Wednesday, October 18, 2006

More small-biz reports, more bad ads

The Globe and Mail published its “Report on Small Business” today – yet another newspaper supplement designed to cash in on Small Business Week.

What’s interesting is that the Globe also has a quarterly magazine called Report on Small Business. So consistent branding is obviously not a priority for them.

The Globe section contains most of the ads from the National Post supplement that I blogged about yesterday also. But there are some new ones too, so I’ll critique those later on this week. But once again Rogers rules the whole section with its splashy (and well executed) two-page spread.

I feel guilty saying nice things about Rogers since I worked there for a time. But they clearly spotted the opportunity. Perhaps they knew that the banks and tech companies would approach these small business sections with a ho-hum, got-to-be-there-but-don't-want-to-spend-much-time-thinking-about-it attitude. So they spent some money, demonstrated some real energy, and stole the show.

Your takeaway for today: If you're not going to advertise with enthusiasm and creativity, why advertise at all?

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