Category: Advertising

October 24, 2017

That One Memorable Thing

I was in Orlando for a trade show a few years back. I met up with some friends and the five of us headed to a steakhouse for dinner. It was one of those meals you talk about forever.

I could start with the off-menu ordering of a 20oz Filet Mignon so tender you could almost cut it with a fork. I could mention that three of us foolishly decided to add lobster tails to our entree. I say foolishly because that lobster was as good as if I had been transported to Maine. You couldn’t stop eating it, even after finishing off a perfectly grilled steak.

But the biggest, most pleasant mistake of the evening was ordering dessert. We shouldn’t have. We were all stuffed beyond belief. But someone had told us to make sure we ordered the chocolate fudge cake. At any other meal the five of us might have ordered a couple desserts to split among the table if we ordered dessert at all, but we were already pleasantly full and even considered passing on dessert. On this night we only ordered one. It was the best and worst move of the night.

Charley’s Steak House Chocolate Fudge Cake

The slice of cake arrived and it stood almost a foot tall! It was taller than it was wide, three scrumptious layers of the richest, most moist chocolate cake I have ever eaten, with a hint of orange and a chocolate fudge frosting I could have taken a bath in. Thank God we only ordered one because, like the rest of the meal, we couldn’t stop eating it despite how much we had already eaten. I wish, however, that we had ordered a second one to go. I have dreamed about that cake several times since.

You have a meal like that in your memory.

We all have that memory of an experience that went far above and beyond what we expected. The details are burned into our minds, especially that one detail of the most unexpected moment, like when that towering slice of cake arrived. They didn’t have to make that cake that tall. It was so good that an average sized slice would have still been shareworthy. You could argue that they were probably losing money on that cake. I will argue back that they were buying advertising with that cake.

If you ever go to Charley’s Steak House in Orlando, I will tell you that you HAVE to order the cake. So will any others who have done so before. It is hard to order that cake when you’ve just eaten such a huge, wonderful meal, but you will because I told you to. You will because of word-of-mouth of someone who went before you, just as we did because of someone that went before us. Heck, you probably weren’t even planning a trip to Charley’s until I told you to go get the cake.

Think back on your favorite meal in a restaurant. What stands out? You will find that one unexpected surprise, that one detail that you build your entire story around when you tell your friends.

Now ask yourself …

What experience does a customer have in your store that is so unexpected and surprisingly delightful that they will have to tell their friends about it?

That’s how you generate word-of-mouth. You have to have that One. Memorable. Thing. It isn’t something you advertise, it is simply something you do so over-the-top that people have to share it with their friends.

Bonnie Raitt said it best. “Let’s give them something to talk about.”

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS When you do what everyone else does, you don’t get talked about. You just fade into the landscape. Do something different. Do something no other business in your market would even think of doing. If it costs you a little money, think of it as an advertising expense. It pays in the long run. Just think how many times Charley got to add a piece of cake to the bill, not because he advertised it, but because he made it so memorable that I advertised it for him.

October 23, 2017

This is How You Get Word of Mouth Pro-Level

If you’ve ever been to my Suggested Topics page, you will notice that my Breakout Session about Word-of-Mouth says I will teach you “four simple, yet effective ways to generate word-of-mouth and get people to brag about your business to others.”

If you have ever been to one of these presentations, you know that I give you a fifth bonus way to get people to talk about your business. That bonus way is through your advertising. When you create ads that people want to see and hear, they talk about them. That’s the goal at every Super Bowl. All these advertisers want is for you to be talking about their ad Monday morning.

There is more to it than that, though. To truly generate word-of-mouth that helps your business, the talk has to be about how great your business is, or how important it is for people to visit you, not just about how creative or funny you are.

We got that kind of word-of-mouth with our Men’s Bathroom Ad.

The script was this …

I couldn’t believe it. They were taking customers into the men’s bathroom. Yes, my staff was taking men and women, young and old, into our men’s bathroom. And they were coming out laughing, smiling, oh yeah, and buying, too. I guess when you have a product this good, you just have to show it off however… and wherever… you can. The men’s bathroom… Gotta love it! Toy House in downtown Jackson. We’re here to make you smile.

I ran this ad twice a day Monday-Friday for the month of August in 2008. The day it began the deejays starting talking about it on the air wondering what was going on in the men’s bathroom. By day two the deejays on the stations where the ad WASN’T airing were talking about it. By day three the local TV station was talking about it. Everyone was speculating about what was in the men’s bathroom and people were coming in droves to ask about it, see the product, oh yeah, and buy it, too. In March 2009—seven months after the ad had aired!—I had a customer walk into the store asking about the men’s bathroom because it was what dominated conversation at Christmas dinner at the adult table.

