Gratuitous sorcery and incantations from actual Wizards.

“When I’m looking for something, I just Google it.”

That’s a phrase that seems obvious because it matches our personal experiences.

With 8.5 billion Google searches each day, yours are at least 4 or 5 of them.

But it wasn’t the first thing you did.

Extra awesome info in the video – don’t miss it!

In his book “How Customers Think,” Dr. Gerald Zaltman of Harvard says 95% of purchase decisions are made subconsciously. That odd quirk of our brains means that we’ve already decided… before we decided.

If that’s tough to understand, think of this: You’re on a family trip. Kids are exhausted. Spouse is barking orders.

As you drive past restaurants, your options are:

• Findley’s Restaurant
• Blotto’s Burgers
• Applebee’s
• Tiny’s Taco Truck

Those other places are likely fine, and Applebee’s is nothing special. But you’re exhausted, stressed, and you don’t have the energy to make decisions. 8 times out of 10, you’re picking Applebee’s.

You recognize the name, you know what to expect, and your risk is low.

Brains want to make decisions quickly. The more processing power your brain uses, the less effective it can be doing other things.

The business that comes to mind first, is the one that tends to get chosen disproportionately more often.

And, yes, it happens in search, too. In their study The Secret Life of Search, analysts at Red C Marketing found “most Google searches…resulted in a familiar, trusted, credible brand being chosen for the first click. […] It’s clear that raising awareness and trust in your brand is an essential part of getting clicks.”

The percentage wasn’t insignificant. A full 82% chose the brand they were familiar with as the first choice. This is consistent regardless of the business category.

You can empty your bank account and give it all to Google, and the click is still going to the known brand 8 out of 10 times.

Brands like SoFi, AirBNB, 4Imprint, Doordash, and Booking.com are ones you’ve seen advertised all over. The thing they all have in common is that they don’t exist outside the internet. They are online companies for an online world accessed only online. Yet the ads you see are not on Google. They’re someplace else.

These brands, smartly, are getting into your brain before you need them.

This is the world you want to own. The part of the brain that is filing information away for a future day, ready to jump into action when the need arises.

This is the real “first” thing you do. Google? It’s still in the top 10…but it will never be number one.

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he other day, a family friend came over for dinner. Somewhere between the brisket and baked beans, she asked how business was going and whether I had any projects in the works.

I gave her the short version. But then I started to geek out a bit.

I explained how I’ve been working with AI, not just to help businesses run more efficiently, but to help people connect more deeply. Most people think of AI as a way to cut costs or speed things up. I see it as a tool that, if used right, can help leaders be more present and teams be more human.

She paused for a moment. Then she said, “That’s not what I expected. I’ve never heard anyone talk about AI like that.”

That stuck with me.

Beyond Neat Answers to Complex Questions

Because too often, we hear neat answers to complex questions.
One of those tidy little phrases goes like this: “If you focus on culture, you don’t need to worry about revenue.”

It sounds nice. But it’s not true.

The False Choice: Culture vs. Revenue

Culture is essential. I believe in it fully. But culture alone isn’t enough. It doesn’t automatically bring in customers or keep your cash flow healthy. And if you’re not careful, that kind of thinking can become a cover story. A way to avoid hard conversations or tough decisions.

The problem is that it sets up a false choice. Culture or revenue. Like you have to pick one.

Real Leadership Means Tending to Both

But real leadership means tending to both. At the same time.

Good culture doesn’t replace strategy. It supports it. It doesn’t eliminate the need to focus on revenue. It makes that work more effective.

When culture is strong, people row in the same direction. They trust each other. They bring more of themselves to the table.
But you still need to steer the boat. You still need to track what’s working, sell at the right price, and keep your margins healthy.

That’s not the opposite of culture. That’s what makes culture matter.

The Truth About Culture and Business

So when someone says that if you focus on culture, you won’t need to think about revenue, smile if you want. But don’t buy it.

Because the truth is this:

Culture won’t save your business. But it will show you where it’s going. And who’s willing to go there with you.

