Proofs
Even if you laid out everything properly and keyed up everything the right way, there's no guarantee that the ad will appear perfectly in the newspaper. An ad can pass through many hands on it's way to getting into the newspaper. And remember that when you're creating a brand new product every day or even every week from scratch, there will always be problems--the ad doesn't make it in the paper, it's in the wrong place, the phone number's wrong, etc.

For example, one newspaper I worked for once ran an ad for a doctor specializing in spider vein treatments, though the ad appeared with the headline "spider transplants". The same newspaper made it on the Letterman show when they ran an ad for a restaurant was supposed to feature broiled chicken, but what appeared in the ad read "broiled children".

Unfortunately, you'll probably have your own stories in no time. In fact, you'll avoid a lot of surprises and disappointments if you just assume that one of your ads will appear wrong in the paper with each issue and there's nothing you can do about it. Well, there's something you can do about it, but it's still not going to save you all the time, but it will help. You can request a proof.

When you do send in the ad reservation form with your layout, copy and artwork attached, (and we'll be talking about that process in greater detail in a few minutes) you can request to see the final ad that production creates before it goes into the newspaper. This will mean that you'll have to get the ad to production a little earlier than normal, but at first, or at any time you find your ads aren't coming out the way you hoped, you might want to request a proof. It's basically just a photocopy of the ad and as you'll soon see, there will be an area on your newspaper's ad reservation form for you to mark off that you are requesting a proof.

Now a few points about proofs.

First, you need to know that a proof is not something you or your advertiser requests to see how an ad will look before fine tuning it. Before a proof is even requested, the look of the ad should have been decided and communicated clearly to production. The idea of a proof is simply to check the accuracy of the contents of the ad. If you change the proof and hand it back to production, those changes should only be to those parts of the ad that appear differently than what you requested on the layout. Although in an emergency, production will make any changes you need, try to avoid it if at all possible. Keep in mind that you can't request a proof until the ad is reserved, therefore the account is agreeing to buy the ad. A proof will simply give him the opportunity to check for major flaws.