Advertising Production 101
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How to Advertise, Keep Your Peace of Mind And Save Money Too

by Lois Bergthold

Welcome to fiery sandbox where the big kids play. Those months of research and development, those gallons of experimental recipes, are all behind you now, and you've got it--the perfect hot sauce (dry rub, salsa, peppered artichoke, jalapeño-raspberry jam). You breathe a deep sigh of relief, which is immediately followed by a stab of anxiety: "I've got this great product, but how do I tell other people about it?"

The answers to this question are multitude, and this article will not take you on a cruise through the murky swamps of direct mail and package design. You can, however, learn some things about how to create an attractive, effective print ad for Fiery Foods Magazine, while avoiding the more common pitfalls of ad building.

"MAKE IT SO"

Wouldn't it be great to call your agency, tell them to design a four-color, full page ad, then run it in every culinary magazine on the planet? A very lucky few are able to do just that; the rest of us struggling artisans must sit down with our calculators and rate cards and gasp at the cost of a single column inch in any publication. You can't change the cost of ad space, but you can determine the most cost-effective, easiest way to build your ad.

Here are a few basic options:

1. You can use an ad agency or independent graphic designer to design and build your ad.

This is an elegant way to create ads, and I encourage you to use an agency if you can afford one. An agency can build an ad for you which will be sure to meet the printing specifications of the magazine. More importantly, you can work with them to develop a marketing plan and to create a consistent, appealing image for your product line. This will take you much farther in the long run than addressing your advertising needs one project at a time. Using an ad agency can seem like a costly prospect, but shop around and you're likely to find one that will help you gain an edge over the competition without soaking you for thousands of dollars. An independent designer can be instrumental in giving you a good looking ad that meets printing specs, but may not be able to help you as much with your general marketing needs. Design services can cost anywhere from $50 per hour to over $100. For a basic black and white ad with a photo, logo, and text furnished by you, expect production to take between two and four hours.

2. You can have the advertising department of the magazine write and design your ad.

Many folks have the idea that they can send a handful of their flyers, catalogs, and labels to their ad rep and expect a perfectly targeted, gorgeous camera ready ad in return. Sometimes that happens, but it's a rarity. More often, the designer isn't sure how to focus the text to promote the product the way you want, so you have to pay for numerous revisions, and the final ad just doesn't look the way you imagined it would.

Here's why this approach doesn't always work: you know your product better than anyone. You know who your consumers are most likely to be. You've slept, lived, and obsessed over your product. Why would you turn the care and handling of your ad copy over to someone else? It's true, there are many talented advertising copywriters who can put a polish on text and make your chipotle macadamia nut cookie mix sound like the tastiest, most desirable thing to come down the pike. But they need your help. Write your own copy whenever you can if you're on a budget, and give basic guidelines for how you want your product or logo used visually. A good ad rep will look over your text, make suggestions, and ensure that your finished ad will make sense to the reader. The more work you do on your end, the less the magazine will charge you to develop a concept.

3. You can build the ad yourself.

On the surface, this may seem like the least expensive way to go, and if everything works out, you can save money doing it yourself. After all, you ask, how hard can it be to throw together some copy, a label, and put a border around it? Warning: you're about to wallow into the quagmire of advertising design, which appears serene and pleasant on the surface but which hides more potential problems than you can shake an habanero-dusted bread stick at. You know how long it's taken you to become an excellent product manufacturer; it takes an equal amount of expertise to be an excellent ad designer.

"I HAVE A COMPUTER, THEREFORE I CAN BUILD MY OWN AD"

Unless you have a background in graphic design and publishing, and have a state-of-the-art Mac computer workstation at your disposal, my advice on the topic of building your own ad can be summed up in one sentence: do not attempt this at home. Take a look at the glossary of printing terms in the sidebar of this article. If you stumble over more than a couple of these definitions, you need help from a professional.

However, I know there are plenty of people out there who are on the tightest of shoestring budgets and really have to do their own ad production, so I will list some of the most easily made mistakes and how to avoid them.

One Man's Camera-Ready is Another Man's Can-O'-Worms.

Your product deserves more than an ad done in CorelDraw and spat out by a 300 dpi printer. An ad on laser printer paper with your logo glued on is not considered "camera-ready." A camera-ready ad is a film negative generated by a service bureau (see glossary), which the printer can strip directly into the printing flats used to make the plates from which the magazine is printed. If you send in anything besides film, the magazine will have to make your ad camera-ready, and that means you incur extra production expenses. Don't spend all that money on ad space and then decrease the ad's effectiveness by cutting corners during production.

Macs are From Mars, PCS Are From Venus

You PC users out there, take heed: the MacIntosh platform is the de facto choice for the publishing industry, and Quark Xpress is the most popular desktop publishing software. That means you cannot assume that the document you create on your PC can be used in any way, shape or form by the magazine you're advertising in. I know this is a crying shame, and incompatibility is rampant between the two platforms. It's better just to accept the fact that all computers are not created equal.

