People don’t read. Give it to ‘em straight. Make sure everyone “gets” it. That’s the kind of feedback that strangles the soul of an advertising person. But there’s always optimism. Hope that someone will be drawn in by an idea. And the goal to make people want to learn more about what you have to sell.

Okay, maybe that set-up is a little heavy-handed. But as a matter of experiment, a couple of HLers attempted to take on perhaps the most cut and dry form of advertising and make it interesting. Garage sale posters.

No client. Just a hard deadline.

Objective? Sell all the stuff accumulated as a result of a couple moving in together.

Deadline? Two weeks.

Strategy? Get people excited about a “couple consolidation” sale.

Budget? In the double digits.

The campaign became the “Living In Sin Sale” and included five versions of fifteen type-driven black and white posters.

Results? All the stuff got sold. And roughly 74.6% of sale attendees mentioned the posters and/or the postings on Craigslist (unprompted).

Conclusion: creative advertising sells.