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Mr. Marketing: One-legged dancer teaches a lesson

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In my business you read a lot. A full-page ad in the “Casino Journal” really caught my attention.

Headlined “Showgirls,” the ad portrayed a slot machine with illustrations of five female Vegas entertainers strutting their stuff. Four of these women were shown wearing a splashy collection of feathers, headdresses, beads, sparkles, and pointy shoes.

In the middle was a sexy blonde facing the audience with her black dress open from neck to toe. Her bedroom eyes and cleavage were designed to make gambling with that machine a desirable experience.

On a 10-inch slot screen, pressed closely between her associates, the blonde seemed to walk in a flowing outfit.

However, the ad showed a 1-inch photo of the machine. These images thus needed to be expanded and separated to help readers appreciate their beauty. The woman in black suddenly appeared to lack one leg and two-thirds of her torso.

Oops!

On the casino floor our blonde friend offers the desired sultry impression. But in print the one-legged showgirl lacks credibility, encouraging viewers to keep moving.

Regular readers know the importance of having someone else proofread your work. Experience has taught me if I make the mistake when writing or designing, I’ll make similar errors during proofreading.

Today it’s easy to “borrow” images of beautiful scenery. Inattentive editors can easily overlook dogs in the background doing nasty things. Photos or illustrations created for one environment don’t always work elsewhere.

This ad was a case in point, with illustrations that obviously worked on the slot machine, but not in the ad selling these machines.

The problem could have easily been resolved by enlarging the images but still keeping them closely compressed. Paying for an additional image of the blonde to show her missing dress or body parts would have also worked.

Whether you’re developing marketing materials in-house or hiring freelance talent, having an additional set of disinterested eyes looking for errors or omissions is a critical way to prevent your company from looking foolish.

And remember: merely because I’m not in the market to purchase slot machines doesn’t mean I don’t have friends in that business. And this experience has me wondering about the quality controls of any company that would permit an ad like this to represent them.

With that said, I wish you a week of profitable marketing.

— See the offending illustration, then make your marketing dance at www.askmrmarketing.com.

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