Gratuitous sorcery and incantations from actual Wizards.

Lately, I’ve been getting overwhelming feedback on my latest manuscript, I Think I Swallowed An Elephant (Kindle pre order is available). But the comments that stick with me most aren’t about what I wrote.

They’re about what I didn’t.

It’s what I chose to bury.

Like an iceberg, the real weight of a story lives below the surface. The part you don’t spell out. The part the reader feels in their gut before their brain catches up.

And here’s what’s wild…

Different readers walk away with different truths. One sees a journey of self-forgiveness. Another sees a blueprint for transformation. A third sees a mirror. Same words. Different stories.

Not because I told them everything. But because I trusted them to bring something of their own.

Back in 1961, a young copywriter named Shirley Polykoff rewired an entire industry with just five words.

“Does she… or doesn’t she?”

It was about hair color. But it wasn’t really about hair color. It was about autonomy. Privacy. Power.

Those five words didn’t shout. They winked. They whispered a possibility and let the reader answer it for themselves.

The best writing does that. It respects the audience enough to leave space. It knows that persuasion isn’t about pressure. It’s about resonance.

And that’s the mistake so many make today.

They write like they’re afraid of silence. They fill every gap. Explain every point. Spell out what the reader should think, feel, believe.

But the truth is, people don’t want a conclusion handed to them.

They want to arrive there on their own.

The right words don’t close the story. They open it.

So here’s my challenge to you: Say less. Trust more. Create space for your audience to step inside your message and find themselves there.

That’s where change happens. That’s where connection lives.

And yes… she absolutely did.

What's in a Name? More Than You Think, Kid.

Sure, you can succeed with a mediocre name. Orville Redenbacher did. But why fight uphill when a great name can grease the tracks?

In this episode of Advertising in America, your favourite trio of sharp-tongued strategists—Ryan, Mick, and Chris—take a no-holds-barred stroll through the world of business naming. We’re talking real names, fake names, dumb names, genius names—and the difference between a brand that sings and one that stinks.

Episode Highlights:

• Why most "strategic" names are really just pretty garbage
• The subtle art of saying something without trying too hard to say everything
• What kind of name boxes you in… and what kind sets you free
• And the danger of letting your committee—or your ego—pick the winner

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If your ads sound like Charlie Brown’s teacher, it’s time to grab a seat, take some notes, and learn how to say something that sticks.

🎧 Hit play. Then stop teaching, start enticing, and for the love of Madison Avenue—talk to the heart, not the hard drive.

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On today's episode of Advertising in America, we ask What's in a name? Does your business name matter, or will any old handle do the trick? 

We all know some examples. Jiffy Lube, In-N-Out Burger, Dollar Tree, Thrifty Car Rental. Great names, right? Careful. If you do that, you aren't done. You have to lean into that. Federal Express wanted to convey that they could take a package from anywhere in the country to anywhere else in America and do it very quickly. Genius DoorDash, dropping food off at your house, even has alliteration going for it. It worked. People still think that you can succeed without a good name.

Orville Redenbacher proved that, but that doesn't mean it's not worth it to try to find a name that adds to the value of your brand.

Ryan Chute: On today's episode of Advertising in America, we ask what's in a name? Does your business name matter, or will any old handle do the trick? Let's go to DJ McMaster, T and C.

Mick Torbay: Okay, so I'm part of a Facebook group called Dad's Married to Doctors. We're all fathers. Our wives are all physicians. It's a remarkably diverse group, but one thing we have in common, there are no fuck offs in this group because doctors don't marry fuck offs.

There are a lot of entrepreneurial types in the DMDs, and every year or so, one of them will say, “I'm starting a whatever business, and I need a name. Post your best suggestions. Go.”

Now, the last time this happened, one of the guys asked me, “Why don't you ever respond to these? You do this sort of thing, don't you?” And I replied, “Yes, yes, I do. And that's why I don't respond.” Because there's more to a naming assignment than just brainstorming and picking your fave. Picking a business name this way is like asking your buddies to help design your building. This is no place for amateurs. Think of what a simple name did. For some iconic brands, Federal Express wanted to convey that they could take a package from anywhere in the country to anywhere else in America, and do it very quickly. Genius, DoorDash dropping food off at your house, even has alliteration going for it. Haagen-Dazs is an ice cream company from New Jersey. They wanted people to think they were. I don't know, Scandinavian, it worked. People still think that Ticketmaster, PayPal, OpenTable, Netflix, the name delivers so much.

Now, for every example I give, I'm sure you can name just as many that have no inherent value. Google, Ford, eBay, all successful companies, despite a name that brings frankly nothing to the table, but I'd argue most of those are holdovers from when people simply named the company after themselves, like Boeing, or were so freaking good at what they did that it didn't matter what it was called, like Apple.

So yeah, you can succeed without a good name. Orville Redden Baer proved that, but that doesn't mean it's not worth it to try to find a name that adds to the value of your brand. Just with the people at this table. We turned Allied Garage Door of Southwest Florida into Mo Better Garage. The Canadian Jewelry Group became the National Diamond Store, and a new in-ear headphone was named Sound Curves. You can almost picture how beautiful they are, can't you? 

Did having a strategic name help these companies? Well, I think so. Bottom line, a strategic name for your business or brand is a possible asset, and if you're a startup or for whatever reason, you need to change your identity. I think you should go to some trouble to get one and do it properly. Don't ask your friends on Instagram, and just because people have succeeded without having one, doesn't mean you shouldn't bother to try. 

Ryan Chute: How hard is it to make a bad name work? Am I right? Chris, what are your thoughts in the power of a name? 

Chris Torbay: Lots of companies think choosing a name is an opportunity to tick a strategy box and move on. They have five or six things they'd like to say about their company, usually completely unremarkable. Table stakes, things like fast, cheap, friendly, convenient, and if the name says one of them, “Hey, job done. Customers totally believe that. And now we can move on to talk about all those other things now.”

