Direct student loan web site

Byline: THOMAS L. COLLINS

If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times...and if I haven't said it a thousand times, then by golly I will.

In this new age of tandem advertising - Web site and printed page working together - advertisers have got to learn to put their best foot forward.

That is, don't save all your goodies for your Web site, as far too many advertisers try to do. The prospects and customers for whom these goodies are intended may never get there to see them.

Instead you've got to put some of your attractive, compelling, persuasive argument "up front" - right there in the print ad designed to get them to come see the rest of it online. Persuasive information whets the appetite for more of the same.

And don't fall for the New Age whiz kids who tell you to keep copy to a few words accompanying a visual gag because "nobody reads anymore." It all depends on who we're talking about. I find it hard to believe that even today you can get through Harvard Business School without being able to read more than a few words of plain English at a time.

Unfortunately, the whiz kids got their hands on the advertising designed to introduce a new financial management service for women, Women & Co.

The result is an ad that's not only woefully uninformative and inadequate, but honestly makes me wonder if some of the women they're trying to reach might not find it downright insulting.

Think about it. A Citigroup task force must have labored for months and months putting together this new service, at what must have been quite a pretty penny in developmental cost.

And this is the way Citigroup chose to let the world know about it.

We see a pair of extremely pointy-toed shoes.

One shoe is labeled Mutual Fund, the other College Fund.

And the entire copy story, except for the "join today" signature line, consists merely of "There are other ways to invest your money."

First of all, it suggests that the reader is a ditzy female who wears high-fashion clothes no matter how uncomfortable and ridiculous they are. But many of their best prospects, women earning $100,000 or more, wouldn't be caught dead wearing such shoes, and some might have contempt for those who do.

Second, it implies that the prospect is so dumb she knows only two things to do with her money at the end of the month. Put it in Pile A, to invest in a mutual fund, or Pile B, to put it in a college fund.

Whose college fund? Her own? Her children's? And are those really two separate piles?

If you are setting aside some money for college, wouldn't a money market or some other conservative mutual fund be the best place to park it?

And I'm really puzzled by the two piles being represented by shoes. Does it mean our female prospect saves up for her two funds by stuffing $100 bills in shoes in the back of her closet?

Finally, the ad should have been, it turns out, about more than just how to "invest your money."

The service is about things like refinancing your mortgage, getting a student loan, and controlling expenditures so you'll have some money left over to invest at the end of the month.

If you, the reader, are able to force your way past these various roadblocks and get to Women & Co.'s Web site anyway, you will find a cornucopia of membership benefits and advantages that clearly address these concerns.

But most of the female readers of the neighborhood Manhattan weekly in which I found this advertisement will never know. They'll never bother to visit the site.

My makeover starts with an empathic, newsy headline:

"It's about time somebody recognized that women have special financial needs and concerns. Finally somebody has. Welcome to Women & Co." Beside it is a head shot of a woman who might be saying this.

I chose this photograph carefully. The Web site allows you to browse through the biographies of the investment professionals who are available for one-to-one consultation. These biographies include charming photos of the professionals, sometimes with their families, and heartwarming details of their hobbies and personal interests.

From these photographs, I picked a woman (they have male advisers as well, but I wanted this ad to seem to be talking woman-to-woman) who looked like somebody you would really trust with your money. She looks smart, competent, experienced, successful, almost motherly - attractive, but not so glamorous that she might intimidate a female customer.

My first draft of the copy that follows included a good deal more specific detail about the benefits and features of membership, such as advantageous mortgage refinancing terms, preferred interest rates on student loans, special discounts at child-care centers and household payroll tax preparation services.

But then, unlike me, I ruthlessly deleted it.

I decided this was one case where the "feminine mystique" of advantageous membership might be lessened by the inclusion of mundane benefit details.

And yes, maybe that would provide more detail and reading than is really necessary at this point.

I didn't include Women & Co.'s phone number - although copy testing likely would reveal whether this was desirable or not - because I felt that almost all of the prospects go online today.

Anyway, the Web site explains the benefits more thoroughly than most phone operators could.

Boy, would I love to be able to test my ad against theirs. But it seems highly unlikely such testing will ever happen.

The advertisers either don't care about the advertising cost per response or they think they already know without testing.

Either way, though, they're making a mistake.

THOMAS L. COLLINS was co-founder and first creative director of Rapp & Collins and is co-author with Stan Rapp of four books on marketing. He is currently an independent marketing consultant and ad maker in Manhattan.

To send your comments, opinions or suggestions, e-mail me at tomlyle@rcn.com. Or send snail mail to 424 West End Ave., #11-B, New York, NY 10024.