If you’re a regular reader of my blogs you’ll know how much it upsets me to see big full-page advertisements with just a picture and a few meaningless words or, worse still, no words at all.

I’ve always believed that great advertising gives people “reasons why” to buy or, at the very least, find out more.

I was frustrated when I saw this full-page newspaper advertisement with just a picture of a car with one meaningless line “New Astra sedan is the answer”.

I couldn’t help but ask myself the punchline of the rather tawdry joke, “So what’s the bloody question?” More importantly, it certainly didn’t drive me to want to find out.

Fuel was added to my fire of discontent when I was driving along the freeway and saw a super-size billboard with exactly the same graphic and question.

What a waste!

Surely, Holden could give us a little bit of the answer to make us want to find out more. Even something as blasé as “Discover five brilliant performance features” that just amplifies there is some benefit in finding out what the heck Astra has the answer for would make a heap of sense.

I’m looking at these advertisements now wondering what impact it had on the car buying public and how many people these meaningless adverts generated into the show rooms of the dealers.

And when it comes to any form of advertising, whether it be newspaper, billboard, cinema, email or social media, there is only question to which you need an answer.

How many prospects did the advertisement generate?

And that’s the answer every advertiser should know about every advertisement.

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