And that can be true, but it can also be a curse. We all know some examples. Jiffy Lube, In-N-Out Burger, Dollar Tree, Thrifty Car Rental. Great names, right? Careful if you do that, you aren't done. You have to lean into that. You can't just move on to other things, you'd like people to know about your brand because you need to own this one first.

Everyone else says their brand is fast or cheap, too, but you're the one who named yourself that, so you have to go all in, and it will be harder, in fact, to move on to a quality message. For example, if your name boasts that everything you sell is a dollar. If your name is Jiffy Lube, you need to organize your business so that you are always Jiffier than any of your competitors. And since they all say that, they can knock out a quick oil change too, now you have to double say it because you named yourself that. Is it strategic? Sure. Is it a boat anchor? Sure could be because how many companies have tried that and then found themselves with a strategy that unfortunately evolved.

7-Eleven was a great name for a convenience store back when the average store was only open during traditional business hours. When every convenience store is open 24 hours, seven to eleven doesn't say much. This is where we end up with names like Kitchen Stuff Plus or Board Games & More. You wanted to be strategic, but then you found yourself trapped.

McDonald's hamburgers rarely uses their full name, and Kentucky Fried Chicken found themselves not wanting to be tied just to Kentucky. Good lord, please don't equate us with fried, and we'd like to sell you much more than chicken. So now they’re KFCA, great name, is like a great logo. It doesn't do the job for you.

But when you create the brand, it contributes to the story, or it has the capacity to wear that story proudly. And even an awkward name can do that. One of the most successful home services brands in America is Goettl, G-O-E-T-T-L. It'll keep you cool, but it's hard to spell. Combine that with a story of a young man who had to push through challenges to build the successful business he has today, and the whole thing works just fine.

Bigly wiggly. There's a supermarket I haven't forgotten about since Morgan Freeman's character in Driving Miss Daisy shouted, “I'm gonna drive you to the Piggly Wiggly”. Is it a great name? No. Yes, no. Yes. 

The name you choose is just part of the story. It can be a boat anchor if you get it wrong, but it is rarely a rocket ship to success on its own.

Ryan Chute: Do you remember when KFC tried so hard to be kitchen-fresh chicken for a weird minute? In the early 2000s?  

Chris Torbay: I don’t. They tried to do it, get rid of Kentucky and get rid of it, keeping chicken, and then they decided they probably wanted to sell fries.

Ryan Chute: Before we start naming names. Here's a shameless plug for our services.

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So this is normally when Ryan throws to himself, kind of a commercial within a show about commercials, and that's fine. We could let him do that. But really, what you want to hear is me yelling at you. That's the reason you tune into the show. Sure. The conversations are fun and the insights are thought-provoking, but what you really want is cursing, and that's where I come in.

I mean, I don't want to get all shit or get off the pot on you, but at the moment, Ryan's doing this whole. “I'll give you 45 minutes of my time to help you narrow down your challenges and find a solution thing”. You think that asshole will give me 45 minutes to shoot the shit, but here's what he does. This maniac will go over everything, your sales process, your offers, your loyalty club, and yes, your marketing, and then you don't have to do a fucking thing.

You can take all that insight and roll if you like what you hear and want a deeper dive, dive away, my friend. Ryan ends up not working with about 90% of the people he meets, but the ones he does end up working with, they start here. So think about that. He's got a whole web thingy where you can book an appointment.

It's at wizardofads.services, stupid address. You want to believe it. And I'd say that to his face. wizardofads.services. And now let's get back to the stuff I really want to curse about. Shit.

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Ryan Chute: As we do start to understand the identity, there is that weird disconnect sometimes that we see. How many times have we gone in behind a naming company, who suggests that they're the guys that should be naming your company, when in fact they're just producing empty cartridges that you're supposed to fill with some cute and clever story?

Nothing strategic. It doesn't make any sense to me. You really do need to understand the mission and the values, the intentions of the owner, the competitive landscape that you're in, your target audience and how that matters. Is it a local play, a regional play? Is it a national play? Where do you go to get to the thing that you're trying to achieve? And I think that's lost a lot of time in naming of companies. 

Chris Torbay: Well, sometimes I think it's the effort of trying too hard. It's funny because I believe in all of those things, and I believe in approaching its strategy. And as Mick says, it's not just blind brainstorming, it's kind of focused brainstorming with the strategy behind it.

But getting to a result. If it looks too much like you have reached a strategic result, then almost by definition, it's not right like it; it kind of emotionally has to be right. But if it's, in a sense, if it's too brilliant, then it gives itself away as trying too hard. And I think this is equally true with names and logos, which is, I love it when logo designers come in and say, “Well, it's a two stripes with a dot above. Now the two stripes represent North America and South America, our two largest treating regions. And the dot represents the intellectual center of the what”. It's like, come on, man, it's two stripes in a dot. And they are brilliant, looking like two stripes in a dot. And it makes me feel good about your company. So, stop being overly strategic about that and let's go with it. 

Nike has a swoosh. Coca-Cola has a wave, like there's lots of less thought-out things, and I think that's true with logos and names. They need to be able to wear the message or the larger story, but it is not their full job.

And if you think of Amazon, so Amazon's a great name and it wears the whole, the wears the entire story. When somebody tells you, “Yes, and see Amazon, Amazon is the world's largest ecosystem. So you see, that's why it's a great strategic name for the thing”. You go, “Oh, that is clever.”

But I didn't need to know that. It's not like it came bottom up from the name. It's that. Once I know that and it works and the name needs to be such that it works. And when somebody says, and you see how the smiley arrow thing actually goes from A to Z? Cool. But again, I didn't have to get that from the thing. It's nice when it comes in later. So it is this weird middle ground where it's not that I expect it to do the work, and that it is so obviously doing the work, because that is showing your underpants. 

Mick Torbay: Well, I also don't believe that it was nearly that strategic when Amazon was just a bookstore, because it was just a bookstore because it wasn't the world's biggest ecosystem. It was never supposed to be the world's biggest ecosystem. It was just an excellent way to buy books. And so I think a lot of the time when something becomes tremendously successful, we can sort of look at it and say, "Oh, well, naturally that succeeded”. It's like it is like, I think what I think what we're doing is we're throwing a dart at a board and then we're drawing a target around it.

