How "Pretty" can Ruin your Brand
Can lovely graphics inspire more donors to give to your nonprofit? Is “pretty” something you should strive for in your marketing program’s visual materials? Maybe, but usually, well, not so much. Here are some examples.
Like many cities, my city is getting ready for the upcoming election season, and election season means home parties, lots of emails, tons of snail mail, and lawn signs. Do they work? Research says it depends, but all of these do seem to make at least a small difference in election results.
Let’s start with the lawn signs. Most of the lawn signs and other election promotions in my area look great (meaning they seem to do their job), but some separate themselves from the pack in a not-so-great way. Let me explain.
In my neighborhood, there are signs for all sorts of races — city, county, etc. — and I can’t walk around the block without seeing dozens of different designs and messages. There are two, though, that stick out like a sore thumb. In both cases, they actually make me angry and frustrated. Why? Because the signs are illegible. They’re pretty, but they’re impossible to read unless you get super close to them (and I typically try not to walk on someone else’s grass). These signs were clearly created to be pretty, or fancy, or “sophisticated”. But none of that matters when you can’t read them. Specifically, the issues with these signs are below. Note that all of these lessons apply not only to yard signs! They apply to any type of marketing/communications/fundraising materials you might use.
Cursive/Script.
One of the signs I’m frustrated with uses a script font that might be appropriate on a web page or business card, but it doesn’t “read” on a lawn sign. Also, because script/handwriting was formally removed from Common Core teaching standards in 2010 (throughout the US), many members of Gen Z have not been taught how to read or write in cursive. For those of you thinking that’s irrelevant, since Gen Z people are too young to matter in elections (or in fundraising), note that Gen Z members are now up to 27 years old. For elections, that means that a significant proportion of voters who have been voting for as long as nine years won’t be able to read your messaging. In terms of donating to charity, a recent report on Statista shows that 1.79 million people under the age of 30 are currently Millionaires, meaning that many of those nearly two million people are in the Gen Z category. Excluding a large number of them from the ability to read your marketing materials doesn’t seem like such a good idea.
Color.
Both of the signs I mentioned use soft colors that don’t read well from a distance. Again, pretty, but knowing that about 8% of men and .5% of women are color blind — meaning that pastel colors may be inaccessible to them — suggests that pastels aren’t a wise choice.
Font Size.
Many of the signs I see have long lines of type, and in order to fit them on a standard lawn sign, the font size for the type is unreadable. This issue comes up often in a wide variety of marketing materials for many business sectors (including non-profits.) I’ve seen billboards that have the same problem — lots of type that a person with average to excellent eyesight can’t make out.
My guess is that you’ve had experiences like this, too, where some type of marketing/promotional material can’t be easily read. In these situations, not only is the viewer unable to understand your marketing message, but many of those viewers will think of your brand/product/nonprofit (assuming they can at least read the name of your organization) as unprofessional, uninclusive and of low quality. This means that the result of your creating or disseminating marketing material — material that is designed to inspire readers to support your cause — will actually negatively impact your brand. Once that negative “feeling” is created, it’s very difficult to turn that person’s perception of your brand around.
How can you know if your marketing materials are legible? I have two suggestions. First, ask someone — or, ideally, several people — of different ages and backgrounds to look at your materials and tell you if they are readable. Don’t show them a lawn sign up close if it’s going to be used 20 feet away from the viewer. Instead, present the materials in the way that the ultimate/target viewer will see them.
Second, look online for suggestions on how to successfully create clear, legible yet professional marketing materials. I found this article that provides a great primer on choosing fonts and colors.
From the donor’s perspective, it’s not a great feeling to see that my donated funds were used to create inaccessible and unprofessional advertising/promotional/solicitation materials that didn’t take into account the necessity for the viewer to be able to read them. Even if they’re “pretty”.
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Lisa
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