I have seen ads that give me no idea what the store was all about. They assume people know what they are all about. Many ads have no easy identification of what's going on. During a luncheon, she outlined her 11 creative concepts, showing examples of good and bad ads for each. The newspaper is a daily medium.
Timing is everything.
Tie in your ad that day with what's happening. Count on copy. Inform, enlighten and entertain your target audience with well-written and interesting copy. Some ads need to be cluttered up with lots of items. Small ads in particular need white space to set them apart.