Chris Torbay: Yeah. It's like going back through Shakespeare, saying, “You see that this line, see? See what it actually means. Okay..”

Mick Torbay: Yeah. In hindsight, it is the world's biggest ecosystem. Before, it was just a word that everybody knew. It didn't stand for any other brand, and everybody knew how to spell it, which was really important when you're having an online business.

Ryan Chute: Yeah, and it was very important for an online business and making it easy for the person to be able to get from A to Z, pardon the pun. And ultimately. It took an incredible amount of advertising dollars, an incredible amount of energy and effort to make Amazon matter, right? The name itself creates this friction of making it easy with terribly spelled names or clever spelled names, where the I's and Y's have been switched or some other kind of goofy thing where they leave out particular letters or add an extra vowel in all of these things, just create an environment where it makes it that much harder for the customer to get to the thing that you're trying to get. 

Chris Torbay: Yeah. And, I would ask customers, here's a survey question. “How many times have you ever chosen a brand because of their name?”

Right. And I believe in choosing a good name. I've done those assignments and I've changed, but I think when I develop a name, I also develop a name. It's like, what? What capacity does it give me? Not, what does it accomplish? You know, we, because we've done a couple of recent ones and, and we've created a name where I can see the campaign that comes outta that. And I can see how the campaign that comes outta that or works with that allows us to tell this story about this brand that we want to tell. So yes, it comes from, the inspiration does come from the brand, but the name doesn't tell the story. The logo doesn't tell the story. We still tell the story, and you look for, and that's why I think there are so many intrinsically bad names out there that are still very successful. And how many times have we done this with a, with a company that is intrinsically poorly named and you go, “What the heck am I gonna do with its dumb ass name?” And you go, “Well, you know?” Right. And that's the creative challenge. That's the thing that you say a lot, which is, you know, if you want to get a creative guy inspired, put him in a box and get him to find a creative solution out of it. Sometimes a bad name, you think is a bad name until you think of the most interesting, creative way to work with it, and then suddenly it's an asset.

Now you, but, but it, but it's the creative person. It's the communications person who makes it an asset.

Ryan Chute: Well, that leads us into the kind of second point out of five here, where we talk about choosing the naming category and Igor talks about a few different categories of names: evocative names, invented names, descriptive names, experiential names, and functional names.

All of these things serve a different purpose to get to an end result. They're all strategic, some better than others, and some are, are going to come with more creative juice to evoke our intentions as a business and to live in the space that we're trying to live in, be it locally, regionally, nationally or internationally.

So evocative names trigger that emotion. The ideas related to the brand's purpose. You know, it's evocative. Monster.com is an evocative name. It's standing out above all invented names are a little bit trickier, things like Google? 

Mick Torbay: Yeah. Or Kijiji. 

Ryan Chute: Or Kijiji, right.

Mick Torbay: What's a Kijiji? I dunno. 

Ryan Chute: Well, it's a, it's sure someone's gonna say it's something, it's an African something or other. 

Mick Torbay: And I'm sure someone's gonna remind us now that a Google is actually a one with a hundred zeros after it. Fine. Right. But you know what? Nobody knows that. And nobody knows that it's misspelled, and it only doesn't actually apply.

Chris Torbay: And to that end, though, it is so fine. It tells a little bit of the strategic story, but it tells, you know, that, that. You know, infinitely huge. Okay. That contributes to what Google wants to say, which is, “We will give you a million options, or a Google of options”. Right. But that's not nearly the whole story.

Ryan Chute: And that meaning gets lost so often. I remember times when you were talking about your large agency days, and people were, you know, saying the swoosh and the dots all meant some crazy thing. And it's like it got so deep and so metaphorical. You know that? 

Mick Torbay: Or it's to justify an hour-long meeting about the logo.

Chris Torbay: Well, let's justify that some logo companies. You know, gone away for a charge for an entire month, and it's charging a hundred grand for this. And so they come back and it's like an art gallery where they say that, you know, where it's a banana taped against the wall, but they say, well, the tape represents the imprisonment that we all feel intellectually.

And, you know, that blurb, which tries to make the thing more profound than it actually is. Well, can't you just say it's a really cool shape? I think people are really gonna remember it. It's gonna be very distinctive from everybody else. Because that's actually a huge win. You, you had the win. It's the right, it's the bullshit you tried to attach to it that lost me.

Ryan Chute: So, I mean, there is a balance in that subtlety. Descriptive names are like General Motors. They explain what the company does. They're there to just kind of put it out on the table. 

And experiential names like Gogo- related to an experience or a feeling. Gogo is a Wifi for airplanes, so it's. Trip on a Go-Go. I guess you know when you're on the go-go make me up before you, before you, before you connect to Wifi, see what you, I see what you did there.

And functional names, you know, ho hotels.com, you know, directly describe that product or service, it's highly descriptive. We also get lost in that when we see companies that are named quality or absolute, or any of these things, where they're trying to be definitive and holistic, it's nearly impossible. To own that idea and attach it to what you represent? 

Chris Torbay: Well, or you could do it, but as I say, then it's a restriction. If you wanna call you in Canada there was this, this big move for, 2-for-1 pizzas. A company owned calls themselves 2-for-1 Pizza. You pay for one pizza, they give you a second one for free. Cool. But like now, you can't be the most delicious pizza in town because the thing you've named yourself is that you get a free one. And so it is not that's cool. Now, if we also say We're delicious, boy, we're gonna win all of it. 

Mick Torbay: Also, you sure as hell, better be selling two pizzas for the price of where the competitor sells one, because in all those situations where people say, “Oh, we're two for one pizza”. No, you're twice as expensive pizza, and we give you two of them, you know, we're, we're not gonna fall for that.

Ryan Chute: Buy one pizza for full price and get the second one for full price as well. 