If you produce your ad on your own desktop system, reduce the risk of pesky last-minute disk problems by having your ad output to film by a service bureau, then send the film to the magazine. At the very least, have a long, intimate chat with your ad rep about furnishing an ad on disk, and be very clear that the magazine's needs and desires on this point must take precedence over what will be most convenient for you. Any other approach is guaranteed to cost you in time, money, and grief.

Black, White, and All Those Other Colors.

It would be so easy if printers treated color like the rest of us: it's there, we take it for granted, it's a universal constant. But that's not the case. The lovely orangey-red you picture in your mind's eye can be generated a few different ways by your printer, and you can do everything in your power and still not get the exact color you wanted. This is not a passive-aggressive display of vengeance by the printer, it's a limitation of certain printing methods, and a demonstration that there are numerous ways to get from point A to point B. That beautiful red color you saw somewhere may be a specific mixed ink color, which is not an option if the printer is working in four-color process. He has to create every color you see out of a combination of cyan (blue), yellow, magenta (pinkish red) and black. He can get darn close to most colors, but a few, especially in the royal blue range, simply can't be duplicated on a printing press. The press and the paper dictate how colors will appear. Familiarize yourself with the unique features and limitations of any publication in which you wish to advertise.

The key to a perfect four-color ad is to furnish negatives to the magazine, along with a Matchprint or Chromalin showing how the printed ad should appear. It is vital that you furnish an example of the image as it appears in the film. The printer uses this as a guide for adjusting ink saturation while your ad is on the press in order to come as close to your ideal as possible.

A Word About Black and White.

What could be simpler: the two most basic of colors (or non-colors, depending on your philosophy), united in perfect harmony to the glory and praise of your product's divinity. Once again, you must remember that printing equipment sees the world differently from you and I. For instance, you may have a label that you want to use to illustrate your ad. This is a fine idea, since your label is intrinsic to quick consumer identification of your product. But if your label is composed of snazzy red lettering on a black background, you may be in for a struggle. The graphic arts camera used to shoot your ad into film sees red as black, so your brilliant red typeface will disappear completely under the camera's unforgiving eye.

The best way to avoid this is to have different versions of your label artwork handy for different applications. Many people have labels made, and never get their artwork back from the label manufacturer or from the artist who designed the label. This artwork is your property and you need to keep it safely available.

Also, a multitude of colors with similar value will turn into a black blob when translated into black and white. This can be minimized by shooting a halftone of your artwork, in which all colors are translated into varying shades of grey. This often works fine, but some artwork won't look very good this way. The only person who can tell you how your color label or logo will look in black and white is a graphic artist. If there is any question at all, make sure you send an example of the art you want to use well in advance of the deadline so your designer can make recommendations.

Stretch Your Budget With Special Advertising Sections.

If you can't imagine affording a four-color ad, take heart. Fiery Foods Magazine regularly offers special advertising sections in which you can purchase a four-color ad for a fraction of the regular price. In addition, your product photograph and color separations will be produced by the magazine, and you get to keep them when the ad has been printed. You lose a bit of direct control over the bits and pieces, but the trade-out is an affordable, attractive ad with a minimum of headache. Such a deal! You can use the money you save on ad space and purchase the services of a brilliant ad agency to promote your red chile-and-tarragon-crusted marinated smoked oysters.

Be aware that your ad will be required to match a certain format, and there may be a specific layout and font designated--this helps keep production costs down.

The Perils of Proofing.

There is a wise and ancient saying which applies perfectly to the copy in your ad: close only counts in horseshoes and nuclear warfare. I have seen more ads spoiled by unnecessary typos than I'd care to remember. Many people are involved in the production of an ad--you, the client; the advertising representative who works as your liaison with the magazine; the artist who builds the ad for you; the service bureau who outputs the ad to film; and the printer who generates the magazine where your ad appears. There are many opportunities for human error to creep into the mix and spoil your beautiful ad.

That's why advertising proofs were invented. Before your ad is committed to eternal display on paper, you will receive a final proof of the ad for your approval. When you receive this proof sheet, stop whatever you're doing. Turn off the radio, hang up the phone, draw the shades, and dedicate a few moments to concentrate fully on the content of that proof. If you spot an error, call the person designated on the proof immediately. If it looks okay to you, pass it on to your secretary, your mother, your business partner, or your six-year-old son, if he isn't mixing up his p's and b's anymore. The more people you have peruse your ad, the more likely it is that someone will see any errors that might be lurking. Then, and only then, sign the proof and fax it back.

