Stumped on what message to communicate in your advertisement’s headline or body copy?

As we index the hundreds of great ads for inclusion on TheBigAd.com, we always try to ‘tag’ each advertisement with the motivating angle or approach we believe the creative teams took. Many appear to capitalize on the power of fear. Others take the opposite approach by showing how much better a person’s life could be if only they purchased a certain product or service. Some ads try to persuade readers to act by focusing on convenience. Others tug on empathy or generosity.

The funny thing is, almost any approach can be used successfully to promote almost any product. Take ‘fear,’ for example. It’s easy to imagine home, auto or life insurance or financial services companies using fear (of financial loss) but fear has also been used brilliantly to sell cars (fear of injury), durex (fear of long-term consequences), breath mints (fear of rejection), piano lessons (fear of being laughed at), barbershop services (fear of looking silly) and health insurance (this advertisement combines TWO fears: fear of missed opportunity PLUS fear of losing health).

So, as you’re approaching your next advertising project, we encourage you to thoughtfully consider each advertising angle and how it may apply to whatever you’re selling. Click on any of these ‘tags’ and you’ll find specific ads that illustrate a possible way to use the angle.

If you come up with a great ad, please share it with us. However, if you need help, consider calling or emailing the curators of this site: Advertising That Works, a tiny ad agency that produces big results. We love pitching-in on challenging advertising projects.

Complete list of the tags (angles, appeals, or concepts) we’ve assigned to the ads featured on this website*

*Listed in order of frequency