We've been over this a million times, when you go about designing a one-page advertisement you want to make sure to keep it simple. Yet time and time again I'm forced to look at these commercials that are full of head ache-inducing text and no clear message. This seems to be the problem with this 1-900 number for PSM, which I can only assume is the PlayStation Monthly magazine. Of course, that would be more obvious if this advertisement was in a copy of the PSM magazine ... but instead I had to pull this from a competitor's magazine. PSM or no, this commercial is annoying, hard to look at and a bunch of other terrible things.

Beyond the problem that the commercial is entirely too wordy (clocking in at around 150 words), this 1-900 PSM advert is made that much worse by the seemingly random font colors, size changes and uppercase words. Worse yet, it's all on this bright red background. And if that wasn't enough, the words take center stage, the four pictures (which include a ninja from Tenchu, a naughty maid from Thrill Kill, Tomba, and some dude who looks completely out of place) almost seem like an afterthought. How else do you explain why they look like they were just thrown on the page where there were a few blank spots?

Of course the most hilarious bit comes close to the bottom of the page. While going through some of the reasons why you should call this 1-900 number, PSM states that you could "get the complete moves list for Thrill Kill." You don't say, you mean the full list of moves for Thrill Kill? Too bad nobody will actually be able to play it! Oh, and while we're on the subject of unintentionally funny quotes, am I the only one that chuckled when I read that you could "get PlayStation news as it really happens from PSM's very own Blake Fischer"? I guess the news in the magazine is all made up and not actually how it happens. It's always nice for a major magazine like this to show a little candor and let us know that their news in the print magazine is full of crap. Thanks PSM, you saved me from spending a lot of time trying to figure out what is real and what is fake.

FROM: Masters of Bad Advertising