When you need inkjet printer cartridges, where do you look? No, not the cupboard … where do you look for buy the expensive critters? Do you buy the original equipment manufacturer’s (OEM’s) inkjet cartridges or do you go for cut rate printer cartridges? HP’s hoping that you’ll go for the real deal. Their current inkjet cartridge advertising campaign is a real eye-opener, for a number of reasons …

Who says newspapers are dead? Not HP. For the second time in as many weeks, HP has run a full page full color advertisement — touting their OEM color inkjet printer cartridges — in our local weekly newspaper.

Now I wouldn’t have been surprised to see this advertisement in USA Today or a big metropolitan daily. But a local weekly paper?

Such is the ubiquitous nature of the color inkjet printer in this day and age, I suppose.

The full page HP inkjet ad is big and beautiful.

The typography, however is thin, small, and inappropriate for process color reproduction on newsprint. (Designers hint: always avoid knocking small thin white type out of a built-up process background at low halftone screen resolutions.)

PRINT. DON’T REPRINT.

Only Original HP Inks for your HP printer come in new cartridges with new print heads. That’s why they’re 35 times more reliable than bargain ink cartridges.*

If only I could read the fuzzy fine print! From what I can tell, the text said something about a study commissioned by HP that proves its pricey inkjet printer cartridges to be vastly superior to the less-expensive knock-off inkjet cartridges.