Gratuitous sorcery and incantations from actual Wizards.

Let’s be honest—everybody loves to gripe about how expensive radio is… until they see what not advertising costs them.

In this episode of Advertising in America, we’re throwing shade at sticker shock and calling out the tired trope that “radio is too expensive.” We break down the real question: expensive compared to what? Compared to TV? Radio’s a steal. Compared to billboards? Maybe. Compared to doing nothing and watching your competitors eat your lunch? Radio’s a downright bargain.

Here’s the kicker: if you want the kind of results our clients see, you need to reach at least 12% of the market, two to three times a week. That kind of frequency does cost money. But you know what costs more? Irrelevance.

Oh, and one more thing—before you assume this is a pitch, remember this: we don’t get paid to spend your money. We get paid when you make more of it. That’s how the Wizard of Ads rolls.

Episode Highlights:

• “Expensive” is meaningless without context. What’s the alternative—and does it work?
• Radio requires repetition. If you’re not showing up often, you’re not showing up at all.
• ROI > CPM. Always.
• The Wizard of Ads doesn’t charge by the hour or by the impression. We eat what we kill.
  
  

This episode’s for the business owners tired of playing budget bingo and the marketers brave enough to invest in real results—not just line items. Tune in to hear why radio still works, what it really costs, and how to tell the difference between expensive and valuable.

🎧 Hit play. Then go make some noise.

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On today's episode of Advertising in America, we're complaining about how expensive radio is. Oh, so expensive. Is it too expensive? You can never say a medium is too expensive until you know what your alternatives are. Compared to tv, radio's probably cheaper compared to billboards. I don't know. You need to reach at least 12% of the market two to three times per week to get the kind of results that we do with radio, and in many cases, that will cost the client a lot of money. Before I talk about radio, which our clients use a lot, I wanna remind you how the Wizard of Ads gets paid. Our clients pay us not by how much money we spend or how much time we spend working on your account. We get paid based on how much money you make.

Ryan: On today's episode of Advertising in America, we're complaining about how expensive radio is. ‍

Chris: Oh, so expensive. 

Ryan: Is it too expensive? 

Chris: No. 

Ryan: Or is it? Or is it worth trying out? Or is it? O is it worth the actual spend? 

Mick: Can you solve every problem by just saying, or is it?

Ryan: And we're live in three, two

Mick: Buttocks.

Ryan: Let her rip bud. 

Mick: Well, there is some validity to this. In fact, both radio and television suffer from the same inconvenient truth, and your media sales rep will not tell you what I'm about to tell you. You need to reach at least 12% of the market at least two to three times per week to get the kind of results that we do with radio.

And in many cases, that will cost the client a lot of money. Now, let's consider those two ideas. A lot of money and too expensive. Because I think sometimes we use those ideas interchangeably, and that's a mistake. If you have an annual marketing budget of $50,000 and your business is in Los Angeles, radio is not a good idea for you.

You won't be able to reach enough people often enough to make radio perform for you. Digital is really your only option. Now, that doesn't change the fact that digital is too expensive because no matter how much you're spending or where you live, digital is definitely too expensive. But if it's the only option you have, then you need to write the check, even if it's too expensive. However, if you're not in a top five American market and you have a larger annual marketing budget, then you do in fact have a few options beyond pay-per-click and Google My Business. And that's where things get more interesting. 

But before I talk about radio, which our clients use a lot, I wanna remind you how the Wizard of Ads gets paid. Our clients pay us not by how much time we spend working on your account. We get paid based on how much money you make, specifically how much more money you made this year compared to last year, which means we are financially incentivized to recommend to our clients the surest way to increase their top-line revenue. If our client makes a lot more money, we make a little more, and that keeps everyone honest. 

But back to radio. I'm not a media buyer, so I know just enough about media buying to be a little dangerous. But a typical media buy from a Wizard of Ads Partner we all work with will reach a particular radio listener three times per week, every week for 52 weeks a year.

And the cost of reaching that listener will be in the neighborhood of $1. 

Now I hear you asking, you mean a dollar every time the ad plays? No, I mean a dollar per year per listener. So let me break that down for you. The average listener hears our 60-seocnd ads three times a week, every week, or 52 weeks. That's 156 minutes a year they're spending with us. That's longer than a feature film, and it costs our client a sawbuck. Now tell me the digital strategy that can give you that kind of interaction. For a single greenback, most direct mail campaigns will cost you more than a dollar per person per mailing, and that's to reach the customer once, not 156 times.

Most pay-per-click campaigns cost hundreds of dollars per interaction. What can you buy online for a dollar these days? Anything?  And, you wonder why we recommend radio as often as we do. So what do you consider too expensive now?

Ryan: I suspect if you did have 2.6 hours a year to talk to a single prospect, you might be able to get them to know, like, and trust you, when they eventually need your thing. Chris, how in the world are we gonna pay for this frivolous thing? 

Chris: Too expensive is relative. Expensive compared to what? You can never say a medium is too expensive until you know what your alternatives are. Compared to TV, radio's probably cheaper per listener, per insertion. Certainly cheaper to produce. Compared to billboards, I don't know. Compared to Google pay-per-click.

In Charlotte, North Carolina, “air conditioner repair near me” is almost 300 bucks per click. Not for a sale, for a click. Just for clicking on your name, even by accident, one guy looking at your homepage once 300 bucks, how many listeners would that 300 bucks get you on radio? Probably thousands. 

The question in choosing media is always the same. Who is your target? Where do they congregate and how much is it to reach them in those places? There's a reason Rolex sponsors horse jumping because it's affordable. No, it's not affordable, but it's because that's where all the rich people are.

Our Wizard of Ads Partner, Steven Semple, has an executive jet client, does he advertise on the radio? No. Thousands of dollars in media to reach the 200 guys in town who can afford to take a private jet. Too expensive. Direct marketing targets, just those people. 

But if you sell air conditioners, direct marketing might be too expensive, trying to reach every single person in town with a house with a personalized mailer. If you have a niche product, you need a targeted medium. It'll be expensive per target, but your target count will be high. If you have a mass product, you need mass media, beer, cell phones, air conditioners, and diamond rings. Your target is grownups, so you need to reach the most grownups as affordably as possible.

The cool thing about radio is that Nielsen will tell you how many people will hear your ads at what times on what stations, and you can see how much it costs to reach each person at whatever frequency. If you wanna be a household name, the market leader, the brand, everyone thinks of first and is most predisposed to buy from, you're going to have to invest upfront.

The cool part is the bigger and more successful you get, the more of a household name you become, and the lower percentage of your revenue you'll need to spend on that same media, because that won't change. I'll tell you what is expensive. Running a business where the phone doesn't ring and no customers walk through the front door, suck it up, buttercup.

Ryan: That is expensive. Chris. Now a word from our sponsor...

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Remember that saying, only half your marketing is working. You just don't know which half. Let's help you with that. Book it free strategy session with wizard Ryan Chute today at wizardofads.services. Yes, that's a URL wizardofads.services. Now let's get back to the show. 

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Ryan: So the crux of this whole conversation really revolves around three major measuring aspects of the marketing that you're doing. You have the impact quotient, you have the frequency of ads, and you have the reach of ads. The more impact you have with the ad that you have, the less you have to do frequency. If you had something that was simple to buy, it was highly, highly sought after, and it was impulse in nature and so much that people would automatically just go in droves and pick this thing up. You could actually stand to run a fairly aggressive reach campaign. That's talking to as many people for as little amount of money as possible.

But the reality of it is, is that most companies that we work with are working with the idea that when they're advertising, the person doesn't need their thing and it's an externally triggered grudge purchase. They don't want to buy their thing at any given time. You start to look at what are we going to do to be successful in the strategy?

