Battle Between Good Placement and Good Creative

My biggest pet peeve is convincing a local client to upgrade their media plan, only to have the creative come in and widely miss the mark.

Page dominance is great- but there are two things to note:

1) White space is eye catching......Just because you have half a page allotted, doesn't mean you have to increase photos/ font sizes so that every square centimeter is utilized.

2) If you are going to use dominant images, make sure they are professional looking. Increasing low rez photos to the point where you can see pixels makes the ad look cheap- and what does that say about your product?

If you can't afford both the big ad and a professional looking one, re-evaluate. Find a balance between it dominating the page with it's size and its professional, polished look.