Mick Torbay: Well, and also when you're naming things, we have to bear in mind human nature, and human nature is always going to shorten things. This is a mistake that a lot of people make. They think that you can have a long, descriptive, complicated name and think that people are actually gonna say that, we all shorten it.

I mean, Federal Express isn't that long, and we still say shorten it, and we shortened it. Exactly. So bear that in mind. I mean, it's one of the reasons why Allied Garage Door of Southwest Florida. We changed to Mo Better Garage because it's significantly shorter, and now people can at least remember that.

If they shortened Allied Garage doors of Southwest Florida, what they're gonna do is they're gonna short it, shorten it to Allied, and they can't own the idea of Allied.

Chris Torbay: Well, because there's probably an Allied Trucking, there's, there's an Allied Taxi. 

Mick Torbay: There’s probably a hundred Allied. And so they're never gonna own that idea. But what they could own is Mo Better Garage. And they at least have a fighting chance of people remembering their brand compared to another one. 

Ryan Chute: Which would fall into the evocative world. This is we're taking something and going, what are the things that are going to stand you 600 feet above the competition?  It can't be that you're different anymore. It has to be distinct. And that subtle shift is that everyone is different, like everyone else. Like, there is no different-indifferent anymore. We have to shift gears and point in a different direction. But we were also very strategic in Mo Better Garage to not call it Mo Better Garage Doors. Why? Because if they wanna sell any other kind of door, or epoxy flooring, or lifts, or storage, storage cabinet storage. Exactly. They have the freedom to do that now, and in the future, we ought to look at it from a standpoint of, is this going to be a local brand or a national brand? 

So you start to shift these mindsets to what is the game that we're playing, what is the big vision and how we're gonna fit this all in. So you're absolutely right, now, where that goes to the next step is how we can focus in on the emotional components of it. If we don't have an emotional connection, it's way harder for your name to do the lifting that it needs to do. 

Chris Torbay: Well, and again, you can't unfairly give that to the name. Philip Morris, famously,  a decade ago, changed their holding company name to Altria, because it sounds kind of like altruism as opposed to cancer sticks, which is what Philip Morris sold is- is in people's minds, 

Mick Torbay: Allegedly, we don't want to get sued. 

Chris Torbay: And so, they thought, “Well, if we call ourselves Altria, then people will feel better about our company cigarette”. It's like, no, you gotta make people feel something about your company on your own. You cannot expect that a name change is going to do that. And there are a number of examples of corporations that sort of try that. 

The reason people buy Acura is not because the name sort of sounds like accuracy. It's because the product lived up to being a slightly premium version of a Honda. And so people do find the value in paying extra for the Acura line than they pay for the Honda line. But you can't get away with doing it just with an evocative name and thinking, “Well, now we've got that solved”.

Ryan Chute: Yeah. Evocative with that's empty or void of authenticity, we know that when it feels disingenuous that it's pulling the wrong emotional string. And we are looking for that emotional, and we want positive resonance outta that emotional string that pulls, and just any old word ain't gonna do.

And using the generic go-to words that you would see on any good core values list aren't gonna cut it either. 

Mick Torbay: Well, no, in fact, if you pick a word that is generally used in your category,  you never have a problem when it comes to search, which matters. Which is why a company called Best Barbershop is a problem, because you will not be the only answer to that question.

Chris Torbay: When somebody Google's best barber shop in town. 

Mick Torbay: So you might say, “Oh, that's brilliant because when people want the best barbershop, they're gonna get us?”

It's like, “No, Google knows better than to just only give them one answer.” If you called yourself Kangaroo Barbershop. Then you have a better shot of being the only one when people are putting in your name. 

Ryan Chute: Well, and that's a trap that came from Yellow Pages, where A1 and AAA and all those things were the cheat code for a minute. And then in Google, the cheat code was what the search terms? What are the best search terms for searching for the best barbershop?

That worked for a minute, Google uses natural language processing. It's 2025. We have to be more sophisticated in our approach now because not only are we creating a challenge. Now, but is there an opportunity within that? Sometimes, sometimes there's ways that you can pull on that, but it's very often limiting. It's not going to have the legs and the depth that you're hoping that it's gonna have.

Mick Torbay: You also need to bear in mind that changing the name is almost always, at first, a liability. I mean, changing a name requires changing minds, and we really don't like changing minds in advertising. That sounds counterintuitive because when you're trying to persuade people to make a decision, but we actually don't want to change minds. We wanna find out where the minds are and then attach our brand to what the consumer's already thinking. 

If people are thinking of you as one thing, and then we want them to think of you as another thing, that's really, really fricking hard, right? So when you're thinking about changing your name, bear in mind that you should only do that if you have to.

Ryan Chute: I agree. And I would say if you currently don't represent anything in anyone's mind, if you've never advertised or if you've advertised so little that the only people who would know it's not a household thing, right? 

Mick Torbay: Yeah. Then you're not changing people's things. We're merely starting from scratch. We're starting from scratch. But I can give you an example of a client who needed to do this. It's a client of ours, a plumbing company in Dayton, Ohio, and they were called All Drain. And All Drain is an excellent name for a plumbing company. But the first thing I ask them in our very first meeting is, “Are you ever going to offer more than just plumbing services?”

Because very often in these spaces, they will expand the number of trades underneath their umbrella. They say, “Well, we're thinking about getting into HV in a couple of years, but don't worry about that.” It's like, “Oh no, we're gonna worry about that because we're about to completely change your advertising. And I don't want to completely change your advertising twice. So if you're ever going to get into HVAC, we need to bear that in mind now, change your name to something that can take you through the next 20 years. And change it now so that it'll work.”

So we gave them a new name that had nothing to do, didn't say drains in it. Had a new name, was a strategic name, worked for Dayton, Ohio, was not physically restricted to the one trade that they're in now. So that's a good, that's a good reason to do it. 