And it really comes down to what are we trying to achieve strategically? 

Are we trying to be the ones that they know, like and trust before they need the thing, or are we trying to capture the today customer who's impulsively going to buy the thing immediately? Or are we trying to achieve something else?

So we have a frequency, we have a reach, and we have an impact quotient.

Frequency strategies ensure that your message resonates by repeating it to the same listener over and over to build that retention and recall. The reach campaign targets more people with less frequency, but we have to assume that we're saying something that is so darn relevant and salient and impactful that they're going to hang onto that with such little frequency, which we can't fool ourselves into thinking when we're selling air conditioners or hot water tanks. We'd have far more success with this if we were selling Lululemon pants. Right. 

Chris: I mean, there's a great example of that, that's actually the exception that proves the rule kind of a thing. It's not radio, but there's a great example from that for years, Masterlock, the people who made padlocks, they ran one commercial a year. They would make the commercial, they would air it once on the Super Bowl, and it was the one where the, the, the sharpshooter, shoots a bullet through it and the guy comes up and the, and the lock is still locked. And that's a great example of, boy, that commercial just hits you upside the head and you just go, man, Masterlock, if I ever need a padlock, that's the one 'cause it just sticks with you. 

But just because a company like that can do that doesn't mean that's how other companies can build a brand. You can't just say, well, we'll do the same thing with our thing we sell. Pencil erasers. And so we just need to come up with as gangbusters a spot for pencil erasers and we can do that too. It's kind of the exception that proves the rule. Almost everybody else who wants to be a market leader in something has to do it by being omnipresent and communicating something consistent about their brand that they are omnipresent in doing. 

Mick: Well, you brought up an interesting point. Do we want to build the brand and wait for people to need us, or do we want to speak to the person who wants to buy today?

Well, statistically, if you talk to a hundred business owners and say, which of those people do you wanna talk to? Pretty much all of those business owners with one or two exceptions will say, we want to talk to the person who wants to buy today, which for our clients is freaking great. Because what that means is that we now have the opportunity to win their hearts and minds literally years before they become in the market.

But people are so laser-focused on, “What can you do for me right now?” They will ignore all that. They will pay through the roof. They will bid against everyone else who just wants the person who wants to buy today. And the next thing you know, they have to spend 300 bucks for a freaking click. Well, that's awesome for my client because my client is not going to wait until they need us to put their name into their head. They're actually gonna get to the point where. You're saying to yourself, “I love this company so much. If only my roof would start leaking, I would know which roof company to call.” 

So the opportunity that businesses have to beat those guys is tremendous because statistically so many of them are thinking such short term and radio is not a short-term medium.

Chris: Well, and it's not just a grudge purchase either. I mean,I have a list of hamburgers that I like, or hamburger restaurants that I like. I have a list in my head of pizza places that I like, soft drinks, you know, beverages. You don't have to advertise your beer to me when I'm thirsty. I'm gonna get thirsty at some point. I'm gonna want a beer. It's not just a grudge purchase thing either. Do people have things that they now know about that they know what they like about it? They've already got a, a preconceived notion of what it would be like to be one of those consumers and then when the opportunity arises, there you are.

Ryan: And I imagine it like Texas Grass, all of these advertising points, all of these brand touches are the rain and the, and the moisture that is feeding the grass, the sunshine that is giving it nutrients in life, the things that it needs to survive. And when it is not exposed to the elements that make it survive, you're gonna have it dissipate like Texas grass in the summer, right? It's gonna turn gray. It's turn, turn brown. And these are your neurotransmitters. These are the things where they're, they're literally forging the wiring in your brain and that wiring will eventually die off. And if you let it die off, it's going to be replaced with other things.

Maybe nothing to do with McDonald's. “I'm loving it” slogan or Geico's commercials or even Apple’s- who consistently invest in frequency-based strategies, not reach-based strategies.

Chris: And reinforce what it's you like about that brand. 

Mick: Well, there you go. And we also tend to assume that all radio ads provide the same result.

That again, is what you'll find when you, when you talk to, to people who are not sophisticated in their advertising. They'll  say, “Well, we run radio ads, we run TV ads, we run billboards.” And they think that if you ask them about their marketing camp, what, what are you doing for marketing? They'll say, “Well, we do radio ads, we do TV ads, we do billboards. You know, we have a website, we do pay per click” and say, you haven't told me anything. Actually, you've just told me how you say it. But you haven't told me what you're saying. So many people are thinking backwards in that sense. They focus more on how they're gonna say it, which is the medium and less on what they have to say and why anybody might want to hear it and might have anything, that might resonate with them. If you run a radio ad that's shitty and sounds like everybody else's well then yeah, radio is absolutely too expensive.

Chris: Yeah. Because it's not gonna perform for you. 

Mick: And ditto for TV and ditto for billboards. I mean, if all your billboard campaign is a picture of your product and where to purchase it, well that's a crap billboard and it's not gonna work. Billboards are too expensive. Well, true enough. But why are you thinking in terms of what's too expensive?

You should really be thinking about what it is that you want to say, and why that's gonna stand out from what everybody else is saying as compared to the other people who sell what you sell. And if you can come up with a really strong, compelling reason why purchasing from you is good for me, then that will be a tremendously effective ad On radio, on television, and online, no matter where you go. 

So people ask us this question all the time. How can you afford to do radio? Radio is really expensive. Well, radio is only too expensive, any medium is only too expensive when you don't put good content on that medium. 

Ryan: Yep. Yep. A huge, a huge component. Now, there is a psychological principle around repetition called the Mirror Exposure Effect. In this effect, what we're talking about is the psychological phenomenon where people tend to develop a preference for things simply because they are familiar with them. Repetition through frequency creates familiarity, which leads to trust and the likeliness of a purchase. So this is an exercise in embedding, in retention, in recall, in those markets where brands are quite weak, we find that it's very easy for our customers to stand 600 feet above the competition. 

Now, when you're in a very saturated brand-rich market with high frequency, it is incredibly difficult to penetrate that market as a new brand coming into the space because they already have a known like and trusted supplier of whatever it is the thing that they're selling.

Mick: Well, I'm trying to beat that guy, or at least even play in the same league with him, is very expensive, regardless of how you try to achieve that.

Ryan: No matter how you try to achieve it. Now, data from the Radio Advertising Bureau shows us that the frequency of ads is more likely to drive consumer action, such as a visit to a website, making a phone call, or even purchasing; ads heard multiple times are more likely to translate into engagement and conversion compared to one-off ads and in infrequent impressions that you see on digital campaigns. 

Chris: You wonder if that's where, when you get people who say, “Well, yeah, we tried radio, it was too expensive.” Did they do it, you know, you talked about in, in another episode about, about buying 52-week media? You know, the number of people who, ah, they tried running an ad for 13 weeks and, they didn't, they asked around nobody, nobody heard it and whatever it, “but it cost us 10 grand”, so then… 

Mick: Let's go from a billboard couple of weeks. 

Chris: You know, that's, that's so expensive. We spent 10 grand on this thing and hardly anybody heard it. Well, no, it's because you didn't use the medium properly. You didn't get the reach and frequency. You didn't, you didn't get the consistency out of the messaging. You didn't let the campaign become part of the consciousness by being always there by continuing to grow the campaign and, and draw people along in the story of the campaign. 

Ryan: There's two big things that come from that. One is you, you haven't let the advertising live longer than the purchase cycle, right? Right. And if your purchase cycle is longer than your ad campaign, you've already lost. Right. You are only going to get those today buyers if you're lucky. The second is what's most important here to remember that advertisers are selling you advertising so that they can make a commission and a paycheck. 