Bobby from the Morris-Jenkins TV Ad Campaign

Here is another example of how an ad can generate powerful word-of-mouth courtesy of Roy H. Williams. Roy designed an ad campaign for a heating & cooling company featuring Mr. Jenkins, the owner, and Bobby, one of his drivers. The ad campaign has run for 6 years. “Bobby” has become a Charlotte, NC icon. But the actor who plays Bobby in the commercials is moving to California. The company ran one last ad featuring Bobby where Mr. Jenkins gives Bobby $100,000 to go pursue his dream in Hollywood.

The local TV news ran a story on that ad. Let me repeat that … The local TV news in a major market ran a story about a fictional character in an advertisement for a local heating and cooling company. You cannot buy that kind of advertising.

(Or maybe you can, if you have the guts to first run amazing ad campaigns that people want to see and hear.)

First read Roy’s MondayMorningMemo about the ad campaign and why it worked so well.

Then watch the news story. (Get your tissues out.)

Are your ads getting this kind of love?

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS We watch television and movies for the characters first and then the storyline. If the characters are interesting, we’ll forgive a weak storyline. David Freeman explains that the difference between interesting characters and boring ones is in their Core Values. When they have three to five character traits or values that are consistent throughout the movie, we relate to them. If they have less, we are bored. If they aren’t consistent, we don’t connect. The same is true with your brand. Your brand is the three to five core values you have as a business. The more consistently you show those values—including in your advertising—the more people will relate with you.

October 19, 2017

Other Uses for Market Share Knowledge

The first time I was truly introduced to the idea of calculating my market share was from Roy H. William’s second book Secret Formulas of the Wizard of Ads. It was 2003 and I was trying to learn all I could about marketing and advertising. My math was rudimentary. I didn’t adjust for local economy or youth population. Simply raw numbers. I came up with our market share at about 12%.

At first I was a little disappointed. Roy teaches that the gold standard for any business is 30% market share. That’s a big number. Despite its dominance, even Walmart only has 25% of the grocery market. The optimist in me, however, said 12% was a good starting point and now I had a goal to shoot for. I had just read an article (which 14 years later I cannot find—go figure) that said only 9% of the general public was inclined to shop at local indie stores in the first place. I was already 3 points above that number.

I never did reach 30%, but I did have some other revelations about my Market Share number.

First, after going back and adjusting my market size for economy and youth population, our 12% was really closer to 16%. It stayed in that neighborhood until a Walmart Supercenter opened in 2005. We dropped into the 14-15% neighborhood and stayed there until Amazon became a serious player in the toy industry around 2010-2011. We stayed around 12.5% for the next several years until we closed. Even though you can beat a big guy head-to-head, the more big guys in town, the more businesses taking a piece out of the same pie.

Second, that original 12% number got me thinking. A full eighty-eight percent of the market were NOT currently shopping with me. That’s almost 9 out of 10 people. When you look at it that way, it changes your perspective on a lot of things.

In terms of marketing and advertising I realized I didn’t need to reach the entire market to grow my business. If I could just convince 1 more person out of 20 people to shop with me I would have growth beyond my wildest dreams. I really only needed to convince about 2 more people out of 100 to shop with me to have double digit growth. If you only are trying to sway two people out of a hundred you might say something totally different than if you’re trying to sway fifty out of a hundred. With two you can say something direct and personal to a small audience that gets right to the heart of the matter. Trying to reach fifty, you say something generic and non-offensive hoping other forces will come into play to swing them to your side.

In terms of product selection I realized I didn’t have to be all things to all people. I could pick and choose the products I wanted based on my beliefs in the products and how they benefited my customers. Not only does that help with the buying decisions, it helped us stay true to our core values in terms of what we sold and why.

Speaking of Core Values, we didn’t have to be someone we were not.

Meg Cabot said it best when she said, “You’re not a hundred dollar bill. Not everyone is going to like you.” We didn’t have to be liked by everyone. Sixteen percent is a pretty low approval rating. Yet it was higher than any other single store in our market.