Ryan Chute: Neil Patel is in charge of Neil Patel, a SEO marketing agency, a hundred-million-dollar SEO agency, and he said the data is clearly supportive of a brand taking 10 years to build the full momentum that it needs when you start branding. And not the lightweight stuff that a handful of people, including your customers, will see. We're talking about the mass level of branding that happens when the majority of people. Have some sort of impression about you. The better your brand, the more they feel about your brand. Some people have name recognition. We had a client down in, in Florida where they had name recognition. I promise you, they were spending a King's ransom in marketing. We reduced their budget by a third, increased their total impact points or impression points by four times and leveraged the heck outta the name. And that company doubled in size. 

Well, that's a big deal when you start to think about name recognition versus brand recognition. The whole point, which starts with a name, is how do we make people feel something about that name, not just know it. 

Mick Torbay: I would also caution people who are in a situation where they have to change their name or they're considering changing their name, for god's sake, keep the committee outta the room. Because my rants about the committee are legendary. You can find those online, but the risk is with the committee on a naming assignment. Is that they're going to look at any name and say, yes, it ticks these boxes, but what is it saying about these boxes over here? It's not there to tick all the freaking boxes.

Apple ticks no boxes. Yes. So, it's fine. And it's fine. Absolutely fine. But I mean, you know, talking about trigger warnings, I mean, Kitchen Stuff Plus absolutely makes me go bananas, because someone at kitchen stuff said, “Yeah, but we're also selling things for the dining room. So we should call ourselves Kitchen Atuff Plus,” okay, so you just took your the name of your company, you made it slightly more cumbersome, slightly less easy to remember and gave me no new data with which to make a decision.

Yeah, because “plus” doesn't tell me shit. Any tell time you call yourself… 

Chris Torbay: All plus does is tell you that the first two words are sort of wrong. 

Mick Torbay: That's it. If know, if you call yourself more than just signs, I don't know what else you sell except for signs. So don't do that. At least call yourself Dave Signs and then move on from there.

Chris Torbay: And again, that there's a name that has the ability, maybe I can build a story around Dave, maybe. Maybe there's a backstory there. Maybe there's a quality story we could tell about, Dave, you've given me something with Dave. You haven't given me something with Plus. 

Ryan Chute: Yeah. That's it. That's exactly it. And we are right in the weeds of the fourth component that we consider around all these things, which is avoiding too descriptive, or limiting names, and avoiding difficult to spell or pronounce names, clichés or similar to competition names. All of these things are the common pitfalls that seem right because everyone's doing it. But the biggest pitfall is if everyone's doing it, you should probably do something different. 

Chris Torbay: And then that was a real trend in the last sort of decade or so. Partly because all the good URL words got scooped up. And so, you can't call yourself. You know, tires.com, because somebody big and rich owns that one. So you try spelling it with two i's or a y or you know, something like that. I mean, that one's gone in Britain. I'm too sure too. But, and so you get all these things where they drop the second last vowel, and you know, all this kind of stuff. And, I think we're sort of past that, which is first, we used up all the real words. Then we used up all the misspellings of the real words. 

Mick Torbay: Then, you know, we now we're left with Kajiji. 

Chris Torbay: Now we're left with either totally made-up words or words that on first glance, have absolutely nothing to do with our business, or we're making up crazy words like Mondelez.

Ryan Chute: Well, and I think it goes back to the very first point, which is to understand what the intentions are and what we're going to start wrapping that strategy around. And that puts us into this step number five, where we start to set ourselves up for that comprehensive narrative. You know, I think of a name of a business, kind of like the working title of a book. If you haven't read or written the book yet, then what in the world is that title? But yes, a good idea around what might it be, and how many times do people change the name of their. Book once they've actually written it and gone, oh, it's actually not about that. It's about this. 

Chris Torbay: Yeah. And that, to go back to the very beginning, that's why, you know, we believe in doing these naming assignments strategically. I mean, one of my last agency jobs was to work for a branding agency. And we would quite frequently do rebrandings because companies would evolve, and their original brand was tied to something that they really don't do anymore. They really do this new thing. And so we do a strategic look at it and so. It should definitely come from and you should definitely dig into what the business is and what its future is, and let's make sure we know that where that path is headed and pick something that's more appropriate to, anything in the cone of uncertainty that that path could be.

But again, given that, it doesn't have to tell that story. It has to be able to bear that story. It has to be able to be a component of that story. It has to be the bass player in that band. But it does not have to be the driving force.

Ryan Chute: It really comes back to alignment, right? In all of these things, if the bass players out of sync with the rest of the song, it sounds awful. You know, it's no different than a truck rapper or a logo. What should we be doing truck raps and logos for on a business that we don't even know what the right name is, let alone know what the right story is. That's all backwards. Now, have we had to tuck ourselves into working around those creative constraints? Of weak naming choices and weak branding choices that we elevate. Absolutely. 

Chris Torbay: Sometimes you can turn that into a win. You know, you can. And that's what my Piggly Wiggly thing, right? It’s a ridiculously bad name. It's so ridiculously bad that you can run with it. You can lean into it, right? You can, you can make it a thing, and you can suddenly be distinctive, and you know, how strategic can you be with it? Not sure. I mean, I haven't looked into all of their advertising, but it's sometimes something that at first is very disheartening, very discouraging from a creative perspective. And, your first thing is, “Could we change your name so that I can create something that I can work with?”

And when the answer's no, it's almost a better challenge. Okay, so how can I actually make that make sense, because it doesn't. And sometimes the story you have to tell is now, such an interesting story because the consumer didn't see it coming. It certainly made you have to do something other than quality service selection and plenty of free parking because you somehow gotta justify this crazy ass name.

Mick Torbay: But bear in mind that that's, that's nitroglycerin. I mean that in the right hands will save your life; in the wrong hands will blow up in your face. There are so many examples of companies that gave themselves incredibly restricted names, and then they just ignored it. 

I mean, there's a very famous, or not famous, but a very popular store in our city called Just White Shirts. And it just became a very popular men's wear store. And now they obviously don't sell just white shirts. It's like, “Guys, your name is killing you here.” 

Chris Torbay: And they're just looking the other way.

