.4% of the population is over age 65. However, most advertisements do not appeal to people over age 65.

Did you know that people over age 50 eat out more than any other population group? Yet a majority of ads today are designed to appeal to people between the ages of 35 and 55. People ages 35 to 55 usually have mortgages, children, credit card debt, work-related expenses, and college tuition.

Guess what, the grandparents have few if any of these expenses. We all know how helpful our parents and / or grandparents can be when we have a lot of expenses. Elderly people may not purchase a lot of products for themselves, but they love to buy things for their grandchildren.

Colors:

Roberson Auto billboard

Bright colors get more attention than dark dreary colors. Yellow and red get more attention than any other color. I do not recommend using neon or fluorescent colors on ads because these colors are usually associated with bars and casinos.

Be sure to use a dark background with light copy or a light background with dark copy. For billboard ads, do not use a medium to dark color (red) on a medium to dark color (black, green, blue) because it will be very difficult to determine where the copy starts and ends. Elderly people will have the most trouble trying to read ads with similar colors.

Try to use three colors or less. Too many colors make advertisements look busy and can be confusing. Learn more about colors and their meanings to enhance your ads.

Simplicity:

Unfortunately our vision declines with age. As we age, we are not able to see things as clearly as we used to. For this reason, ads that are designed for people over age 65 should have bigger copy and graphics. They should not have a lot of words because the more words used on a sign, the harder is will be to read. Instead these advertisements should be very clear with few graphics and words. The more simple an ad is the more effective it will be. Read more about the importance of simplicity by clicking here.

Copy:

The general rule of billboard advertising is to use a total of 8 words or less on every sign. This rule must strictly be enforced when designing ads for elderly people. In fact your ad will be more effective if you use less than 8 words.

The size of copy is also important. Normally we recommend that all copy be at least 1 1/2  feet tall. However for people that don’t see very well, all copy should be at least 2 feet tall.

The font of your ads should be plain, bold and easy to read. Yes these fonts can be boring, but they are very successful on billboard advertisements. A few good fonts to use are listed below.

• Arial Black
• Folio Bold
• Eras Bold

Fancy scripts can be difficult for young people to read, and almost impossible for older people to read. Remember that you only have about 3 seconds to get a consumers attention. Every billboard is only viewed for an average of 7 seconds so if a word is a little hard to read chances are it won’t be read at all!

Graphics:

Of course we’ve all heard the old saying “A picture is worth a thousand words.” With this in mind, it is easy to see why pictures are so effective.

Use big pictures instead of words as much as possible because pictures are viewed quicker and easier than words. It also takes less time and effort to determine your message with a huge picture than it does to read three words. For example, instead of saying “Turn Left,” put a picture of an arrow pointing to the left.

By the time people reach age 65, they either have enough money to maintain a comfortable lifestyle, or they are watching every dime. The people that are very careful with their expenses are attracted to things (ads) that will help them save money. However, the people with large retirement funds, stocks, bonds, etc. are more concerned about the quality of the product than the products price.

The majority of people over age 65 are not into technology like the younger generations. Most elderly people are uncomfortable ordering things online. They prefer to order by mail or telephone. So always be sure to include a phone number on all of your ads.

Older people do not like changes and sometimes get confused with all the new options we have today. A good example of this is computerized phone systems that make you push several buttons before you get to speak to an actual person. The older generation tends to get confused and frustrated with all these options. This will cause them to get irritated and hang up the phone without ordering anything.

Unfortunately in todays society, people are very cautious because of all the scams and con-artists in the world. For this reason, we only buy products or services from people we think we can trust. Elderly people have been scammed more than any other group of people, so they are even more cautious, and rightfully so.

Remember that people over age 65 can not spend a lot of time looking at billboards, so it is our job to make the designs simple, quick to read, and pleasing to the eye. You can do this by using a combination of large words and pictures.

Don’t forget the importance of advertising for the elderly. Be among the few advertisers that design ads for the elderly and your sales will increase.

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Sources:
Oliver, Anthony “Shopping Through the Ages” August 19, 2002
“Eating Out - Transforming Meals from Waist Expanders to Health Enhancers”
U.S. Census Bureau

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Believe it or not, young people are an advertiser’s best investment. Yet they are ignored and pushed aside by most salesmen. These salesmen seem to think that selling to teenagers is a complete waste of time. Apparently these salesmen do not want these young people to start using their product at age 16, and continue to use it for the rest of their lives. I’m also sure they do not realize that teenagers and young children influence over $160 Billion worth of their parents buying decisions every year.

Some people think that they should not waste their time and money advertising to a six-year old child. However, these people could not be more wrong. Young children spend an average of $11 billion each year on items of their choice. Six-year olds today own and purchase toys, clothes, food, computer games, DVD movies, pagers, CD’s, four-wheelers, and even stereo systems.

Young children respond most to television and internet ads because these ads are interesting to them. These youths view an average of three and a half hours of television every single day. The majority of this television time is weekday afternoons and Saturday mornings.