Knowledge is power (France is bacon). Knowing your market share might be the piece of knowledge that finally liberates the way you think about your place in the market and the risks you can now safely take with your business.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS Let me first admit that 16% is actually pretty high for an indie retailer. Many of you might do the math and find yourself in the 3-5% range, especially if you have other indie retailers fighting for the 9% that skews shop local. But before I pat myself on the back, you should know that in the early 1980’s we were at that mythical 30% gold standard and then some. Of course that was before Jackson got Walmart, Target, Toys R Us, Sam’s Club, a second Meijer, a new KMart, and a whole slew of other big chains in town (without a population growth to match), and well before Al Gore invented the Internet. We were the large store that was here first. That’s what gave us much of our edge. But even if you do find yourself in the 3-5% range, if the market is big enough, you can do a lot of business with only 3-5% of your market. Plus, when you only have to convince 1 more person out of 100 to get 33% growth, advertising becomes a whole lot more fun.

PPS It used to upset me that about half my friends were not regular shoppers at my store. My parents saw about that same percentage from their friends. Then it dawned on me … Fifty percent of my friends versus twelve percent of the general population. I was ahead of the game. I slept much better that night.

October 13, 2017

What Media Do You Own?

The one thing I hate about having my house for sale is all the stuff I have boxed up to make the house less cluttered. There are 9 boxes filled with my books sitting on shelves in the basement. Many of those books I have read more than once. A few of them I keep reading over and over.

If you ask me my favorite books, for fiction I’ll tell you The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander—a five book series published in the late 1960’s that I have read over a dozen times, including twice reading them out loud to my boys. You may recall that it was book #4 Taran Wanderer that gave me the lightbulb idea of hiring for character traits, not experience, thus leading to my first book Hiring and the Potter’s Wheel: Turning Your Staff Into a Work of Art.

For non-fiction it is The Wizard of Ads Trilogy by Roy H. Williams. I have never read a book before or after that was as equally enjoyable to read as it was informative. Although not yet to a dozen, I have read all three books several times. In fact, last night I went and pulled book #2 Secret Formulas of the Wizard of Ads out of one of the boxes in the basement.

Yesterday I read an article with ten tips for marketing this holiday season and it had one tip I keep hearing over and over that I know Roy had refuted in the book. The tip was to make sure you are in as many channels as possible this season because otherwise you won’t reach all your potential customers.

Roy calls this one of the sacred cows of advertising in chapter 3 “Dead Cows Everywhere.”

Here are some things I want you to think about before you spread yourself too thin across multiple media.

You will never reach 100% of your market. No matter how many channels you choose, you can’t get to them all, so it is folly to even try.
You don’t have the time and resources to do every channel well. You don’t have the budget of Coca-Cola or the marketing team of Pizza Hut. At best you have a social media director and a handful of somewhat helpful sales reps running your advertising at your direction (while you juggle all those other hats like HR, CFO, CEO, firefighter, and bottle washer).
Advertising and marketing yourself in a channel poorly is not only a waste of time and money and resources, it could be detrimental because a poor first image is worse than no image at all.
If you were able to convince just 10% of the market to shop with you, your cash registers would sing like angels.

In one succinct chapter Roy points out that a customer who sees your billboard, hears your radio ad, and reads a social media post likely won’t make the connection between those three fragmented campaigns in a way that reinforces your brand. Our brains don’t work that way. They aren’t wired that way.

You are better off picking one or two channels where you can be truly effective and focus all your time and money and resources on those to the point that you own each media. Yes, own it! There is that one business in your town that owns billboards. You know who I’m talking about. There is another business that owns radio.

If you really want to be noticed and remembered, be the business that owns one of the media outlets. Win Facebook by being the one who posts the most shareworthy and memorable posts that engage and get customers to like, comment, and share. Own the radio by being the business whose ads are actually anticipated and talked about at water coolers when the new ad starts. (When people talk about your ad at the water cooler, then you know you’ve finally written a good one. I’ve had that happen several times. It should be your goal with every message.) Own the billboards by having the kind of posters that people tell their friends to drive by and see.

You likely don’t have the resources to do all that in every channel, so pick one. Own it.

The cool thing when you own a media is that not only do you get more bang for your buck (you become first in people’s brains because you get a bigger share of mind than what you actually spent), you also keep your competitors from being noticed in the same media. They fade into the background or they look boring and dull in comparison.

In the same chapter, Roy kills another sacred cow called Gross Rating Points. Reaching 100% of the market 10 times is the same as reaching 10% of the market 100 times in terms of cost. Yet convincing 100% of the market 10% of the way is not the same as convincing 10% of the market 100% of the way. When you spread yourself over many channels, you face the risk of convincing 100% of the people only 10% of the way. When you own the media, you have a far better chance of convincing the people you reach to shop with you.