We're selling advertising and using radio and TV and whatever the most cost-effective media is for the maximum frequency and reach because we're trying to avoid advertising decay. We're trying to avoid the decay of that loss. 

Mick: We're trying to increase our client's top-line revenue because that's how we're paid. We're paid on sales. 

Ryan: Absolutely, we're not gonna be successful if we don't play a game that's congruent with the brain. The first part of that brain is seven seconds. They're going to hear your ad and try everything they can to forget it. The worse the ad, the easier it's to forget it, and less frequency. it's very easy for it to dissipate and disappear. The second middle part of the brain lasts about seven days, and in those seven days, what we're looking at is sleep constantly erasing the brain. It's kind of like those old PCs that would defrag the drives and consolidate all of the information to get it more tight and bright. Hanging onto the things that mattered. 

Well, if you've had some frequency throughout those seven days and you've said something that's salient, that has value and weight, and it might just be in humour, it might be in making them angry or, or even cry or endeared towards you, then you have some chance of throwing a brick into that long-term chemical memory of the brain, and that long-term chemical memory is where we're really trying to take up residence. We want our real estate in the chemistry of their head so that we become a part of the entire fabric of the brain. 

Now, there's two major components that do that. One, is every time they see and get an impression of your brand, be it a truck wrap, a billboard, a  Google impression, a Facebook impression, somebody, you know, gives 'em a word of mouth and, uh, then they hear some radio ads. Well, those are all bricks, right? And those are all bricks that either come in clean and pure or broken because they've, they've had some set level of impact that matters.

The second important part is the part that basically everyone forgets. Right. Unless you're a really good big advertiser like the Apple’s and the McDonald's of the world who understand that it's the emotion that brings the mortar into this equation. The emotion is what allows you to go from just having a stack or a pile of bricks in the chemistry of the brain in that real estate, and the opposite, being a McMansion, being able to build as tall and as big and as wide as you want 10 years down the road, imagine how big this beautiful mansion of, of a brand is in their brain because you had mortar to start within the first place. Emotion is the thing that makes it stick. That's the salience, the impact quotient, the importance of all of these aspects of your brand coming together and making a beautiful, beautiful piece of architecture called your brand.

Chris: Yeah, and I mean, when you talk about emotion there are certain media that lend themselves to building that emotion and certain media that don't. Right?  Billboard is not particularly emotional. You can try and put a sad puppy on and say, “Adopt a puppy” has a little bit of emotion, but it doesn't really do it. What does it is the broadcast media, and that's where, you know, and, and in radio especially when you can do, you know, somewhat more affordably can do 60-second stories where you can draw people into a thought and you can expand on it and you can bring nuance to it. That's a medium where you can deliver on that emotion. So the value of that is amazing. 

Mick: I wanna bring it back to something that you said because it sounds like a little thing, but I, I think it's a big thing. Comparing when you expect the advertising to succeed as compared to the purchase cycle. I think that's something that people don't pay attention to enough.

And, you know, Chris has a lot of experience in short purchase cycle products. If you're selling Sugarless gum, you really can run a campaign for 13 weeks and then say, okay, what, what, what's going on? Why? Because you buy gum twice a week, right? Or beer. Yeah. I mean it's, you know, nobody buys beer once every seven years like you do with a, with a fricking water heater or, or any, every 25 years as you do with your roof. I know you're painfully aware of this because it's, it's a major shift. It's not a hundred percent.  You also sell Porsches, but you sort of worked on both sides of that purchase cycle line. 

You know, a lot of consumer products have high purchase cycles, and so it's easy to say, “Well, we can run this TV campaign, this radio campaign”, and say, “Well, let's start measuring the results” and, and at the big agency level when you're selling Gatorade, you would absolutely say, “Okay, so then what happened? Did more people buy Gatorade? 

Chris: Did it go up this summer after we ran these ads? After we ran these ads?” 

Mick: If your business is not a, “I purchase it every two weeks” kind of product or service, then you really have to factor in that if this is an every five-year purchase and every 10-year purchase and every 20-year purchase, then measuring after six weeks or six months is ludicrous because we are not catching up with you. You can win my heart and if there's nothing wrong with my roof, my air conditioner, or my used recreational vehicle, I'm not gonna make a purchase no matter how good your ads are. You have to wait. You have to bear that in mind. Factor that into your decision-making as far as how quickly you're gonna measure the results.

And that's regardless of meaning. 

Ryan: So hugely important and where we get lost very often when I talk with various clients in various industries across the world, what I'm hearing them believe is the purchase cycle and what the actual purchase cycles are, are two dramatically different things.

Most air conditioning people in America think that their purchase cycle is every six months when what the data tells us that it's actually every 2.3 years and the replacement on an average air conditioner system is in their mind 10 years because that's when the warranty's over, when they start trying to sell it again. When what the reality is, is that it's more like 19 years, regardless of what part of the country you're in

Mick:  'cause you can fix 'em. 

Ryan: Because you can fix them and you can maintain them, and you can actually not worry about buying a thing that they don't feel like they need to be bought just because you're trying to sell it. So when you start to look at the real math versus the hopeful math, we end up kind of again, falling down these rabbit holes of red herrings and unreliable conclusions based on your desires, not the reality that it, that you're facing. So if you wanna get replacement business, you're chasing after a 19-year cycle, not after a 10-year cycle. That means you have to advertise for 19 years to get the full breadth and power and impact of your advertising. 

Because if they bought one today and they buy one another 19 years from now on average, which is what the industry data tells us. Then in fact, you have to wait that long. What can we do in the meantime?

We can do maintenance, we can do repairs. We can do such a wonderful job that they refer us to other people. So delighted that we don't have to pay them for the referral. They will give us unsolicited five-star reviews, and they'll be very, very loyal to make sure that they're not only buying from you, but insisting that their friends and family know that you are their guy.

So is it expensive in conclusion? I would say yes. 

Mick: It's not cheap. It's probably the wrong word. We're probably using the wrong word. If you're thinking that radio is too expensive, you're probably using the wrong word. And you're probably thinking of the wrong problem.

Ryan: Right. And that's exactly it is where do I put my advertising dollars? My limited advertising dollars? In all fairness, because we're not dealing with the Apples and the Googles of the world that have infinite budgets. What we do work with is small businesses. $3 million to $5 million shops who are aspiring to get to $20, $30, $40, and $50 million. Some a hundred million and some more. 

Is it expensive for a hundred-million-dollar shop? The answer is, we started with a shop 12 years ago that was $9 million shop that ran a 12% marketing budget. 

That exact same shop exactly 10 years later was spending 3% of their total marketing budget, including our fees, sponsorships, to national sports teams.

Mick: And how big are they now? 

Ryan: And they're a hundred and. $15 million company at that size. So it's all very relative and every city, town, and then rural area is going to be a different proportion, both in efficiency and in actual costs. Because let's all face it, a rural area, it's gonna cost us very little money, but it's going to be obnoxiously inefficient because there's just not enough listeners to make it efficient.

The flip side of it is a giant city is by far the most efficient, but also the most expensive in pure total dollars. So you're fighting this tug and pull of where do I spend my money to get a flow of leads that I'm looking forward to feed the beast that I'm trying to feed and to keep up with capacity. All of these things are absolutely valid challenges that you have to consider. These are the challenges that we look at when we are looking at how can we talk to the most amount of people for the least amount of money. And when we figure out that radio ends up being a very low production cost, that reaches the most amount of people at frequency, so now you're embedding into them, the cost truly is in that first couple of years until the purchase cycle starts to cycle in and kick in. 

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Hey listeners, Wizard, Ryan Chute here. Want to personalized strategy to instantly 4X the effectiveness of your marketing dollars?

