Nurofen’s poster hits the spot

This poster from pain-killer brand Nurofen hit me when walking the girls to school this morning. I thought it really hit the spot. There's a real art and craft to poster ads, and I think this one is good one.

1. Single-minded

Many posters try and tell a complex story on a poster, even though no-one is going to stop and read it. Nurofen avoid this mistake. Instead, they have a single thought, "Pain has nowhere to hide", brought to life with a powerful image of the Nurofen character.

2. Brand property as hero

Nurofen is a great example of a brand using brand properties to stand out and be remembered, in this case the target symbol. This is used to communicate how Nurofen targets pain, and has been used consistently for many years.

3. Synergy with TV

The poster works well with the TV ad, that I watched online after seeing the poster. Both feature the little animated Nurofen tablet working to fight pain.

4. Power of purity

The pure, white background adds to the impact, and helps communicate efficacy. There is often a temptation to add in details and text to posters, and advertising in general. This might make the brand owner feel good as they've ticked all the comms objective boxes. However, it doesn't do much in reality, as our brains screen out all this peripheral information.

The master of poster purity is of course Apple's iPod. Like Nurofen, we have a single big picture and single thought: 10,000 songs in your pocket.

Now, contrast this with the Sony poster below I snapped at Heathrow airport. At least seven different messages all fighting for attention.

The conclusion hers is that in posters, as with all of marketing, less is definitely more.