There are a lot of great marketing tips out there. Spreading yourself too thin across too many channels is NOT one of them.

If you can’t own a media channel, put your resources where you can. That is what will get the angels to sing.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS It isn’t just how much you spend, it is what you say. Spend enough and speak boldly. Say something surprising and powerful. There are two coffee shops in my town that both use billboards with equal frequency, but one has a far more creative team creating fun and memorable (and sometimes controversial) boards. Ask anyone in town which coffee shop is the one on all the billboards and 90% will name the guy with all the fun boards. You tell me who owns that media?

PPS Here are some of the radio ads I used to try to own that media.

October 6, 2017

The Aha Moment (Or the Simplest Business Success Formula Ever!)

I’ve been looking at different job titles and job descriptions lately. The two that seem to grab my attention the most are the Marketing & Advertising jobs and the Managing People jobs. At first glance I figured I was drawn to those because those were two of my favorite things to do at Toy House.

Another thought hit me this morning on my drive home from dropping my son off at school.

Those two different jobs are really the same thing. Stop and think about it.

Awesome Customer Service is about figuring out your customer’s expectations and then exceeding them with surprise and delight.
Top-Level Selling is about figuring out your customer’s needs and then fulfilling them better than she expected.
Powerful Advertising is about figuring out your customer’s desires and then offering a solution better than she expected.
Amazing Events are about figuring out what your customer likes and then offering her more than she expects when she attends.
Incredible Managing is about figuring out what tools your team needs to be successful and then giving them better tools that take them beyond what they thought was possible.

It’s all the same thing.

Figure out what she desires, needs, and expects.
Give her more than she desires, needs, and expects.

That is the formula for a successful retail business. That is the formula for a successful service company. That is the formula for successful manufacturer. That is the formula for a successful advertising campaign. That is the formula for successfully managing your team. That is the formula for being successful as an employee.

The first part requires research. The first part is about studying human nature, watching market trends, thinking like a customer. The first part is about asking questions, listening, and analyzing what you hear. The first part is about testing and clarifying and testing some more. You’ll get it right some times and you’ll get it wrong some times. The better you do your research, the more often you will get it right.

The second part is about having that character trait in you that wants to help others. When you hire and train your team, look specifically for that trait and you’ll find the second part of the formula becomes second nature to your company. Your team will already want to give. You just have to show them what to give.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS An employee that figures out exactly what the boss wants and then gives the boss more than she wants will always have a meaningful job. A manager that equips her team with tools to make them better than they thought possible will always find people wanting to work for her. A marketer that can figure out the true desires of the customer base and speak to those desires will always move the needle. A salesperson who can figure out the exact problem a customer is trying to solve and then offer a solution better than she envisioned will always make more sales. A manufacturer who anticipates the needs of both the end user and the middleman and sets up a business to exceed both their expectations will find growth.

PPS I answered my own question. My Core Values include Helping Others and Education. I already have that character trait of giving (that’s why I write this blog and publish all the Free Resources). The Education side of me wants to do the research to figure out what to give.

October 5, 2017

How Social Media Advertising Might Be Hurting Your Business

As a speaker I am constantly submitting my talks to conferences in an attempt to get hired. I am also looking at their websites to see what kinds of talks they hosted at their last conference. Time and time again they have speakers talking about how to advertise on social media. Rarely does anyone have talks anymore on how to use radio or build a website or craft an email (even though statistics show email is more effective than social media).

Then today I ran across this little three-minute audio from NPR. Go ahead and listen to it. I’ll wait …

It is something I have been saying from the very beginning of the social media craze.

(For those of you unable to click and listen, the gist of the report is about a study done in China. Although promotional ads on social media have a short-term immediate effect of a small boost in sales, they have a long-term effect of driving away followers.)

Roy H. Williams, aka The Wizard of Ads, taught me this back in 2005 and I’ve tested it time and time again and found it to be true. There are two types of customers for every industry—those who believe they are the expert and are shopping on price and those who know they are not the expert and are looking for an expert they can trust.

The former are called Transactional Customers. They look at every purchase as a single transaction with no relation to previous purchases. They believe they are the expert. They know exactly what they want. They will check many different places to find the best price. They are driven by the fear of paying too much. Once they make the purchase, they brag to everyone about what a great shopper they are, but have no loyalty to the store.

The latter are called Relational Customers. They look at each purchase as one in a series of purchases. They do not believe they know all the answers. They are looking for an expert they trust who will steer them to the right item. Their fear is buying the wrong item. While they do not brag much about their purchase, they do love to brag about their store and once they find the person/store they trust, they are highly loyal to that person/store.

