Oops! Catalog Faux Pas
Nothing in the body, nothing on the body.”
That’s the rule Levenger president Steve Leveen said his chief merchandiser adopted after a series of apparel products-like readers’ jewelry, a library sweater and “fontasia” ties and scarves-crashed and burned in the catalog for “serious readers.” Leveen and other catalog pros shared what worked and what didn’t in their books last month at the Catalog Conference in Boston.
For Ethel M. Chocolates, what didn’t work was not featuring the product prominently on the cover. Mail order marketing manager Lenor Lucero showed an unsuccessful cover of a happy couple holding a gift box-with nary a nougat in sight. “This was our lifestyle phase,” she said, noting some in a test audience commented that if they hadn’t seen the logo they would have thought it was an ad for jewelry or (because of the couple’s shiny grins) toothpaste.
L.L. Bean vice president creative Tom Sidar said his catalog confused readers with too many shots of one product on a spread. The intent was to show the versatility of the “Burrito Bag” sleeping bag. “But it was like we took the Burrito Bag and made a whole restaurant.”
Herschell Gordon Lewis moderated the session. Lewis and his wife Margo recently established Lewis Enterprises, a creative consultancy in Plantation, FL. He retains his title as chairman of Communicomp, a division of True North Diversified Cos.