Schedule a free call with me at wizardofads.services. We'll chat about your goals and how you can quickly dominate your marketplace. I have limited availability though, so don't delay. I guess you could delay it a bit, but not too much. That'd be like, like an over delay. So, maybe just, skip the delay part entirely and book your call, just as soon as you're ready to start making money. You certainly don't want to delay that, right? And now, pitter-patter. 

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Ryan: So is it expensive? 

Chris: Yes and no. 

Ryan: Yes and no. It's relative. Here's where it's most expensive. As we wrap this up, what I see is most expensive is if you don't reach the same core people at the right repetition, you're absolutely wasting your money and you should not spend the money. Full stop. 

If you reach your audience with a message that doesn't leave a lasting impression and name recognition, right, because there's nothing worse than having a great ad that no one remembers your name on. 

Mick: Don't get him started. 

Ryan: Oh my goodness. I know you will have to pay the tax of being unremarkable and a better message will cost you infinitely less and garner a premium price for the products that you sell.

Three, if you're not ready to start a campaign that you can run at least 52 weeks a year, every year for as long as you own your business. Don't waste your money. Because if your purchase cycle's three years or 2.3 years, you're not going to see the full effect of the first cycle on service until 2.3. In 19 years to see the full effect of that cycle on the total long-term high ticket purchase cycle for those air conditioner companies out there. Now, is it different for different brands and companies and industries, industries and everything else, different parts of the country? The answer is yes. 

Mick: There's nothing more expensive than a six-week flight. 

Ryan: Nothing more. Right. And last but not least, if you cannot serve a whole area in your, that you're advertising to, don't run radio ads. It is the kiss of death to go out there and say, “Hey, buy my stuff”. You, the person calls in and says, “Will you service my area?” And you say, “We don't serve the side of the river.”

Mick: “We don't go over there.”

Ryan: Guess who's never calling you back again? That is a waste of money. Is there a strategy that we can run that is going to serve and target at mass?

The type of messaging that you want to do with repetition, frequency, and all of those things that matter? The answer is yes. It's not about choosing radio for the sake of radio. We're media agnostic. We don't care. It's about choosing the marketing channel that is going to serve the need of the situation that you have at hand right now, based on your budget, be it that you're a million-dollar company or a hundred-million-dollar company. It's all going to play out to suit your specific situation, not the blanket situation that happens to make sense or not make sense to an industry debating whether or not a channel makes sense. 

The channel's the last thing that we wanna worry about. The first thing we wanna do is what's your strategy? How are we gonna tell your story? That's going to be impactful enough to deliver on a channel that is going to get the frequency and repetition for the budget that you have at hand. Work with what you've got. That's one of the things that we deeply, deeply believe in. Folks you've been listening to Advertising in America.

Thank you so much for listening. Tune in next time. 

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Thank you for joining us on Advertising in America. We hope you enjoyed the show and captured a nugget of marketing magic. Wanna hear more? Subscribe, leave a review and share this podcast with your friends. Do you have questions or topics you want us to cover?

Join us on our socials @advertisinginamerica. Wanna spend your marketing budget better? Visit us at wizardofads.services to book your free strategy session with Wizard Ryan Chute today. Until next time, keep your ads enchanting and your audience captivated.

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Over 100 years ago, ad man, John Kennedy, famously defined advertising as:

“Salesmanship In Print.”

And while I don’t 100% agree with that definition — as it over-emphasizes “reason why” selling and dismisses the importance of bonding and distinctiveness — there’s still a lot of truth in it.

Persuasive principles that work in sales can also work very powerful in advertising messaging.

Take the classic copywriting formula of Pain-Agitate-Solution.

1. Identify and evoke a pain (or problem) the prospect suffers from
2. Focus on the pain and “agitate,” causing the customer to recall and freshly feel the frustration, anger, embarrassment, loss, etc. caused by that particular pain.
3. Provide the solution and show how much better life will be with the solution.

Consult most any TV Infomercial to see this formula in action.

So now that we’ve covered the formula, how do you supercharge it?

Remember and apply The Universal Appeals.

1. It’s not your fault, and
2. You are special

By all means, identify and agitate the pain — but give your audience a psychological out.

It’s “not your fault” that you’re experiencing these difficulties.

Why?

Depends on the case, but reasons why “it’s not your fault” could range from:

• The experts / industry lied to you or set you up for failure
• Everybody in your position experiences them
• You’re experiencing them precisely because you’re special

Then, when you present the solution, offer it up as an ideal solution for special people, just like your prospect.

For example:

You’re probably tired of being on the Pay-Per-Crack treadmill, where you are paying more and more for digital leads of low quality, just to keep your growing company fed with new business.

And that’s not your fault because PPC is always the first step of new business to get leads, and it’s a mix of the industry’s greed and fierce competition that keeps costs high and steadily rising higher.

Moreover, it’s almost impossible to get high-quality leads from customers who only hear about you when they’re actively ready to buy.

And that means PPC leads are all-but-guaranteed to be low quality.

The good news is that if you’re looking for a solution instead of complaining about it, you’re one of the few business owners smart enough to consider alternatives like branding.

Granted, it’s not easy. But if it was easy, everyone would do it. Which is precisely what makes it your secret weapon

Because business owner capable of investing in long-term branding are the smart ones who will eventually take charge of their lead-flow and grow to dominate their business.

Just so long as they’re smart enough to partner with an expert in guiding owner-operated businesses like theirs in launching effective mass media branding campaigns powered by high-impact ads.

And that’s how you supercharge your sales message.

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In the world of marketing, especially when targeting small businesses and service companies, it is crucial to differentiate between brand building and sales activation. Both play significant roles in a comprehensive marketing strategy, but they serve different purposes and require different approaches.

Many business owners equate marketing to a gumball machine: you put in a quarter (investment) and expect an immediate gumball (return). This is what we call sales activation. It’s direct, measurable, and often provides quick results. Sales activation focuses on short-term goals and typically drives immediate responses from targeted audiences. This approach involves tactics like bidding on specific search phrases, sending out direct mail to chosen zip codes, and calculating direct returns on these activities.

For instance, a home services company might spend $7,000 on sending out 10,000 direct mail letters. If this results in three sales of $20,000 home comfort systems each, the return is clear and quantifiable—a $60,000 revenue from a $7,000 investment. This kind of “gumball math” makes it appealing for businesses looking for quick, tangible results.

On the other hand, brand building is not a quick-fix solution. It doesn’t work like a gumball machine—you can’t expect immediate fame or recognition from minimal investment or effort. Brand building is about creating lasting impressions, establishing a reputation, and fostering trust and loyalty among consumers. It involves a consistent and strategic approach to developing your business’s identity and positioning in the market.

Brand building is not directly measurable in the short term and often requires patience and persistence. It’s about answering questions like: How do people feel about your brand? What do they associate with your business when they see your logo or hear your name? Are you considered a thought leader in your industry?

This aspect of marketing demands a more profound understanding of your audience and a commitment to delivering consistent, valuable interactions. Over time, this investment in your brand contributes to your business’s equity and can lead to sustained growth.

The key for small businesses, particularly those in industries like home services, is to balance brand building with sales activation. According to Les Binet and Peter Field’s seminal work, the ideal marketing strategy follows a 60/40 rule—60% of efforts should go towards long-term brand building and 40% towards short-term sales activations. This balance ensures that while your business is generating immediate cash flow through direct sales tactics, it is also investing in building a robust brand that will yield benefits in the long run.

While the appeal of the gumball machine analogy in sales activations is undeniable due to its straightforward nature, successful branding requires a broader view and a long-term commitment. By fostering a strategic blend of both elements, businesses can achieve not only immediate sales but also long-term market presence and consumer trust.