The split is pretty much 50/50 in any category (slightly more Transactional in commodity categories like grocery or during economic downturns, slightly more Relational in bespoke categories such as fashion). But since Transactional Customers are more prone to shop around, it feels like more people are “price” shoppers than really are.

When it comes to advertising, promotional ads and discounts are Pavlov’s Bell to Transactional Customers. They love to hear about sales and discounts and promos. At the same time they are fingernails on the chalkboard to Relational Customers. Since RC’s are looking for trust, those same promotional ads not only don’t foster trust, they turn the RC’s off and destroy trust.

Social Media is about building relationships. Social Media is for your fans. Social Media is all about the RC’s. Yeah, you might see a small bump in sales. We are all both TC and RC as consumers, depending on the product. When you run your ad, you find the TC’s in your crowd for that particular product. But at what risk? Run those promos all the time and you drive away the RC’s social media is best at helping you reach.

Here’s my two-minute presentation on Social Media …

Use it to build Trust. Ask questions. Listen to feedback. Post useful information. Answer all questions asked of you. Respond quickly, politely, thoroughly (even the trolls). Build trust. Share information from other sources. Stay true to your Core Values. Write interesting content. Post pictures and videos of your products in use. Build trust. Be honest about the downside. Talk about benefits of the product. Relate to the way people use your stuff. Help your customers picture already owning your product. Post daily with something of value. Post shareworthy stuff. Build trust.

If you want to run an ad on social media, run an ad for your event. Events have deadlines which creates excitement. Events are attractive to both RC’s and TC’s because events imply relationship-building (interacting in a fun way with the brand) and promotions (some kind of discount). You can get the bump without driving people away.

I get it. Social Media is sexy. It is new. It is hip. Everyone is on their phones and online. That’s cool. Just be sure no matter what media you use that you play to that media’s strength.

Now if you ever want to talk about some less sexy things proven to move the needle like radio or websites or crafting an email …

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS In case it wasn’t clear above, TC’s are price-sensitive, only buy what is discounted, and have no loyalty to your store. RC’s are not as price-sensitive and have tremendous loyalty to your store (if you build that trust). The stronger you market yourself to one of these types, the less attractive you become to the other. Pick one and go after them strongly, because half-ass marketing to both is an even quicker way to fail.

PPS RC’s care about price, too. Just not in the same way as TC’s. You can’t gouge the heck out of an RC just because of the relationship. When they find out you’ve been gouging them, you will have destroyed all trust and lost them forever.

October 3, 2017

Taking My Own Advice

If you ever stopped by my office at Toy House, you saw the frying pans on the wall behind my head. Each one had a hole right through the bottom of the pan.

Target practice?

Nope. Just one big solitary spike sticking straight up out of a board, upon which I slammed each of those frying pans during a presentation.

The demonstration comes from a story I heard ages ago about a copywriter asked to write the ad copy for a big company. I include the story in my new book Most Ads Suck (But Yours Won’t). Here is the excerpt from the book …

A large company wasn’t getting the results they wanted out of their advertising. The company sequesters its marketing team away for the day to come up with a new campaign. After hours of deliberation and debate, the team finally comes up with the twelve most important talking points for the new campaign.

They call in the copywriter.

The team leader starts explaining to the copywriter all the points they need made.

“Point number one, blah, blah, blah. Point number two, blah, blah, blah …”

At this moment the team leader looks up to see the copywriter sitting there doing nothing.

“Aren’t you going to take any notes?”

Silently, the copywriter reaches into a large bag by his feet and pulls out a board with twelve shiny nails sticking straight up out of the board. He lays it down on the table, nails pointing upward. He then takes out a frying pan and slams it down on the bed of nails. The whole room echoes with the sound as the advertising team all jumps backwards. The copywriter then holds up the pan so that everyone can see the pattern of indents from the nails on the bottom of the pan.

The copywriter then pulls out another board. This one has one solitary spike on it. He places it on the table and slams the frying pan down onto this board. The spike impales the pan instantly. The pan goes down flush, stuck to the board.

The copywriter looks up at the startled crowd and asks, “How many points do you want me to make?”

I gave you my resume last week. That’s the whole kit and kaboodle (almost) of all my skills and talents all rolled into one. Out in the world of job applications, however, I am busy applying the Make Only One Point principle to my resume. Depending on the job, my resume will be tailored to include only the relevant information.

