Logo, Phone Numbers, etc.
At the very bottom of the ad is where the name of the business, hopefully stylized as a logo, should appear, as well as the address, phone number, credit cards they accept, and even a map if they're hard to find. Putting an advertiser's name at the bottom might seem counter intuitive to advertisers. After all, they think, they want to "get their name out", get people remembering their name as well as attract the attention of people who already know them.

We believe that logic is faulty. Here's why and you may find it useful to pass along to any of your advertisers who insist on putting their name at the top of their ad.

I'll give you an example. If you go into a local restaurant and you love it, odds are you'll probably go back again, right? If you hate it, probably nothing would ever get you to go back there again, right? So if the restaurant runs an ad with its name as the most prominent feature of the ad, the only people who will be attracted to it will be the people who either will go back anyway or will never go in again. Instead, we recommend you first let people interested in a certain product know that this ad's for them with a picture or the word representing the product they're selling, then give them a good reason to go there with a benefit headline, then get into details to back up your benefits. Once the reader is hooked, then give them the name of the business at the bottom of the ad and they'll remember it much better.

Producing the Ad
Once you've sketched out the spec ad and attached the copy and artwork just like a live ad, you'll have to fill out a spec ad request form. It may be the same form you usually use to reserve space, or it may be a variation on this form that's more targeted to spec ads. In either case, these forms are usually pretty basic, asking for your name, the account name, the ad size you'd like, and usually some general questions about the advertiser. Fill this out, attach your rough layout, but make it clear somewhere on the form that the artist should keep the graphic and headline big and at the top, but to be creative and use their own judgment otherwise. Unlike when you send a live ad though to production where everything must be followed exactly because that's what the advertiser agreed upon, with spec ads you want to give the artists latitude. The rough layout you give to the artists should reflect how you would design the ad if you didn't have any artists to work on it. The artist will then try to make improvements and generally make it look good.