And if you get both right? That’s when the real magic happens.

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Rolex has just over 30% of the luxury watch market share — with sales greater than the next five biggest players combined.

And, if anything, that underestimates Rolex’s dominance.

For watches costing over $10K, Rolex and Patek Philippe have a combined market share of 70%.

All while Rolex intentionally limits production of its watches!

Ask a non-watch enthusiast to name a luxury brand and Rolex will likely top the list.

They are, without a doubt, the most powerful and influential watch company in the world.

So… it’s natural to ask: why and how that came to be?

Really, it goes back to the founder, Hans Wilsdorf, and his ability to craft a powerful brand identity by choosing what NOT to focus on.

See, Wilsdorf was a massive Anglophile. It’s why he named his second watch brand Tudor.

Also, Wilsdorf personally identified as a merchant and not a horologist or watchmaker.

So his conception of a watch was decidedly Anglo-Saxon, as opposed to continental.

Meaning he saw a wristwatch as a TOOL, not an object d’art.

And if you see a watch as a tool, here’s what you DON’T focus on:

• Decorated movements
• Display case backs (for showing off decorated movements)
• Refined dress watch proportions and thinness
• Grand Complications
• Precious metals (Rolex makes watches in gold and platinum, but it’s not their mainstay)

Horologists or watchmakers would naturally focus on this stuff. But an anglophile merchant like Wilsdorf wouldn’t and indeed didn’t.

And this is a radical departure for a luxury watch, as most of the other established brands obsessively focus on these very qualities, precisely because they see what they create as refined cultural artifacts — like a Rembrandt you can wear on your wrist.

But if you see a watch as a tool, what you DO focus on is:

• Accuracy
• Rugged reliability
• Water Proofing
• The non-fussiness of automatic winding
• Durable, all-metal bracelets instead of fancy leather straps.
• “Professional” watch models aimed at explorers, pilots, and divers

Just think about Rolex’s most iconic watch models — the Datejust, Day-Date, GMT, Submariner, Explorer, Daytona, etc — and you’ll see that they fit this bill perfectly

This is why every model Rolex, even if it’s solid gold and gem-encrusted, is 100 meters water resistant with a screw-down crown, shock-proof, and chronometer-certified.

In contrast, it wasn’t until the 70s that Rolex’s luxury watchmaking counterparts started making steel, water-proof sports watches with bracelets, e.g., A&P’s Royal Oak, Patek’s Nautilus, and Vacheron’s Overseas.

So if you want to know why Rolex became THE luxury watch to own in the U.S. and UK, it’s because Rolex’s conception of a watch perfectly matched the consumer’s conception of what an expensive watch should be.

Go figure that a watch brand built around Anglo-Saxon sensibilities would become a best-seller in Anglo-Saxon countries.

Just understand that a lot of high-end watch snobs consider Rolex as entry-level, precisely because Rolex doesn’t do the things that true luxury buyers want.

If you’re in the market for a highly decorated, grand complication, Rolex ain’t gonna be your bag, baby.

So one lesson here is in Choosing Whom to Loose.

More specifically….

Who are you NOT for? Who do you NOT want as a customer?

You can’t be all things to all people.

But you CAN be the best choice for your target market.

Who are those people, and what makes you their best choice?

If you can answer these questions clearly and powerfully, you are well on your way to having a strong brand.

Focus as intently on what you WON’T do, as what you will.

You will be more easily defined by what you stand against than by what you stand for.

And choosing what you don’t do will put a fine point on that.

For example, when they started, McDonald’s ONLY sold hamburgers and fries in a world where most casual restaurants sold a bit of everything.

Similarly, Dominos only did delivery pizza and Subway only sold sub sandwiches.

In another category, Dell sells every conceivable model of computer and monitor, customizable in almost any way you want for almost any use-case, while Apple sells a handful of models, with limited variations, mostly geared towards “creatives.”

Which of those two is more successful? Which is the bigger brand?

Ensure The Values Embraced by Your Business Resonate with Your Audience

You may be a diamond snob who would never think of buying a created diamond. Or maybe you shudder to think of selling a stone with less than Grade D color and IF clarity.