Mick Torbay: They're just ignoring it. They're just pretending it didn't happen. It's like, well, now what you need is a really good copywriter to dig you out of that hole. 

Chris Torbay: Sure. And now, do a tongue-in-cheek campaign about, “just white shirts, sorry, about the name,” you know, or do something. Run with it. 

Ryan Chute: And that's one of the things when handed a creative constraint like this is to sometimes lean into the campaign being about the name. 

Ryan Chute: You know, one of its ways around. 

Chris Torbay: That's what Goettl did. And, to rhyme hard to spell with it acknowledges that it's kind of a hamfisted name, and what are you gonna do? But it makes you people interested. Now you kind of want to, it's what are they? It's weird. 

Mick Torbay: It's like Orville Baer.

Chris Torbay: It is Orville Redden Baer. Brilliant name, you know. 

Mick Torbay: So I do have one piece of advice though for people who are considering changing their name, and they're perhaps bringing in a company to do a naming assignment, and this, and it's gonna sound like I'm being silly or facetious here, but I'm actually being very honest. 

If you've got someone doing a naming assignment, be very wary of placeholders. Do not use a placeholder. 

And so, because everybody uses placeholders, I'm gonna give you the placeholder that you have to use and the name of your company, the placeholder that you need to talk about while you're waiting for it is, stupid, stupid, crappy barbershop. Literally, call it stupid, crappy barbershop while you're waiting for someone to come up with the answer. 

And the reason is because you know that can’t really be it. 

If you start calling it “Ryan's Barbershop” as a placeholder while the people are coming up with the name, then in the month and a half while you're working on your business and doing your build out, and talking with renovation people, you're gonna start to fall in love with Ryan's Barbershop.

Chris Torbay: As bumpy as it might be, it gets less bumpy for you. 

Mick Torbay: That is human nature to just, whatever you pick, you'll just kind of start to like it because you're just gonna say it over and over again. And then you're gonna be fighting with a new great idea that your naming company has come up with. And then the thing that you kind of fell in love with all on your own. So you, there will be a placeholder use, “stupid, crappy, whatever”, so that you do not fall in love with it. 

Chris Torbay: Yes. This is how I got into the actors' union. I demoed so many of my own commercials and then went to a casting session to get somebody else to read them.

And the client had been listening to my demo for a month, and by the time we gave them the new cast, it's like, “I don't know, I kinda like Chris's version.” 

Mick Torbay: Chris is not a real actor. 

Chris Torbay: Yeah. Uh, but I still got the gig. It yes, absolutely happens. 

Ryan Chute: That's fantastic. What does your name say about you?

Could you see it on a national TV ad? Does it represent your intentions, your solution, your purpose, and what you're trying to achieve with the business itself, locally, regionally, or nationally? 

Names are really, really important, and they should be true to you and true to what you're trying to achieve. When we get back. We'll wrap this up with a few ideas on how we can best name your business. 

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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 Chute: There are four things we'd like you to take away from today. The first is to embrace boldness. Names like Call Ada and Mo Better Garage succeed because they break the mould of their categories. 

Two, is to prioritize simplicity and clarity. The name should be easy to spell, pronounce, and remember.

Next is to tell a story. A great name is a foundation for a compelling brand narrative. And lastly is to own the lion's share of the mind. Unique names create competitive advantages and avoid legal conflicts. Until next time, this has been Advertising in America. 

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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.

With the rise of digital media and a greater focus on uninspired factual ads, people rarely observe false advertising. Every consumer today is all about the truth. After all, a good bit of Google research can tell much about the truth in advertising. As such, sensible consumers can smell false ads that aim to deceive them from a mile away.

We can never contend the importance of truth in advertising. That's not up for debate.

However, the truth is not necessarily believable, interesting, or relevant simply because they are true. You must always wrap the truth in advertising under a compelling narrative. The strength of fact-based ads depends on how stimulating and persuasive you craft your advertisements. 

Come to think of it. Why do advertisers use testimonials? Even when some of them are not entirely true, testimonials can sway the hearts of listeners. Which, in some way, adds more heft compared to bombarding consumers with dry statistics and data.

To uphold your truth in advertising, you must work with storytelling professionals who can effectively convey your story. This requires someone with fundamental knowledge of narratives and antenarratives. Lucky for you, we're the experts at it, and we'll give you a comprehensive guide in this article.

If you're interested to learn more about it, keep reading.

The Three Different People

Dean Rotbart, author and host of Monday Morning Radio, described people as having three personas:

• The first is the person you see whenever you look in the mirror. According to him, this is the person you believe yourself to be.
• The second persona is the person others perceive when they look at you. This is the person that others believe you to be.
• The third person is the real, genuine and unadulterated you. It is the rough average of what you see personally and what others see in you.

Here's the caveat: all of these things represent the truth.

What you believe yourself to be is your version of reality. Similarly, others see you as the person they believe you to be. However, given the nuances and differences in perceptual reality, neither persona captures the entire truth.

Now, how is this information relevant?

Here's the catch: everyone is deceived by their delusions. But there's a way to twist people's perceptual reality in your favor. The secret? Stories— the interesting ones.

“Know something, sugar? Stories only happen to people who can tell them.” —Allan Gurganus

The truth happens to everyone, but only storytellers can transform truth into stories. Whatever rhythm, style, prose or narration storytellers use becomes attached to the truth. In the same way, the truth in advertising takes its conversion strength from the narrative behind it.

All businesses possess a set of truths that form the foundation of their business. This same truth reflects in their story— the brand image, public communication and advertising. However, even staggering statistics and incredible facts lose their value when paired with poor storytelling. In other words, the truth and how you deliver them influence their overall impact.

If you want your ads to supercharge your truth in advertising, give it a good story. Or better yet, trust us to write those compelling truth-driven narratives for you. Book a call to learn more about how we can help tell your truth— in the most compelling way possible.

Antenarrative vs. Narrative

Talking about the three personas sets a precedent for fully understanding storytelling and the truth in advertising.

