Jun 21 2017
The creation of book advertisements could likely be automated, says Dr. Leslie Norins, based on commonalities he found in a study of 100 book ads. His findings are published on Analizir.com .
"Although advertising can be one of the most creative fields, it seems most current book ads have become so similar their production could probably be assigned to a robot", he said.
Dr. Norins, a four-decade publisher of medical newsletters, planned to advertise a medical mystery novel he was publishing. He decided to examine 100 book ads from the New York Times Book Review, hoping to find the "best one", so he could draw inspiration from its features.
To his surprise, he found there was no single ad that stood out. In fact, his detailed analysis showed all 100 book ads contained the same two components: an image of the book's cover, which included the title and author, and some laudatory review quotes centripetally arranged around it. There was no other significant ingredient.
The only variables in the ads were the letters, font and point size of the textual items, and the color palette used.
Dr. Norins commented "This situation is ripe for a robot, as a template for inserting each common feature could be created in advance. The ad technician would only need to load the image of the book cover, and type in the reviewer quotes. Then select from a short list of options the font and point size of type, the color palette, and the layout."
But even though robotic production of ads seems doable, Dr. Norins questioned whether speeding up "more of the same" ads would help sell more books. He said, "The sameness which has permeated book ads has created boredom."
Dr. Norins believes book ad agencies can be creative, but that they are hindered by the attitudes of book publishers, who are comfortable with the status quo and afraid of taking marketing risks.
Leslie Norins, M.D, Ph.D., has been a leading publisher of medical newsletters for over 40 years. Analizir.com is an independent website of analysis and commentary, and is a unit of Medvostat LLC.
Source: http://www.analizir.com/