Shut Up and Drink the Kool-Aid!

More Masi ads

It's been a while since I shared the Masi magazine ads and the reasoning behind them. At least two ads have managed to escape the scrutiny of this audience... so without further delay;
This was the highlight of our season of ads. The perfect alignment of photo, design, rider, race, conditions... everything you need to create that one ad that you are really proud of. Scott Goguen of the Canadian pro Masi-Adobe team won the infamous Harris-Roubaix race in British Columbia during insane weather conditions. The team rode perfectly to deliver him to the line for the perfect victory and the genesis of the perfect ad. Paul Deschantes took the perfect photograph and our very own Rick Ortiz (who created all of these ads) gave the picture the perfect treatment. After a few days of laboring over the copy for the ad, Rick popped the text into a rough draft of the ad and we all fell in love with it.

I don't know what we'll have to do to beat this ad. It was simply perfect and was one of the very best ads I saw all year- regardless of the company.

This ad was to celebrate the season we had with Abercrombie & Fitch/ Inferno and team rider Mark Hekman. At the time the ad was done, Mark was the top Elite Amateur in the the US in the criterium race standings, with what was an unbeatable lead in the points standings... until he crashed on a training ride and broke his arm and missed the last several races, losing the title after all.

Though it was a major disappointment to lose the #1 spot, Mark and the team were fantastic to work with and we will be working with them again in 2007. The team has been strengthened, so we should have even more to talk about in our advertising for the coming season. In light of all of the drug scandals in cycling this year, many companies are rethinking their support of racing. For me and Masi, the scandals don't really matter that much since our team isn't racing in Europe and the US domestic pro scene is considered to be far cleaner than Europe. The relationship with the team and how seamlessly they support our marketing efforts, is a natural fit still. So as the ad says, "here's to an even better '07".

This one is pretty easy to understand; new cyclocross bike = new ad for the current winter magazine. The text is simple and points to the pride we have in this bike. I confess to being very biased and totally unobjective, but the bike really is great riding and great looking. That's what we're trying to say here with some simple text. (The missing photo credit in the ad should point to Kevin Conners, who is actually one of our sales people as well as one of our photographers. He shot all of the action/ lifestyle pictures used in the new Masi catalog.)
I've mentioned before that I always struggle with the copy for our ads. I have such a tendency to come up with several paragraphs of copy for a simple ad... except for on those days when I just want to run the picture of the bike and no copy at all. I really can't seem to find that middle ground without going through a couple days of painful headbanging. You can always tell when the ad deadlines are coming up because my forehead is red from banging my head against my desk!

The thing all of these ads share is a desire to keep the look very simple and similar. From the first ad a year ago up to the current ad, the ads have evolved around a simple design element of "black space". Specialized has been very effective with this theme as well in their magazine ads over the past few years. The plan is to keep up with this theme for the time being... but when something amazing strikes, we'll jump on that.

So there you go. You're now up to date on the ads this year. Stay tuned as we keep plugging away and as always, your feedback on the ads above is welcome.

Tim Jackson
Chief Kool-Aid Dispenser

Posted by Tim Jackson at 10:10 PM