Everyone has heard of the term "narrative" before. It is typically used to refer to a coherent story with a beginning, middle and end. We often see narratives in movies, books, and other forms of media. A storyteller creates them in retrospect, arranging the scenes artfully and integrating them into an appropriate setting.

On the other hand, antenarratives may be a new concept to many readers and business owners. Antenarratives are people's unedited, incoherent, logic-lacking, chaotic and disconnected lived experiences. They are the unadulterated puzzle pieces that serve as building blocks before a story can happen. In other words, they are the way things happen.

A skillful arrangement of antenarratives, paired with perfect execution, results in a story that sparkles with fairy dust. Conversely, if the storyteller organizes predictably, the story will reek of a dog's breakfast. Punchlines are funny because they are strategically placed antenarratives that break a story's monotony and chronology.

"Antenarrative happens to everyone. But stories only happen to people who can tell them." —Roy H. Williams

Quentin Tarantino is one of the best storytellers and movie directors. His movies are composed of scattered bits and pieces of open-ended antenarratives that stand alone. However, he always finds a way to sew each scene together to create one cohesive piece. As such, it's impossible to predict the conclusion of his films, and they leave audiences wowing at the end.

The main keyword behind the strength of a narrative is retrospect. Specifically, a retrospective few of all antenarratives happened during those lived experiences. Through a retrospective view, people can recall past events and eliminate irrelevant antenarratives that do not support the story.

Like people, businesses go through their own lived experiences. The sum of all these antenarratives creates the truth of the brand. As a result, they reflect on a company's core values, guiding principles, company culture and even advertising.

However, not all antenarratives become part of that truth. When it comes to truth in advertising, you want to keep the best antenarratives that make your company look good. You won't create ads that deliberately incriminate your business, making audiences second-guess working with your company.

Pulitzer Winning Books and their Narratives and Antenarratives

Narratives are polished and varnished versions of antenarratives. Think of a research paper that's undergone many revisions before being the perfect rendition, ready for publication. However, some finely crafted fiction yet rough-hewn antenarratives make it to the big leagues.

Below, we'll look at two Pulitzer-awarded books that perfectly represent the use of narratives and antenarratives.

The Old Man and the Sea

"The Old Man and the Sea" is a classic novel by Ernest Hemingway. It features the epic struggle between about an aging fisherman and the greatest catch of his life. For 84 days, the Cuban fisherman called Santiago sets out to sea only to return empty-handed. Conspicuously unlucky, even his most trusted apprentice, Manolin, left his boat for others.

However, the intensity of the narrative began rising on the 85th day. Santiago went beyond the island's coast, trying his luck against the aggressive gulf stream. Finally, his bait catches a big fish that he knew was a marlin. The man tries to hook the fish back but struggles and the fish begins pulling the boat instead.

The majority of the narrative revolved around this push-pull dynamic. But during these moments, we explored countless antennaratives beyond Santiago's lived experiences.

For instance, Hemingway detailed Santiago's physical suffering and exhaustion. We also had the chance to enter Santiago's perceptual reality and existential thoughts. Finally killing the marlin, we are greeted with Santiago's battle against mako sharks and losing fish's meat to the predators.

The story takes an odd turn when an exhausted, empty-handed Santiago returns and goes into a deep sleep. During this, tourists and fishermen gathered to adore the carcass of the biggest fish they'd ever seen. Finally, the story closes with Manolin bringing Santiago coffee and talking about baseball.

Did you notice the roller coaster ride of antenarratives throughout the story? Despite these seemingly bizarre and disconnected details, Hemingway managed to piece them together into a perfect narrative. This complete narrative is now Santiago's story, and with Hemingway's perfect delivery, it also became everyone's truth.

The truth in advertising follows the same principle. How people view your brand's truth depends on how you effectively piece your antenarratives together. Some antenarratives will never make it in the final cut of your advertisements, and that's okay.

Why?

Because ad writers never let the truth stand in the way of a good story.

Let's look at another antenarrative-powered publication.

Founding Brothers

"Founding Brothers" is the brainchild of award-winning author Joseph Ellis wherein he explored the people that built America. In his landmark history work, he explored how deeply flawed individuals confronted the challenges to set the nation's course.

Ask anyone outside the US, and they'll describe America as the land of the free. Others may even add that success and wealth are achievable through hard work and determination. Despite the country still being rife with inequality and bureaucracy, to some degree, foreign people's perceptions have some merit.

However, that was never always the case.

The United States of America was more a fragile hope than a reality in the 18th century. While we view the founding fathers as great people, as we should, they are not free from flaws. History books tell the tale of their bravery in breaking free from Britain's grasp. But books will only delve into important antenarratives like their clashing personalities, troubles among the ranks and character flaws.

Hamilton, Burr, Jefferson, Franklin, Washington, Adams and Madison were never perfect. And these shortcomings would have cost this landmass to remain an extension of England. But despite these challenges, America rose from the ashes of a shattered dream. "Founding Brothers" brings reveals the vital issues and personalities of America's Founding Fathers.

Here's the thing: they never thought after three centuries, people would refer to them as the Founding Fathers. 

These antenarratives are omitted from history books and class lectures because they give America a bad name. The course of time could have gone differently considering their demeanors, dispositions and differences.

What matters is they signed the Declaration of Independence, right? That seems to be the problem.

"But you and I live under the curse of post facto knowledge." —Roy H. Williams

Antenarratives are the building blocks that form the truth— the story. However, our post facto or after-the-fact knowledge urges us to challenge the very foundations of the story— the antenarratives. That's why businesses integrate as many facts, statistics, data and truth in advertising. But that's where problems occur.

Post facto knowledge is always troublesome, especially when crafting ads, and Roy H. Williams has a comprehensive explanation as to why:

• Facts are not necessarily believable just because they are true.
• Facts are not necessarily interesting just because they are true.
• Facts are not necessarily relevant just because they are true.

You can't just throw in antenarratives and expect people to chew them up like a well seasoned, medium-rare steak. Wrapping those facts in a compelling narrative upsurge the impact and relevance of your ads.

