“I’m hungry…and I want to go shopping at Kohl’s.”
That’s basically the reaction we had around here when we saw the gatefold ad for Kohl’s Kitchen Products in Food Network Magazine. Apparently, we weren’t alone; that ad received high honors in a recent study of advertising effectiveness.
“Kohl’s Kitchen Products scored two of the top five most remembered print ads placed in culinary magazines in December, based on data from GfK MRI’s Starch Advertising Research,” notes this post from the Folio magazine staff.
Other “winners” included a two-page ad for the book “At the Southern Table with Paula Deen,” which appeared in the December issue of Cooking with Paula Deen, and a stunning black and white one-page ad for Dom Perignon that featured actor Christoph Waltz in Wine Spectator.
What makes these ads so striking, I believe, is the way they all tell a particular story. Instead of focusing on the features of the products being advertised, these ads draw us right into an experience with those products. Who doesn’t want to dive into that pan of fresh of peppermint bark, and wrap up some gifts for our friends?
These ads are visual storytelling at its finest, and a beautiful way to leverage print to build brand awareness and recall.