PROMOTIONAL CROSSWORDS

1 Across - perfect promotional tool - h'mm… got it! Crosswords!

Crossword puzzles have been around for eighty-odd years and have enjoyed a steady popularity. They come in different types and different levels of difficulty. Quick crosswords offer simple definition clues, while the sometimes tortuous clues of the cryptic crossword are the staple of armies of commuters, the morning brain-workout of thousands of retired people, and a challenging and stimulating pastime for millions of us. Either type can be presented as a "clue-in-text" crossword, created especially for promotional applications.

If you decide to use a cryptic crossword, there are two possible approaches: the solutions (the words to be filled in) can be relevant to your business, OR the cryptic clues can be twisted in such a way that they reflect the nature of your business and your products.

As an example of the first approach, let's assume your business is financial; one of the solutions in the grid could be "UNIT TRUSTS", and a possible clue could be "One relies on investments" (One = UNIT, relies on = TRUSTS, investments = UNIT TRUSTS). As an example of the second, again let's assume your business is financial. One of the solutions is "RIVER" - not a word one immediately associates with financial services, but a clue like "The flow of liquid assets between banks" would make it so.

If your aim is to make people read your promotional material carefully, you can't do better than a straightforward "clue-in-text" crossword. All the solutions would be drawn from your brochure or advertisement and the clues simply send people off to read and check. "Which product was introduced in 1998?", "What colour are the handles on the new Mark II?", "Which innovation made its first appearance in the Super model in 1985?", can make customers read and re-read your brochures - which is just what you want. For this reason, not all solutions and clues need to be closely relevant to your product, so long as the information can be found in your literature. For example, if you have mentioned that your business was established by a French émigré in 1799, a clue could simply be "What nationality was Jean Bernard, who founded the company in 1799?"

A Promotional Crossword from Lexcentrics will never let you DOWN in getting your message ACROSS (sorry, we wish we had been able to resist that!).

Follow the link to have a look at the sample crossword, which uses both cryptic and non-cryptic clues to let you see how they both work.