But do your customers think that way? Do they care about those things the way you do?

Suppose your customers would gladly get a bigger, created stone with an F color and VS2 clarity.

In other words, understand that just like watch snobs are a minority of the luxury watch market, diamond snobs are a minority of the diamond market.

And matching your company values to the market values will allow you to grab a much greater market share than trying to “educate the customer” or chasing after the snobby elite.

As my mentor likes to say, “If you sell to the classes, you will live with the masses. But if you sell to the masses, you will live with the classes.”

Run Powerful Advertising

Not only did Rolex have powerfully resonant brand attributes, it also had powerful advertising campaigns that brilliantly communicating its essential brand appeals.

Indeed, Hans Wilsdorf himself believed that: “only great marketing is needed to make a company successful.”

As an example, take a look at the three Rolex ads in the header of this post.

Or take a gander at the ad to the right.

Everything in these ads is about rugged male accomplishment, as well as the rugged reliability of a Rolex watch.

And these ads are incredibly representative of the kind of campaigns that Rolex ran very aggressively during the heyday of print magazines.

Oh, and remember how Rolex and Patek shared 70% of the market for watches costing over $10K?

Would it surprise you to learn that Patek ALSO ran powerful ads, albeit ones communicating a very different brand value?

Note both how different the style of watch is from the Rolex as well as the different emotional appeal of the ad from the Rolex ad above.

So the brands that continuously ran powerful campaigns are the ones that ended up with the lion’s share of their markets. There’s definitely a lesson there.

Dominate Your Market Like Rolex

Now, you may be asking yourself how I know that these specific factors are primarily responsible for Rolex’s success.

And the answer to that lies in the decidedly NON-luxury watch market.

If you look at quartz digital watches, the two most popular brands and model lines are Casio G-Shocks and the Timex Ironman.

Why?

Because they focus on the same masculine brand attributes Rolex did:

— Rugged (and indeed Shockproof) reliability

— Waterproof cases

— Durable rubber straps

— Models aimed specifically at manly endeavors

It’s the same reason denim jeans became the standard uniform of the American male.

Now, I’m not saying YOU should focus on those same attributes.

But I am saying you should focus on those attributes that will resonate strongly with your intended audience.

And that part of communicating those attributes to your customers will involve a sharp delineation of what you stand against and what you won’t do.

If you do that, and you advertise your brand powerfully, you can come to dominate your market like Rolex.

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In many ways, the following tweet can be seen to represent solid advertising advice:

Note though, that this advice is more innovative and entrepreneurial in nature. The tweet is telling you how to introduce a new product or service to the market.

And her advice is to focus on WIIFM — What’s In It For Me — where “Me” means the prospective customer base.

Here’s how my new product or service will make YOUR life better.

In her opinion, this is a better messaging than “Here’s why I’m doing what I’m doing.”

The contrasting advice can be seen in the imagery for this fantastic ad for agency, Crispin & Porter:

One sign is undoubtedly more persuasive than the other. But why?

The right-hand sign certainly doesn’t rely on WIIFM for its appeal.

Instead, it relies on bonding.

Because, yes, people DO care about other humans that they’re able to connect with on a human level.

And you’d be well advised to bake that appeal into your advertising as well.

Reconciling This Advice for Maximum Effectiveness

The way to get the best of both worlds is to indeed appeal to customers’ self interest while also providing them with your emotional compulsions for making that offer.

Because a compelling offer made by a company or person you don’t quite trust is an offer that you’ll pretty much never consider, let alone take.

You, as the buyer, need to understand “what’s in it for them, the business owner.”

You also need to know “why can I trust you.”

And the better the offer, the more these other factors come into play.

This is what makes telling your origin story so powerful, as it establishes the WHY behind the WHAT.

“I’m making this amazing offer because it’s a manifestation of my core values and mission.”

The more your offer reinforces your core identity, and the more your identity and offer matches with the customer’s identity, the more powerful the response.