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A recurrent theme in discussions about sales management and production lines is addressing flaws effectively. In a production line, pinpointing the root cause is crucial when something goes wrong. In sales management, pinpointing the root cause is vital when something goes wrong,

Let’s create a simple mental model of what a “customer” production line might look like in the home services industry.

• Does the prospective customer have a preferred brand they think of immediately and feel best about when the need occurs?  Yes or no
  • Does the prospective customer call you directly? Yes or no
  • Does the prospective customer already know your brand?  Yes or no
  • Does the prospective customer do a branded search online for you? Yes or no
  • Does the prospective customer self-book an appointment on your website?  Yes or no
• Does the prospective customer do a generic search online for you? Yes or no
  • Does the prospective customer call you from an online ad?  Yes or no
  • Does the prospective customer call you after engaging with your website? Yes or no
• Does the prospective customer call and speak with a CSR? Yes or no
• Does the prospective customer book an appointment? Yes or no
• Does your team dispatch the appointment? Yes or no
• Does your team arrive on time for the appointment?  Yes or no
• Does your team inspire trust and confidence? Yes or no
• Does your team offer them a solution that builds trust and confidence? Yes or no
• Does your team offer them multiple options to purchase/finance? Yes or no
• Does the prospective customer agree to one of the options? Yes or no
• Does your team complete the job effectively and build more trust and confidence? Yes or no
• Does the customer feel your team did a great job fulfilling your brand promise? Yes or no
• Does your customer leave a 5-star review? Yes or no
• Does your customer recommend you to others? Yes or no

Each step has a yes or no answer that can be counted. The length and quality of the interactions can also be measured, but that’s for a different article.

Each step can be the root cause of your failure or success. At each step, you can turn a prospective customer into an actual customer or not.

Filling The Sales Funnel Won’t Reliably Produce More Customers

Imagine a funnel with a pinprick at the bottom. No matter how much you pour in from the top, the small opening at the bottom will limit your output. This represents a fundamental concept in both production and sales. If there’s a bottleneck or flaw at any stage of the process, it hampers the entire operation.

This concept applies to businesses as well. Companies often think increasing leads or having more resources at the top of the funnel will fix their issues. However, if they don’t address the inefficiencies and bottlenecks throughout the system, these efforts may only provide temporary gains.

For instance, businesses emerging from a period of low demand might ramp up efforts to generate more leads. However, if the backend processes aren’t optimized, the surge in demand could overwhelm the system, leading to more problems that screw up sustainable growth. You need a balanced approach where the funnel’s top and bottom are addressed concurrently.

Sales Funnels Are Also Production Lines That Produce Customers

The sales funnel is more akin to a production line than a simple numbers game. Fixing issues at the top without considering the bottom won’t lead to long-term success. Executives must manage both ends of the funnel carefully to ensure a smooth and efficient process.

You build sustainable growth by addressing the root causes and optimizing the entire system. This balanced approach helps businesses navigate the complexities of their operations. Don’t just patch up the surface issues; to succeed, solve the more profound systemic problems.

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You live in a pretend world where fears, anxieties, and problems are covered with smiles, laughter, and fake conversation.

In your pretend world, you post pictures on social media of the beautiful family, the nice car, and that expensive vacation. In the real world, you question your spouse’s fidelity. Your kids are barely speaking to each other. And the car was bought to make you feel good. In reality, the extra debt puts a choke hold on the little breath you have left. If nothing changes, you’ll be fine.

But you’re not fine. You pretend.

And so does everyone else.

When you pull back the layer of crap people tell each other, you find the truth.

You find honesty. Honesty is a glass of iced water after a long walk in the sun. Not only refreshing, it relieves pain. It gets rid of fake friends, fake love, and all the pretendness you don’t want to be.

Your business lives in the same pretend world.

You protect family, friends, employees, or your own ego. You bear the weight of the business problems so everyone else will be fine.

Customers hear things like:
We offer fast, friendly, reliable service.
You’ve had the rest, now try the best.
We’re a family-run business.
Our customers are treated like family.

In this pretend world, you’re telling customers fairy tales.

You think you’re being honest. The thin ounce of honesty weighs about as much as a happy picture of the bickering family.

Customers want to buy your stuff. The good ones want to buy from people they trust. In your pretend world, they won’t trust you until they know you’ll protect them from their problems.

As long as you play pretend, customers will never know the real you. They’ve heard the pretend stories before, so until you peel away your pretendness, they will evaluate you against the other pretend stories.

Here’s how you can peel away the pretend in your business.

Go to a quiet space and craft a list of your beliefs.
Pick a favorite beverage – spiked or not.
Relax, no distractions. No phones, emails, DM’s, kids, customers, etc.
Ask yourself, what do YOU believe in when it comes to business?
Write down EVERYTHING that comes to your consciousness. It doesn’t matter if it’s good or not. Right now, quantity is more important than quality.
Keep writing until you get to 100 beliefs. You’re gonna struggle.
When you struggle, use the WHY technique. Ask yourself why that belief is important to you. Whatever comes to your mind first, write it down. Then ask why that is important to you. Again, write down the first thing that enters your consciousness.
Using the why technique will easily give you 100 statements. Some will be repeated. It doesn’t matter. Keep writing.
Don’t worry if you write something that will upset someone. This is your private list for now.
Once you get to 100 answers, go back through your list and highlight the answers that did not have a pretend answer. You can identify pretendness through cliché. If words or phrases are used by competitors, or widely used by other industries, then you cannot own them. You cannot use cliché to escape the pretend world.

Living in a pretend world was fun when you were five.

In a pretend world you try to protect what you think you have.

You need courage to live in the real world.

Courage will come from your beliefs. When you use beliefs in your communications, good customers will drink that tall glass of water and keep coming back for more.

In the real world, all the real riches await the brave.

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Let’s be honest—if bold ideas were born in boardrooms, every brand would be unforgettable. But they’re not. Because most great ideas get murdered by a well-meaning committee before they ever see daylight.

We’re throwing elbows at the myth that focus groups, panels, and office Keurig clubs make marketing better. Mick, Chris, and Ryan rip into the comfort-zone thinking that turns sharp ideas into soft garbage—and they explain why the brands that win don’t ask for permission. They make the decision. Then they own it. Forget safe. Forget consensus. If you’re still trying to create marketing that “won’t get you fired,” you’ve already lost.

Episode Highlights:

• Too many ideas get watered down by committees.
• Too many brands choose safety over originality.
• Too many people are afraid of offending someone, so they create nothing of consequence.

Skip the committee. Make the decision. Own it.

This episode’s for the marketers who are tired of playing it safe, and the business owners brave enough to color outside the lines. Tune in to hear how to skip the committee, make the call, and start building the kind of brand people remember.

🎧 Hit play. Then go create something worth fighting for.

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Should we trust the wisdom of focus groups, committees and the other fine folks around the office, or should we consider a different path? Before you create a marketing campaign learn all you can about your customer and the customer experience and see if there's something that you can tap into. You can't expect brilliant marketing ideas from a room full of random people who have nothing better to do on a Thursday night than hang out with you and listen to marketing ideas for 3 hours and make 50 bucks. It is so abundantly clear that we did not run a focus group before launching this podcast. You actually have to try a thing that you don't know if it's going to work… 

Ryan: Should we trust the wisdom of focus groups, committees, and the other fine folks around the office? Or should we consider a different path? 

Chris: Before you create a marketing campaign, learn all you can about your customer and the customer experience and see if there's something that you can tap into. You can't expect brilliant marketing ideas from a room full of random people who have nothing better to do on a Thursday night than hang out with you and listen to marketing ideas for three hours and make 50 bucks.