If I am applying to a Marketing & Advertising Job you don’t need to see all my Corporate Training experience. If I am applying to a Corporate Trainer job, you don’t need to know that I managed a multi-million dollar inventory. If I am applying to an Inventory Control job, you don’t need to know about the extra training I took at Wizard Academy. I’m trimming it down to the information you need (and providing more detail of that relevant info in the process.)

Make Only One Point works in advertising. It works in blogs. It works in emails. It works in pretty much all persuasive copy. It also works when applying to a job. It also works when communicating with your children. It just plain works. Adopt it and see how your results change.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS One of the benefits I have seen from making only one point in emails is that it eliminates questions going unanswered. People often respond to the first question in an email and rarely even read the second question. Also, it helps people who sort their emails by topic. If you have two points from different topics, you make it difficult for the other person to sort your email in a relevant fashion. Get the point?

PPS The demo is part of the Making Your Ads More Effective presentation. Everyone seems to like that part. They also like the advertising makeovers I do at the end. That’s the real meat. They get to see the six principles put into action. Call me when your group wants to take your advertising to the next level.

September 27, 2017

I’m Looking For Work

Since closing up Toy House last December I have been writing, speaking, coaching, sailing, selling, and singing for my supper. It has been an interesting adjustment from the steady paycheck of selling toys. It has been filled with highs and lows and stimulating conversations when people ask me how I’m enjoying “retirement.” I’m a few decades away from that word. I need to work.

The past few days I have thrown my hat into the ring for some full-time job openings in southern Michigan.

Yes, I am looking for work.

This is me. Always smiling. Always ready to help.

Here is my resume: (Please excuse my bragging—that’s what resumes are for, right?)

27 years as a Team Builder: Developed, Organized and Led Team Building Activities utilizing Low and High Ropes Courses, Wilderness & Experiential Activities, and designated tasks to promote better communication, cooperation and trust for groups ranging from adolescents to corporate America. Led and Facilitated Training Programs to teach others to be Team Builders. Wrote and published blogs and articles on Team Building.

24 years as a Purchasing Agent: Created and Managed Open-to-Buy programs for multi-million dollar retail store. Negotiated Terms with Vendors. Made Purchasing Decisions for millions of dollars of inventory. Designed Merchandising Displays including Revamping 16,000 square feet of display space. Led Workshops, Seminars and Webinars on Inventory Management, Pricing, and Financials,

22 years as a Marketing & Advertising Director: Developed and Managed Advertising Budgets between $20,000 and $120,000 annually. Made Advertising Purchases and Created Content for TV, Radio, Newsprint, Billboard, Direct Mail, Email, Facebook, In-Store Signage, Business Flyers, and Press Releases. Conceived, Organized and Hosted several public and private Marketing Events. Made Public Appearances at Networking Events, on Radio, and TV. Built websites for www.ToyHouseOnline.com and www.PhilsForum.com (among others). Led Workshops, Seminars and Webinars on Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations. Wrote book on Advertising called Most Ads Suck (But Yours Won’t).

21 years as an HR Director: Hired, Trained, Scheduled and Managed a team of 12 to 30 employees. Created an Employment Manual and Training Program. Planned, Organized and Led monthly Staff Trainings and Meetings. Led Workshops, Seminars and Webinars on Hiring & Training and Customer Service. Wrote and Published a Book on Hiring and Training called Hiring and the Potter’s Wheel: Turning Your Staff Into a Work of Art.

27 years as a Speaker/Teacher: I have given over 100 seminars to other businesses, led over 100 training workshops for staff development, facilitated over 100 team building events, conducted over 100 presentations on shopping to customers, and taught over 100 classes for new, expectant fathers at our local hospital.

9 years as a Writer: I have written four books, dozens of magazine articles, hundreds of different advertising content, and 788 blog posts (counting this one.)

I am looking for work.

You can hire me to do Private Coaching, one-on-one, in the area you need the most help. (For a lot of people that has been hiring and training.)

You can hire me to do Presentations and Workshops. My Customer Service presentation takes a unique approach by helping you define each point of contact a customer has with your business and measures your performance at every step along the way. Like my Hiring & Training presentation, this works with any type or size of business. In fact, it was a manufacturer who paid me the highest compliment telling me I had given him the “million-dollar idea” he needed to take his business to the next level (as he flew away on his private jet.)

You can hire me to help you revamp your Marketing & Advertising. Whether temporary as a coach/consultant and/or to help you create new content, or full-time as a Manager or Director, I will bring insights and skills that will move the needle for your business.

You can hire me to Write. My specialty in writing is to teach and persuade. I’m sure you can figure out how to use that in your business.