Adding a Third Leg to Your Advertising Stool

While an ad campaign with both reason-why and bonding appeals is enough to generate massive response, it’s not the best you can do.

You can also add in differentiation through brand codes.

Bonding is about your inner identity.

Differentiation is about your outer, sensible identity — looking and sounding distinctively different from the competition, so that anyone seeing or hearing your ads instantly recognizes them as uniquely your ads.

This is mainly done through the intelligent and persistent use of Brand Codes:

• Brandable Chunks
• Ear-wormy sonic cues
• Logos
• Distinct and recognizable characters and mascots
• Music
• Packaging, uniforms, truck wraps, etc.

And you can visualize the three major factors of advertising success like this:

What’s In YOUR Ad Campaign?

So what about your advertising?

Do you make use of WIIFM appeals and Bonding and Brand Codes?

If not, you’re missing out on one or two key factors and undermining the effectiveness of your efforts.

Want to change that?

Your potential customers are either actively looking for a product/solution like the one you offer… or they are not.

Ty Heath of The B2B Institute says that for most businesses, at any given time, only around 5% of their potential customers are “in market” for what they offer.

This means that 95% of your potential customers are not currently looking for what you offer, but someday they might be.

One very common type of marketing – Sales Activation – attempts to gain the consumer’s awareness right as they are ready to buy. Sales Activation often uses special promotions, coupons, or product updates to elicit an immediate response from potential customers. For example, as the summer swim season approaches, you run an ad for “buy-one, get-one” swimsuits. Your ad attracts people already in the market for new swimwear, and they end up purchasing from you because of your ad.

Sales Activation primarily targets the 5% of your prospects who are already actively looking.

This type of marketing is important, and Google knows it. But just like the last-minute Christmas shoppers pay the highest price… so it is with Sales Activation. Typically, the customers you gain via promotions and coupons are the most expensive ones to gain and the most difficult ones to retain.

Please don’t hear this as an admonition against Sales Activation strategies and tools like Google Ads, because this type of marketing certainly has value and can be a very effective tool for quick growth. In fact, I typically recommend investing around 40% of your marketing budget on Sales Activation.

Of even greater importance to your business’s long-term growth, though, is Brand Building.

Brand Building will help reach the other 95% of customers who could be interested in your business at some point, though not at this moment. Brand building is about resonating with your prospects on an emotional level and establishing your business as the “best” in their minds long before they need you. This way, when they enter the market needing what you offer, they think of you first.

If you are a service-based business, this is especially important. Take the home services industry as an example. The typical household hires an HVAC tech once every 1-2 years, a plumber once every 3-4 years, and an electrician once every 9 years. If your company is not front-of-mind for these prospects when their need arises, you will likely miss out on their business.

While brand-building results are more difficult to measure than Sales Activation results, they can be immensely effective for long-term business growth.

When done well, Brand Building Marketing:

• Is Memorable. Your brand leaves an impression on people and sticks with them. When a need arises for what you offer, they think of you first.
• Invokes Loyalty. Your brand connects with your prospects on an emotional level. They feel connected to what you do/offer and why you do it. They like the way doing business with your company makes them feel about themselves. According to a study by CRS specialist Cone, 66% of Americans would switch from a product they typically buy to a new product from a purpose-driven company they align with.
• Attains Virality. Brand Building helps your company appeal not only to your potential customers but to those people connected with your potential customers. Most people have a natural inclination to help others and to come across as if they know things. If these people believe in your brand, they can become vital tools for organic marketing. For example, a 40-year-old man hears a radio ad for a Financial Service firm. The ad establishes trust and the firm’s brand resonates with him on a personal level. When his 70-year-old mother is looking for financial guidance in her twilight years, he recommends this firm to her despite having never worked with them himself.
• Creates long-term gains. Your clients who choose to do business with you because they connect with your brand typically have a higher lifetime value (LTV) for your business and better retention rates. Brand building leads to maximum long-term growth for any company.

If you are not investing in Brand Building Marketing yet, I hope you will start right away. I typically recommend clients invest around 60% of their marketing budget on brand building.

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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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