San Francisco Opera is about to launch its 2010-11 Season, and (Mission Minded-designed) advertisements have already hit the streets. While there are a number of elements to the public marketing campaign, one of the most noticeable — and difficult to create — is the street pole banners.

At Mission Minded, we strongly believe that designing a successful street pole banner is like writing a great haiku:

If you say too much
You have said nothing at all
Brevity is key

Many organizations fall into the “Too Much Information” trap. They want to include sponsor logos, dates, times, phone numbers, and catchy copy. Others fall victim to small type. And still others ask the reader to think about too many things at once.

A great pole banner is simple. It introduces an idea and gives readers a single, clear way of responding. Take a look at the San Francisco Opera banner above for Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, above. Imagery and a single word from the title introduce the excitement of seeing one of the world’s best-loved operas. The URL is all that is needed to tell readers how to respond.

Moreover, the banner takes full advantage of the space available, allowing the word “San Francisco” to jump the space taken up by the pole. The result: Even readers driving at 30 miles per hour can still read the name and know what to do.

San Francisco Opera Street Pole Banner - Aida

The next time your organization sets out to create street pole banners, remember: Stay simple, clear, and easy to read. Give your audience a single clear step to take, and don’t confuse people with extraneous information.

We just received the Doctors Without Borders newsletter http://tinyurl.com/c3umro in the mail, and I’m impressed by a number of things:

1. Because it’s one of the few printed newsletters I still receive, it really stood out. So many organizations are moving away from printed pieces, which may be a bad call. In the world of marketing, one of the best things you can do is to do the thing that others are not doing.
2. Digital simply can’t replace the tactile experience of holding a newsletter in your hand and flipping through it. There is a visceral experience to print that helps us remember in different ways.
3. Doctors Without Borders has incredible imagery, and they use it to tell a story. The phrase, a picture is worth a thousand words, really is true.
4. It passes the “I’m too busy to read test”. At Mission Minded, we put all of our publications to this test. If you can’t flip though a document in 15 seconds and understand what’s being said by headlines and photos alone, than the piece isn’t doing its job.

One other note: Doctors Without Borders also digitally distributes their newsletter on Issuu (www.issuu.com). I hadn’t seen this site in action before, but I’m impressed with it’s ability to show publications on line.

Zach