I’m not a perfect candidate. Most people look at my resume and get hung up on the fact I have Bachelor of Science in Geological Oceanography from the University of Michigan. That was 28 years ago. I barely remember that child (but I still know more about shoreline erosion than anyone really needs to know.)

Or they want to discount the above experiences because I didn’t do it in corporate America. I can see that. Of course, I did all those jobs simultaneously (plus twelve years as CEO and CFO) for a store that in 2009 was named “One of the 25 best independent stores in America!” in the book Retail Superstars by George Whalin. That’s not corporate America, but it does speak to my ability to learn and my ability to stay organized and focused while juggling a lot of responsibilities in a fast-paced environment.

I’d be happy to discuss these and any other reservations during the interview.

I am looking for work. Do you know anyone who can use a guy like me?

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS I apologize if this post sounds too much like bragging. I really do need more work. I want you to know I’m not just a blogger who thinks he knows something about business. I have walked the walk. I have made many mistakes and learned from them. I don’t have the business degree, but I did have the toughest teacher ever—real life! You get the exam first and then you get the lesson. Please share this post with anyone you know who could use a guy like me.

PPS You know my Core Values are Having Fun, Helping Others, Education and Nostalgia. My ideal job is teaching and helping others. It is what I do best and I enjoy it thoroughly. My second passion is marketing & advertising, finding new ways to drive traffic. That and Free Cell are my two favorite puzzles to solve. If the right opportunity comes along, however, I’m game for just about anything that lines up with my values.

September 8, 2017

The Table Ad That Will Make You Cry

The salesman said something that has stuck in my head for over two decades. “Most people only buy one dining room set in their lifetime. If you buy it right, you have something that is passed down through the generations.”

He was right.

My aunt is still using the table my grandparents bought when she was young. I played cards at my cousin’s house at a table with initials carved in it from family members who were gone long before I was born. My own dining room table is twenty three years old and counting.

True Value created an ad that captures that sentiment perfectly. Watch it here. (Go ahead. I’ll wait.)

Here is the transcript from that ad …

During the depression my grandfather went hungry around this table.
Before leaving for Vietnam my uncle ate one of his last meals in America around this table.
This table has played host to everything from Christmas dinners to Grandma’s bridge tournaments to arguments about politics and sports.
This table has had fists pounded on it, pumpkins carved on it, and babies spit up on it.
Four generations of children have had to sit at this table until they ate all their vegetables, one of them just last week.
This table has a story. This table is a story. And the story doesn’t end any time soon.

This ad hits all the emotions of a dining room table perfectly. This ad is written for the Nostalgia crowd. That’s one of my core values which is why this ad resonates with me. It also fits most of the principles of a powerful ad.

This ad 1) tells a story, 2) speaks to the heart, 3) doesn’t look or sound like any other hardware store ad out there, 4) makes only one point – that we are the store for people who want to restore keepsakes and memories. 5) It speaks to the nostalgia crowd and the do-it-yourself tribe. 6) It covers enough universal memories that it could very well be your own table.

About the only thing it doesn’t do is connect you solidly back to the brand.

By itself, this is a highly emotional ad that makes you think about your own table and all the memories it holds. But it doesn’t make you think about True Value. To do that it needs to be a series of ads with a similar feel that over time will begin to resonate because it will tell an even larger story about the brand.

The important takeaway is that one great ad won’t necessarily move the needle. It is when you craft a series of ads, a campaign with the same style and flair that people come to recognize as you the instant the music or voice or image opens, then the magic begins to happen.

If True Value were to do a series of ads like this over a period of time, they would begin to own the hearts of the Nostalgia crowd. They would get the top of mind awareness for the people who share that sentiment and believe what they believe. They would establish themselves as the brand for those who want to restore and refinish and value the old-style craftsmanship. One ad won’t do that. One ad will make you think of tables. A series of ads gets you to think about the brand.

My favorite compliment about my advertising for Toy House was not about any individual ad. It was when people said they couldn’t wait to hear the next ad. It is the series of ads that truly speaks about your brand and tells your customers what you believe.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS The ad copy is poetry. All great ad copy reads and sounds like poetry. Then again, the poet’s job has always been to take something you already knew, reframe your perspective, and make you feel something. Oh, and the ad-writer’s job is to take something your customers already know, reframe their perspective, and make them feel something. But you already know that.

September 6, 2017

Breaking Down the Typical Car Ad

My son wrote an amazing car ad right off the top of his head. He did it in response to the boring-to-downright-excruciatingly-bad car ads we were seeing while watching football over the weekend.