Mick: It is so abundantly clear that we did not run a focus group before launching this podcast. You actually have to try a thing that you don't know if it's going to work.

Ryan: On today's episode of Advertising in America, we ask a bunch of people leading questions to affirm what we believe to be true. Should we trust the wisdom of focus groups, committees, and the other fine folks around the office, or should we consider a different path?

Lonely? Dark? Vulnerable? Here comes Mick back from smoking a dart. Thanks for wearing your underpants today. It makes a palpable difference in the room. What you got for us, bud?

Mick: I've never used a focus group before, not because I'm too cool, but because I've never worked for an agency large enough to have the balls to charge a client for one.

My better-looking, more successful older brother has a lot of experience with focus groups, so ignore everything I have to say about them if he disagrees with me. But just because I have no experience with focus groups doesn't mean I don't have a strong opinion about them. Here's my biggest They are always, by definition, a committee.

And my feelings on committees are well documented. Maybe the kind Producers will include a link to my rant on committees somewhere, perhaps at the end, or maybe right. My committee speech is a favorite of Roy Williams and Ken Goodrich and many other outstandingly smart people. The committee itself has many problems inherent to their existence, but the one that I think applies most to focus groups is this one. 

A committee cannot come up with a good idea. It can only shoot down ideas it thinks are bad. You don't get a lot of, "Hey, great idea! This is going to be the best plan ever! Can't miss!" What you'll get is, "Well, here's why that won't work. Better not do that. Someone might be offended".

Somebody might be offended. Well, I got some news for you. In this day and age, somebody might be freaking offended by anything. And if you make your plans based on ensuring no one is offended, then by definition you're building nothing of consequence. People were offended by the Eiffel fucking tower, for crying out loud. Your marketing ideas don't stand a chance. More than anything, the committee wants to look good to the rest of the committee.

Problem with your plan, your campaign, or your marketing in general. Every member of your committee, sorry, focus group is going to be clamouring to be the one to spot it. The one who can arrogantly prove that you're an idiot and don't even know your own business. He'll be the first one to speak up. I'm smarter than you. I'm the smartest one in the room. How do I know? Because I'm the one who found your mistake. That's what every member of your focus group is thinking. There's something wrong with this thing, and it's my job to find it. After all, if you just agree that it's great, well, why bother having you here in the first place?

It'd be a waste of your time and our client's money. So, you want to believe he's going to find something about your idea that sucks and make it clear that you fucked up. And you actually expect these people to help you find a solution? Don't bother. Running your idea by a focus group will only scare people away from doing something innovative, something unusual, something remarkable, something risky.

Those are the things that disrupt markets and make people rich. The committee will protect you from all that. You've been warned. 

Ryan: Mick Torbay everyone. Smart by proximity. I think it's safe to say that you were definitely not raised by a committee because you offend everyone. That's why I love you, buddy. Chris, can you tell us why you're so much better than your brother?

Night and day, really. I think I know who the evil twin is now. Well, what do you have to say about all these people up in your business? 

Chris: People love to crap on focus groups. Me especially. But they do have specific things that they're good at. Consumer insights, for example. before you create a marketing campaign, learn all you can about your customer and the customer experience, and see if there's something that you can tap into.

Ask a focus group. And while you can't ask them whether they think a new ad idea is good, you can do a disaster check. We all get too close to our own work every now and then, and you can check it against real people. If Chevrolet had focus-grouped the Nova, before they launched it in Brazil, they would have learned that “Nova” means “doesn't go” in Portuguese.

A simple focus group in China would have revealed that “Coke adds life” had been mistranslated into “Coke brings your ancestors back from the dead.” Disaster check. 

The problems arise when people try to use them for the things that they are not good at. And the biggest thing people fail to appreciate about focus groups is that they cannot create. Think about it. It's 1950, and you ask a focus group if you should put baking soda in your freezer. They'll look at you like you're an idiot. “Baking soda is for making cakes. It makes all those light, fluffy bubbles. Why would I put it in my freezer?” The focus group would crush that idea. They can only answer based on everything they've heard before.

What you need to do is advertise, “baking soda absorbs freezer odours. Oh, really? Okay, I didn't know that. Maybe I'll buy some and give it a go.”

You can't ask them if it's a good idea. You have to tell them it's a good idea. And you especially can't go into a focus group hoping for some sort of marketing flashbulb moment.

Sure, there are apocryphal stories of respondents who said something in a focus group and it was awesome. Some copywriter wrote it down and a new campaign was born, what luck! But the three times in history where that may or may not have happened, doesn't mean you can expect it from your focus group. You need to bring the ideas, or you need your advertising people to bring the ideas.

You can't ask consumers if a bunch of people shouting, “What's up!” is a good way to sell beer. They'll say, no, you should talk about how yummy the beer is. You can't ask consumers if a little CGI gecko with a British accent is a good way to sell insurance. They'll say, “no, you should talk about the features and benefits of your insurance.”

You can't ask a focus group if it's a good idea to remove the keyboard from your BlackBerry and make your cell phone one giant screen, you have to show them the iPhone. And even then it'll take them a couple of years before they realize that that's what they actually need. Focus groups can only answer based on the obvious things that they've already been told. You can't expect brilliant marketing ideas from a room full of random people who have nothing better to do on a Thursday night than hang out with you, and listen to marketing ideas for three hours and make 50 bucks. 

Ryan: It is so abundantly clear that we did not run a focus group before launching this podcast. Definitely not disaster checked. Definitely not. Stay focused. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. 

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Hey listeners, Wizard, Ryan Chute here. Want to personalized strategy to instantly 4X the effectiveness of your marketing dollars?

Schedule a free call with me at wizardofads.services. We'll chat about your goals and how you can quickly dominate your marketplace. I have limited availability though, so don't delay. I guess you could delay it a bit, but not too much. That'd be like, like an over delay. So, maybe just, skip the delay part entirely and book your call, just as soon as you're ready to start making money. You certainly don't want to delay that, right? And now, pitter-patter. 

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Ryan: We're back. How do committees water things down?

Mick: Committees just, they pull you from the side of interesting or unusual and they pull them, pull you towards what they are comfortable with and what they are comfortable with, it's like what Chris is saying, is what they're comfortable with, is what they've already seen.

The only thing they know for sure is what has worked in the past, so they will say. “Well, the leader does this, you know, the successful brands do that. So maybe that's what you should do.” And they mean well, it's important to note. And you get this from my committee rant is that the committee is not evil. The committee is not trying to wreck your ideas or wreck your business. They are in fact, trying to try to help you. They, but they're well-meaning doesn't change the fact that what they're going to do is they're going to bring you to the center and people in the center do not stand out.

Your job as a marketer, or your job as a business person, is to make it easy for the consumer to separate you from your competitors. What we want is in their brain to say, well, there's, there's my brand and then there's all the other ones over here. So stand out. Well, standing out scares committees because by definition, standing out is risky and you don't know if it's gonna work. So they're gonna say, “well, this might not work.” Again, meaning well, trying to help you, but they're gonna fuck it up, even though they're trying to.

Chris: And the interesting thing and you touched on this, the difference between focus groups and committees is that actually there may be some people in the focus group who are evil or whose interests are separate from helping you.

And that is the people who are there to look like they're the smartest guy in the room. It's interesting in the focus group world, and this happened on a number of occasions at focus groups, there is a mechanism for how you get those people out of the room. Because it happens quite frequently.