A final ad proof is furnished to you by the agency or the magazine to give you one last chance to correct your ad copy, verify that your photo is in correct position, and make sure your logo is right side up, etc. It also serves another, somewhat darker purpose--to place responsibility for the accuracy of the ad squarely on your shoulders, where it belongs. Take this responsibility seriously: the success of your splendid ad may depend on it.

Running an ad in any publication is a grand adventure, complete with excitement, effort and risk. You can easily minimize the risk by approaching the production of your ad with the same care and attention to detail that went into developing your product. Put yourself in the consumer's place, and create an ad that you'd like to read yourself. Have some fun with it, make the ad easy to understand and try to develop a consistent approach in your print advertising so the consumer can recognize your ads immediately.

The magazine's success depends on the success of your advertising; think of this relationship as a collaboration, where everyone can win--you profit from sales, the magazine satisfies its readers, and the readers discover the most delicious hand-packed, garlic/peppercorn, ají-stuffed green olives on earth!

Lois Bergthold was the art director for Chile Pepper magazine for six years, and is now head of Black Mesa Design, which creates and consults on design work for Fiery Foods Magazine. When she's not creating memorable ads, climbing rocks or exploring caves, Lois is at home in Los Alamos, New Mexico with her husband and two children.

Click here for more information on advertising in Fiery Foods Magazine.

Glossary of Terms

Camera-ready Art: Any artwork or type that is ready to be submitted as film for pre-press and printing.

CMYK: (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) The subtractive primaries, or process colors, used in color printing. Black (K) is added to enhance color and contrast.

Color Separation: In photography, the process of separating color originals (reflective art or transparency) into the components of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black halftone negatives or positives. These four separate films (CMYK) are then exposed to printing plates for final reproduction on press.

Cromalin: A color proofing system that uses powdered pigments instead of ink.

Crop Marks: Printed lines used for final trimming, which indicate the trim size of the final printed piece.

Dot Gain: A printed artifact in which dots print larger than desired, causing changes in color or tones.

Dots Per Inch: (dpi) A measure of the resolution of a screen image or printed page. Spots per inch (spi) is a more appropriate term.

EPS: (Encapsulated PostScript) A file format used to transfer PostScript data within compatible applications.

Emulsion Side: In photography, the side of the film coated with the silver halide emulsion.

Film Negative: A sheet of film material which has been sensitized to reveal a photographic image with reversed highlights and shadows.

Four-Color Press: The use of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black dots to simulate a wide variety of colors.

Halftone Screen: A deterministic pattern of dots of different sizes used to represent tonal densities in an image.

LPI: (Lines Per Inch) A measure of the frequency of a halftone screen (usually ranging from 55-200).

Imagesetter: A device used to output a computer layout file or composition at high resolution onto photographic paper or film.

Photoshop: A Macintosh-based software program created by Adobe Systems, Inc. For the manipulation of scanned images for PostScript output.

PostScript: A computer description language that allows a programmer to create complex pages using a series of commands.

PMT: (Photo Mechanical Transfer) A method of photographing flat opaque artwork which results in a high resolution duplicate on photographic paper. Sometimes referred to as a "velox."

PPI: (Pixels Per Inch) A measure of the amount of image information density.

Process Colors: The four colors (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) that are combined to print a wide range of colors. When blended, they can produce only some of the colors found in nature. See also CMYK.

Proof: A reasonably accurate representation of how a printed job is intended to look.

Quark: A Macintosh based software program created by QuarkXpress, Inc. The Industry standard for page layout.

Register Marks: Crosses or other targets applied to original copy prior to photography. Used for positioning films in register, or for register of two or more colors in process printing.

Registration: The precise alignment of different film or printing plates to produce a final printed image.

Reflective Art: Opaque artwork prepared so that it may be photographed or input into a computer by scanning.

Resolution: The number of pixels per unit of linear unit measurement on a video display, or the number of dots per inch in printed form.

Screen: The patterns or series of dots created in the process of making a continuous-tone picture suitable for reproduction.

Screen Angles: In color reproduction, angles at which the halftone screens are placed with the relation to one another, to avoid undesirable moire patterns. A set of angles often used is: black 45, magenta 75, yellow 90, cyan 105.

Service Bureau: A business that specializes in outputting computer files on high-resolution imagesetters.

Stripping: The assembly of two or more images to produce a composite negative for platemaking in photomechanical reproduction.

SWOP: Specifications for Web Offset Publications.

TIFF: (Tagged Image File Format) A file format for exchanging bitmapped images (usually scans) between applications.

Trapping: In printing, the ability to print a wet ink film over previously printed ink. Dry trapping is printing wet ink over dry ink. Wet trapping is printing wet ink over previously printed wet ink.

Trim Marks: In printing, marks placed on the copy to indicate the edge of the page.

Web Press: A press which prints on roll- or web-fed paper.

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