Youths click on internet ads more than any other age group. Perhaps this is because they do not ignore advertising as much as older people do, or they enjoy the colorful moving graphics.

Young children are attracted to fun, humorous, exciting ads. They care more about the neat features of toys, and how good a snickers bar tastes than the price of a certain product.

Perfection is another appealing quality for children. Most youngsters try to please their parents and teachers by doing exactly what they are told exactly when they are told. They try to be perfect or more commonly known as “Daddy’s Little Angel.” So it’s no wonder why children are going to want the products that have the perfect models, perfect toys, and perfect food. (Of course we all want our products to be “perfect,” but we soon realize that nothing is perfect.)

Children tend to believe what they see in advertisements. The reason for this is that children in this age group are honest and expect everyone else to be the same. The Children’s Advertising Review Unit (CARU) is dedicated to making sure all ads are true and not misleading for children.

Teens spend enormous amounts of cash each year ($94 billion in 1998) because they have high disposal incomes. This means that teenagers spend their allowances or income from part time jobs on items they want, not things they actually need.

Being a teenager is all about fitting in with the crowd. Even though most teens like to think of themselves as individuals, they still dress exactly like their peers and, or idols.

Brand names are very, very important to teens. Teenagers don’t just buy a pair of shoes; they buy a pair of Adidas or Nikes. Most teens tend to feel unimportant, unpopular, and unhappy if they don’t wear top of the line clothing, shoes, and accessories.

However, teens are always looking for discounts, contests, sales, and any way to save money so they can buy more stuff. They are not ready for responsibilities like paying bills (exception: cell phones & pagers which most parents pay). Instead, they prefer to pay at the time the purchase is made.

According to a recent survey by Teenage Research Unlimited (TRU), radio is the most effective way to reach teenagers. Television ranked second, and magazines came in third place. Newspapers rated at the bottom of this survey. This makes perfect sense because most teenagers stay in their bedrooms to listen to music, study, watch television, surf the web, and drive places to meet friends. The radio is usually turned on during four out of the five listed favorite teenage pass-times.

Since radio is so popular with teens it only makes sense to design music oriented ads for teens. Of course you can place ads on the radio to reach these teen, but by you can also get a popular rock group or singer to endorse your product. If a popular musician starts using your product, the teenage fans would definitely notice and start using the same exact product.

Over 48% of teens read at least one magazine per month. Boys tend to read more gaming magazines, and girls are interested in magazines about young celebrities.

The best way to design ads for teens is to go back to your teenage years. What kind of things were you interested in? What did you like to do in you spare time? What caught you attention?

Now update your answers. Instead of listening to A-Tracks, young people today listen to CD’s, instead of having a picnic in the woods teens today “cruise” malls, and instead of reading a book, teens today go see the movie or watch it on a DVD. Some of these things will still be the same, like wanting to dress like the most popular boy or girl at school so you’ll fit in.

Next take all of these positive emotions that have resurfaced and design your ads in a way that will make todays teenagers feel the same emotions.

Finally, make your product relate to these emotions. Show teenagers how using your cell phone will make them feel hip and up-to-date. Emotions sell products.

Don’t forget to try humorous ads. They rank number 1 for people of all ages.

Last but not least, remember that what’s popular with teens today may not be popular tomorrow. As an advertiser, we must stay up to date with the latest trends in order to have effective ads.

Television advertising is the best way to catch the attention of younger children. As these children grow up, they spend less time watching TV and more time on-line, listening to the radio, and reading magazines.

Always remember that young people do not earn a lot of money, but most of them do not save money at all. The few youths that do save their money save it in order to buy the latest pair of shoes, cell phone, or comic book. For these reasons you should now see why young people truly are a gold mine for advertisers.

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Sources:
Lippe, Dan February 4, 2002 “What Children Say About Media and Advertising” adage.com/news.cms?newId=33924
The Better Business Bureau, “Advertising And Your Child” media-awareness.ca/eng/med/home/resource.htm
“Just The Facts about Advertising and Marketing to Children” newdream.org/campaign/kids/facts.html
Aidman, Amy “Advertising in the Schools. ERIC Digest” ed.gov/databases/ERIC_Digests/ed389473.html
Saunders, Christopher “Kids Click Banner Ads Most, Teens Least” internetnews.com/IAR/print/0,,12_437941,00.html
Lippe, Dan February 4, 2002 “What Children Say About Media and Advertising” adage.com/news.cms?newId=33924
The Better Business Bureau, “Advertising And Your Child” media-awareness.ca/eng/med/home/resource.htm
“Just The Facts about Advertising and Marketing to Children” newdream.org/campaign/kids/facts.html
Aidman, Amy “Advertising in the Schools. ERIC Digest” ed.gov/databases/ERIC_Digests/ed389473.html
Saunders, Christopher “Kids Click Banner Ads Most, Teens Least” internetnews.com/IAR/print/0,,12_437941,00.html

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