You see, you get one disruptor, you get one guy who's like Mr. Opinion, no one's ever asked his opinion on anything else. And here he is, and he's going to unload you know a decade's worth of irritants on you guys. And he's going to hijack the whole thing. And anytime somebody says, “Yeah, see, that's another stupid one”. And what it does is the shy people then shut down, and nobody wants to say the opposite because this guy's going to go off on a tear. So even though there's a person in the corner who goes, “Well, I actually kind of thought it was pretty funny” is, you know, if this guy's crapping on everything, and so there's a mechanism where we can communicate with the moderator and, you know, they'll go in and they'll tell him he's got a phone call or something like that. And they'll usher him out of the room and he magically won't come back. But it happens in focus groups so often that that's in fact, built into the thing because of that Smart Alec disrupter thing is very common. And that's someone who's not got your best interest in heart. He's got his own soapbox at heart

Mick: Well, and there's no reason to believe that the noisiest person in the room is necessary. 

Chris: Exactly. And a good moderator will, you know, shut those people off. “Thanks, Dave. We've heard from you a few times. I don't know. Does anybody think the opposite? Does anybody think, you know, something else” you know. But, again, then you're starting to get into this, is that a leading question then if you try and, if you try and make it sound like Dave's, you know, so this is where the science is out the window. You know, it's really just a bunch of people talking.

Ryan: But it's, you know, I've tweeted about creativity, begins at I don't know. It doesn't begin at the things you already do know. It begins at the things that you don't. And for us to be truly creative, we have to be able to go past what we already are comfortable with. And outside of that comfort zone, there is not going to be creativity in a comfort zone. 

Mick: Well, I don't know, should be the basis of every major decision when you're doing something new. I mean, whoever invented Uber must have said, do you really think we could build a business where just random people can just pick you up and take you to work because they're kind of going that way anyway? And the answer is I don't know. There was no path to connect those dots. 

It's the people who, acknowledge the “I don't know” and say and I'm going to give it a shot anyway, because I got a hunch, although I have no data to back it up, let's do it. Those are the people who are tremendously successful, and tremendously wealthy. You actually have to try a thing that you don't know if it's going to work. If all you ever do is what's been done, especially by the leader, if all you ever do is that, then you can't beat him, right? Like, you know,

Chris: You can be identical to the leader.

Mick: Yeah. Except that the leader's got a headstart, so you probably can't even match that person. So your best, your best case is to be number two. Well, that's not why you went into business. You went into business to be the guy. Well, you have to do something new.

Ryan: That this really ends up being fundamentally one of the big issues with collaborating with private equity groups when you have a business where you are the brave soul, decision maker and now shift to a committee group of thinking. We start to lose courage and we start to the creativity that made you the company you were in the first place.

Mick: Well, and if there's one thing that a committee that's involved in the money is going to try to avoid is risk, they're more afraid of risk than there are hopeful that you're going to come up with something different. I mean, especially if you're dealing with a private equity group that has more than one brand in the same category, then they kind of are going to look at the whole, their whole portfolio of companies within a category and say, okay, well, we're all doing this. And if we're all doing this, it ain't that interesting. It's not that interesting.

Chris: And if that is doing mediocre for them then, if you want to be the one in that group who tries something else, it's like well, there's a risk of it could not work as mediocre as that, or it could work better. They'll settle for the mediocre. They are so risk-averse and so you're never going to get better than the mediocre because you're never going to give a shot to the one who says, “Well, I got it. Why don't we try this?”

Mick: Well, yeah, I mean, that's, why we have chain restaurants, right? I mean, chain restaurants are, no one will ever say that, that your local, that the freaking Olive Garden has the best Italian food in town, but we know it won't be that bad, it won't be that good, but at least they're going to give us the breadsticks and the salad and the macaroni is going to be, there's gonna be a lot of it. So yeah, I think we're probably more motivated by fear than by hope, sadly. Especially when we're making business decisions. And so that's why that idea arises, but also understand that if you're aiming for the middle, like those people, you will never be the top dog.

Chris: You know what, to jump in on fear too, cause it just occurred to me that's where the damage gets done by focus groups when it comes to selling good work to the client. And again, when you're behind the glass with the client, you've got some stuff that your focus grouping. It's that moment of client fear when somebody in the focus group says something and they go, “Oh, geez, really” right? And I've, we've talked about this one before. I worked on Budweiser. I worked on a lot of different beer brands and sometimes you focus group something, maybe a casting choices, or something like that. And all you need is one guy to say, I don't know, does that guy look gay to you? And boom, you know, the question could be, no, what are you talking about?!

Mick: No, this is in the 90's in mind where talking about the 90's.

Chris: But like that fear is like, Oh, geez, we don't want to do that. and suddenly, even if the answer is no, because some person, one person asks it, that fear, you know, takes over the client and says, well, you know, and, and, and like, suddenly we're not talking about the right ideas anymore. 

We're not, we're not even answering the question. Yes or no. It's just as soon as there's that reaction. And it's interesting. This is why often what happens in focus groups is you bring in five commercial ideas to focus group. Why? Because you know, people are going to lob hand grenades at three of them and you got to have two left over. You wouldn't go in with one idea and say, let's focus group this idea because if somebody says something that just makes the client, you know, get squirrely. Now what do you do? And so that's why there are five different ideas, because you know, a couple of them are just going to get a bullet in them.

Mick: Well, and of course, most people don't have the budget.

Chris: Yeah, exactly. If you're a big beer brand, do it, they can afford to. They’ve got an entire agency full of people throwing their ideas against the wall to see if something sticks.

Mick: Multiple storyboarding building like five different ideas and which one sticks.

Ryan: As I went down the holes of committees and focus groups, group think really came up as the predominant underlying burden.

Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon where the desire for harmony and conformity within the group leads to irrational or dysfunctional decision-making. 

And when you start looking through the pros and the cons of groupthink, you've got quick decision-making, team cohesion, and less conflict, you get a clear direction fairly quickly. But you, and you also as Chris mentioned, have that potential for crisis aversion, but the drawbacks end up being this poor decision quality, like dramatically poor decision quality.

The suppression of actual creativity, iteration and innovation. Overconfidence in risky behavior becomes statistically quite significant here, where people are both protective, but also a little bit sociopathic in the way that they think things because they disconnect from the moral and ethical guidelines that guide us in the path that we should choose that is virtuous rather than the thing that is most profitable. 

We see this all the time as larger companies become larger. There's also this astounding failure to adapt. So when we start to look at all of these significant things that are affecting whether or not we should rely on the committee or not, the data in groupthink clearly articulates that groupthink is far more harmful than it is beneficial. And while we think we're decisions by collaboration, we're usually coming up with decisions that end up being incredibly harmful for the actual overall solution, be it too watered down, boring, and benign and safe, you know, ads that are written not to offend rather than to persuade. For example, product ideas that sound good on paper, like New Coke, but then don't get executed properly in the overarching process. All of these things have a significance, although 

Chris: An interesting one, right? Like, don't kid yourself. New Coke was focus-grouped. I'm sure it was focused good. I’m sure there were tests. Im sure there was all kinds of stuff. I'm sure that's how they came up with the new formula, right? The whole reason there was New Coke is that the Pepsi challenge was happening for years and years and years. And, winning. 

Mick: And they kept losing every time. 

Chris: Because it was ever so slightly, sweeter, and so in a back-to-back, people would go for the one. So Coke said, well, why don't we make ours ever so slightly sweeter, and we'll, and we'll change the recipe. Well, you know they, they focus group the recipe a bunch of times. I mean, nobody releases a consumer food or beverage, without taste-testing it with focus groups. So you know there's a bunch of people in focus groups who said, “Yeah, actually, yeah, no, that's nicer. I think I'd go with the new one. Yeah, yeah, that's nicer.” 

But the focus group didn't have the foresight either to say “You are shattering one of America's greatest and longest-standing icons. How dare you?” And so there's a disaster check that you would have expected a focus group to catch and they don't catch it. 