You know the kind of car ad I’m talking about.

It starts with a close up of the curves and shiny paint job of some new car while a voice talks in hushed tones about beauty or design or craftsmanship.
Then you see the full vehicle driving on a winding road through the mountains or doing donuts on the salt flats of Utah or cruising through some generic downtown while the words “professional driver on a closed circuit” flash briefly at the bottom of the screen.
Then the vehicle is parked. If it is an SUV it is on top of a mountain with a panoramic view. If it is a sedan or sports car then it is shot from above looking down on the car with a city landscape in the background. (Or in Buick’s case – both!)
Then big numbers flash on the screen with a bunch of small print, and a voice telling you in rapid-fire, small-print kind of speech that if you work for the company you can get some amazing deal on a lease or something like that.

Outside of the testimonial ads*, isn’t that pretty much 80-90% of the car ads out there?

Let’s break down what these ads are telling you.

Scene 1, the opening shot, is supposed to subliminally suggest sex. The hushed tones, the close-ups, the reveal-a-little-but-not-the-whole-thing. Yeah, that’s the tease to get you interested. The problem is that most of the vehicles tend to be morphing into each other to the point you can’t tell them apart without their logo. Right now Mazda is running an ad where the vehicle is completely covered on the outside while people test drive it and then they reveal the logo at the end to the driver’s surprise. If you can’t tell a Mazda from a BMW by the shape of the car, does design really matter that much? For years now Buick has been running ads about how people can’t even recognize that the car is a Buick. So much for design branding.

Scene 2, the driving sequence, shows the car going through its paces, not your paces. You won’t ever get to do donuts on the salt flats or go speeding around traffic-free, hairpin turns in the mountains. You’d like to do that. But you won’t. You aren’t a “professional driver on a closed circuit”. How does it handle stop-and-go traffic during rush hour? How tight is the turning radius for pulling into the parking lot at Costco? How bad are the blind spots when you’re backing up out of the drive? For 99% of the buyers, that’s more relevant than mountain driving, anyway.

Scene 3, the parked vehicle, is the glamour shot. They all finish with the glamour shot. Supposedly this is so you can recognize their car from all the other similar looking cars when you finally go out to buy one. The shot signifies that we are nearing the end of the ad. This wouldn’t be bad if there had been some kind of story coming to an end. This wouldn’t be so bad if it actually was the end. But it isn’t.

The glamour shot is simply the background to Scene 4, the offer. Big, bold numbers and a bunch of fine print showing up telling you that if you work for the company and are approved you can get some version of this vehicle “right now” for only $999 down and $230 a month. This part of the ad drives me crazy.

First, the deal they are offering comes with pages of fine print, the first being you have to be an employee to get this deal. Really? You’re paying millions for this commercial to tell the 209,000 people of GM about a sale just for them? Why not send them an email and save a few million? Otherwise, you’re just telling the 317 million people who don’t work for GM that they will have to pay more.

Second, no one actually gets that deal. No one. The car has too many extra features or you aren’t fully approved with an 850 credit score.

Third, the deal takes away from any of the feelings the ad may have stirred (granted not many feelings, but still …). The ad goes from one about how sleek, sexy, powerful, luxurious, rugged, adventurous, green, and quiet the vehicle is to, “Hey, it’s on sale!!!!” The person looking for a deal doesn’t care about all those other adjectives. The person who cares about those adjectives is less concerned about the deal. The offer waters down the message for both groups.

No matter how you slice it, these ads don’t speak to your heart. They don’t tell you a compelling story. They try to make more points than anyone could remember. They look and sound like everyone else. Ford, GM, Toyota, Honda, Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep, Lexus, Nissan, even Kia are all spending millions without moving the needle.

When you go to create your ads for your business, do me one favor. Don’t fall into the trap of, “Well, the big companies do this so it must be right,” kind of thinking. I’ve just shown you how really big companies can do things incredibly wrong.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS *Even the Chevy ads with “real” people showing off their awards and using testimonials aren’t nearly as effective as they think. One study shows that more people find these kinds of ads less believable than find them more believable.

PPS Sorry. I just made it impossible for you to watch any more car ads without thinking about this post. Hopefully you’ll laugh more than cry about the absurdity of them all. Me? I die a little inside each time.

PPPS I went back and looked at the car ads from the UM football game. Lexus swaps out driving in the mountains with driving in a black gigantic showroom of some kind. Nissan shows cars driving on a football field. Like either of those is going to happen in real life.