Advertising reverse engineer post

Square is a credit card and payment processing company.  Square promotes itself on having a user friendly and easy product to use.  Their ads tout the simplicity of their product and they use simple but vibrant images to get you attention. 

The first ad that I noticed was a 10 second video from Facebook. The video contained 5 frames.  In the first, the only thing you see is the opening of a small device.  In the second, that device is being set up by a simple “click”. (According to the video.)

The 3^rd frame is someone tapping their phone to make a payment and the word, “tap” appears.  The 4^th frame shows a stack of money with the caption, “paid” and the last frame shows Square’s simple logo, a easily identifiable square inside of another square.

The first thing about this ad is that it is a video instead of a simple photograph.  People love looking at photos and they love videos.  Short videos are becoming increasingly popular in social media.  It tells a quick story and doesn't waste a lot of the user's time.

The next thing about this ad that is effective is the ad's layout and design.  Everything in the images is simple.  Simple colors and no clutter.

Centered in the middle of the frame is the device in all white.  It sits on top of a blue background.  It reminds users that there is nothing complicated about it.

All of the frames use good contrast.  The backgrounds are clean and don't take away from the message of the frame.  In this frame, you can clearly see what appears to be a stack of cash. The green contrasts nicely with the purple making people focus on the cash.  Above it is the simple word, "PAID".  It reminds people of what drives us all, getting money.

Another effective design element is repetition.  Each of the frames repeats the simple statement at the beginning of the post, "Slide, Click, Paid."

All of the posts made by Square seem to follow the same logic.  They promote how easy it is to use them and how simple it is to operate.  In addition, they tout the successfulness of the companies that use them and imply that by not having to worry about payments, you can focus on growing your company.

As a consumer and business owner, I have and do use Square.  I decided to do so simply because of how easy it is.  I wanted something that was “idiot-proof” and I think I have it.  Could there be simpler products out there?  Probably, and most likely there are cheaper.  But Square did a great job with their marketing and I was sold.

Square has done a great job with this campaign and I imagine they will continue to use this strategy.

I would recommend that they improve their Instagram posts a little more though.  They should focus on the ease of use more.  Business owners want what will be easy for their employees to use.  It’s great to focus on how the product will help you grow but everyone does that.   Square was developed out of the need for simplicity and they should focus more on that.

I would recommend posts that showcase how difficult it was for a company’s employees to get things done until they switched to Square.  I believe that would appeal to more business owners.