Mick: Yeah, I think in that case, the focus group actually caused the problem because I'm absolutely certain that they would have kept testing different recipes until they could consistently do the Pepsi challenge with this new thing and people would actually prefer the new Coke. 

What they didn't count on is that there's a slightly irrational thing the thing that they like actually chooses a thing they don't like the best for other brand reasons. 

Which is why, you know, if I name, if I say to you, name a hamburger restaurant, you'll come up with one answer. And if I ask you who makes the best hamburger in town, you'll give me another answer. So one of those businesses is more successful than the other and it's not the one with the best-tasting hamburger.

But another thing that sort of bothers me about focus groups is that I'm convinced that all the people in the focus group are still suffering from the same thing that scares us all, the fear of being wrong. Nobody wants to be wrong. When you're in a focus group, you're in a bunch of, you're in a room with a bunch of strangers, okay? There's a lot at stake here and what you don't want to be is wrong. So now your whole thing is based on fear. You don't wanna look stupid, you don't want to say the wrong thing, and you don't wanna lead these people down the wrong path.

Everything about it is not hopeful, not optimistic. All the people on the other side of the glass are like, “Ooh, I hope they love my idea. I hope they love my idea”. And the client's like, “I hope this is really gonna work. I really hope this is really gonna work”. And meanwhile, every single person in the thing is like, “I hope I don't miss the thing.”

Chris: That I’m supposed to catch.

Mick “And I'm the one who thought it who said it was okay, and it turns out it ends everything.” You know, that's a natural human characteristic, but that switches it from a hopeful attitude to a fearful attitude and that screws everything out. 

Ryan: Well, you do shift you a thriving mindset to a surviving mindset in that regard, where you do batten down the hatches. You, you take cover and, you get out of the way.

This does go back to the 9-10 core elements of motivation. We're demotivated by fear, shame, and guilt. We’re anti-motivated when it's internalized by our ourselves, but we're all trying to drive towards that identity within the group that we're subjected to. In this case, an unknown group. But how, how do I think about myself? How do I think about myself from a ranking class within this group? Whether or not I'm smart or stupid in this group, how do I position myself within the tribe? Where do I rank? And everything comes back to identity. 

These core motivators that drive us to do the things that we do, be it externally influenced through the praise of other people or the payback, you know, paying attention, paying with money, paying with time, and, the power that one perceives both of themselves and the group within the group and outside of the group, how they did after they leave the group and then tell their immediate family, their family, their workmates, all of these people who are looking at them going, “Oh, you, you were smart in that. You're good. Oh, and I, you made something, you did something of relevance and rank, rank, rank.” This is all about identity. And we can't lose sight of the identity, the committee that sits in our head. 

I recently read a book called No Bad Parts, and No Bad Parts is basically about all the different voices that are in your head saying, Hey, do it this do that way. I believe in this. I believe in that. And there's the managers, the firefighters, there's the inner child, there's all of these different voices telling us and dictating to us, whether or not we're performing or not we're performing to their satisfaction.

Mick: Do you have a lot of voices inside your head?

Ryan: A lot of them. A number of voices in my head. Yes, yeah. I really do try to, ignore the chairman of the board, my ego, who is, is basically the voice of everyone saying, this is what we're gonna do.

As egos often do and that in itself is something to recognize when we start thinking about committees and how we're fitting into the external world,  because that external world is something that we're trying to gain traction and rank in, but we're equally as much to do that in ourselves.

We're trying to reconcile our worth within ourselves, to propel us forward and to be all be, whatever that looks like for different people. And there's voices in there saying, Hey, sometimes they're saying you're not worth it. And sometimes they're saying that person is trying to steal your thing. And some people are saying, “Ooh, that guy thinks, you know, that this is a bad thing. you should, you know, fall in line so that you don't worry about it.”

Mick: But if you're in that room and there's eight people in the room and seven of them are saying this sucks, even if you love it, you're not going to say anything. Because you don't want seven people looking at you going, sucker. He fell for this shit. The rest of us all know that this is no good. Whereas that person might be the most insightful. 

Ryan: We've seen the science experiment very often where a group, a person, is put into a group of actors within the actual group, and the actors will all do things that are quite clearly the wrong thing to do. By the third action, that person typically will fall in line and start following the same actions. 

Mick: Like if they get into an elevator and people are facing the wrong way.

Chris: They'll turn around.  

Mick: Yea, that’s a really good one because we all face this way, but if all the people are facing the other way, they will eventually turn around. They can't handle it.

Ryan: Exactly. Exactly, We are influenced by that committee and that group. And, I see the brave souls, the people who are really, really, the ones who break out, Malcolm Gladwell calls it the Outliers, these are the people who tend to really shine because they are zigging when everyone else is zagging. 

Mick: Well, and I, I think, you know, just as a roundabout, like a wrapping up, the whole idea, is that if you think of anything great that you've ever written, anything great that's really moved the needle, you can pretty much guarantee that a focus group would not have gone for it.

Yeah. Right. You and I've talked about that. Well, we'll write a campaign or an ad and we'll go, Oh my God, you know, this is such a great ad. Focus group to throw it out just like that. Because why? Because there are so many reasons to throw it out. Like there are so many obvious flaws with this particular message, or this particular campaign. Where it would be so easy, like you did a campaign where for three months, you didn't mention the name of the client. I mean, do you think someone on the focus group would have said, “I'm sorry. Who's this for again?” 

“Well, we're not telling you that's the whole point.” We're, we're going to make people. We're going to entertain people and make them remember the guy, but not remember the name of the client. And then only then are we going to reveal it. 

Well, the focus group would tear that to shreds. And it was a ridiculously successful campaign. And the fact that you didn't mention the client was only one thing wrong with it.

Chris: And other things were wrong about it too- on purpose. 

Mick: There would have been, but it was all strategic. It was all done with full knowledge that this is breaking the rules of advertising. 

If you break the rules of advertising, and you break it well, and you break it on purpose for a reason, you can do incredible things. And you can become a leader. You can, you can beat the crap out of a leader, who's simply a leader because no one else has dared challenge him. 

Ryan: Yep. Just like hair, you gotta cut it to let it grow.

Mick:  Yeah, otherwise you have to a merkin like this one here. 

Ryan: I mean I prefer my merkin but, 

Mick: I thought I had a caterpillar on my shirt, but it turns out it’sjust this microphone. 

Ryan: Before we go, let's talk about three ways to replace the committee with healthier solutions. 

Ones that make you look 10 pounds skinnier, taller, and statuesque but first a word from our sponsors.

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Remember that saying, only half your marketing is working. You just don't know which half. Let's help you with that. Book it free strategy session with wizard Ryan Chute today at wizardofads.services. Yes, that's a URL wizardofads.services. Now let's get back to the show. 

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Ryan: Another fascinating conversation, gentlemen today. Skip the committee, trust in yourself, most a few close trusted advisors. Gather all the data together and make the assessment together. Embrace the complaints. They're a sure sign that you're doing things right. You need to get attention to persuade people and complaints are a sure sign that you're actually getting the attention that you're looking for because no one says positive things. They're always going to gravitate to negative things to bring those up. 

Fire the ego as the chairman of the board of the committee that's inside your head and open up a direct, kind and patient dialogue with your inner child.

To avoid groupthink groups should actively seek diverse viewpoints. Appoint a devil's advocate and encourage open dialogue to ensure that the decisions are robust and informed. It's not about ignoring advice from your company of people. It's far more about sharing information, gathering feedback from a diverse group and making a courageous decision independent of the watering down process. Once decided, don't dilute it. This has been another episode of Advertising in America. 

Thanks for putting us on as background while you do something more important.  Until next time.

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