Let me repeat what I said earlier: never let the truth stand in the way of a good story.

Ad Writers and the Truth Within Stories

Even the most popular brands use crafty narratives to convey their truth in advertising. Let's look at the antenarratives of some famous brands:

Harley Davidson's "American by Birth. Rebel by Choice" slogan

Japanese manufacturers have always taken the lead in motorcycle and car technologies for many years. Harley Davidson's marketing slogan is built around the central idea of giving American customers a sense of freedom. It is a freeing statement that breaks motorcycle enthusiasts from the shackles of superior Japanese engineering.

Harley-Davidson is an American brand, hence, American by Birth. Harley has also been associated with a rebellious spirit and a strong sense of independence throughout its history. Whether riding their iconic motorcycles or rocking the brand's famous logo, people always embody this bold, unyielding attitude. 

Their target is people who value the prestige of owning one of Harley's badass gas-guzzling bikes. Millennials who firmly stand against vehicles for their environmental impact will never understand the art of riding Harleys. That's why Harley riders are rebels by choice.

Willie G. Davidson once said, "motorcycles have always been dramatic. They are not for everybody and never will be. This is a product that people can take to an extreme as a means of self-expression."

Capturing this essence in marketing messages has allowed Harley to remain one of the most recognizable brands in America.

Volkswagen's "Think Small" advertising campaign

Volkswagen was not too popular post the second world war. After Hitler's fiasco, redeeming Germany from shame and economic downfall was far from easy. At the time, the United States became the world's consumer superpower. The car industry was also growing in their favor, where muscle cars and sedans began booming.

Fifteen years after world war II, Volkswagen found itself in a bubble. They developed a two-door, odd-looking, rear-engine mini economy car called the Beetle. It was unique, but the looks didn't match consumer preferences at the time. Not to mention, VW manufactured the Beetle in a plant that the Nazis built in Wolfsburg, Germany.

However, Volkswagen's Think Small ad campaign turned Beetle into a global sensation.

How? Simple. Volkswagen conveyed the truth in advertising, but only the truth that mattered.

Allow me to retort.

Their Think Small campaign centered on a series of antenarratives that explained the advantages of owning a Beetle. Paired with great graphic design, Ad Age ranked the ad series as the best ad campaign of the 20th century. Here are some examples:

• They wrote "Think small" on a page featuring a plain white background and a small image of the Volkswagen Beetle.
• "And if you run out of gas, it's easy to push."
• "It makes your house look bigger."
• "We do ours. You do yours." They showcased a factory-produced Beetle on the right pane and a colorfully painted Beetle on the left. This ad ushered in a new wave of marketing called the "creative revolution."
• "They said it couldn't be done. It couldn't." In this campaign, we see the legendary basketball center Wilt Chamberlain beside the small Beetle. Volkswagen said the Beetle is not for the 7'1" but can fit up to 6'7" people with generous headspace.

In their ad campaign, Volkswagen shared many facts, a.k.a. antenarratives,, which brought the Beetle its well-deserved glory. However, they omitted some antenarratives that would have cost them their game. Some people would feel sore knowing it was manufactured in a Nazi-built plant in Germany. So they did the right thing, omitting a fact and highlighting other facts that make their brand look good.

Don't mistake me. It's not about deception, false advertising or lying to your target audience about defects or product flaws. That is plain wrong. After all, Harley-Davidson and Volkswagen never lied in their ads.

You're simply focusing on the antenarratives that perfect the narrative of your advertisements. In other words, you're telling a TRUE story that best serves your clients while also serving your business.

That is how you use truth in advertising.

Again, never let the truth stand in the way of a good story.

At Wizard of Ads® for Essential Services, we're all about conveying the truths that matter. If you want people to know your brand's truth, we can do it for you in the most compelling way possible.

Book a call with Wizard Ryan Chute, and let's reveal your truth in advertising.

A Small Business Survival Guide

The front page of Google search. Ah, Digital Nirvana. Remember those good old days? Only two roads got you there.

The first road was SEO.

It was hard and slow. You got there through your own merit as recognized by Google. Create great content that a lot of people seemed to want, and Google would help the world find you – eventually.

It was all about patience and consistency.

The second road was PPC.

It was fast and expensive.

Didn’t want to wait for Google to recognize your authority? Fine. You could just use bribes. In fairness, Google didn’t call it a “bribe”; they called it “Pay Per Click.”

As anyone who’s shelled out for PPC knows, it costs more and more to show up less and less on Google’s front page. Just like a bribe.

That was then. This is now.

Today, even when you do make Google’s front page, fewer and fewer people ever see you.

Why?

Because AI is reshaping how buyers search and find you.

• ChatGPT has gutted the SEO game.
• Claude has clobbered Search Engine specialists.
• Grok has gummed up the keyword works.

Every day, more and more people use AI to search for answers instead of Google.

Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss ¹

So how do you – Mister or Missus Small Business Owner – respond to this switch from Google to AI? How do you adapt your digital marketing game so you can win?

Well, the bad news is obvious.

AI doesn’t offer PPC – yet. (But you can bet that’s coming.) You can’t pay any amount of money to show up in an AI search.

It’s kind of ironic. A whole generation of people devoted decades to learning how to please Google’s search algorithm instead of learning how to please customers. Yet in just a few months’ time, the entire career category known as “SEO Specialist” has been rendered obsolete.

(OK, perhaps I exaggerate. But not much.)

Every Little Thing Gonna Be Alright ²

On the other hand, the good news is actually old news.

Back in olden times, back before they got addicted to the crack pipe of PPC money, Google valued relevant, helpful, unique content.

Guess what kind of content Artificial Intelligence values today?

That’s right – relevant, helpful, and – above all – unique content.

Turn and Face the Strange ³

Don’t be deceived. Your website still needs great, original content. None of this boilerplate stuff, please. Boilerplate makes you even more invisible, and more obnoxious.

Most websites only answer the questions that all the other businesses in their industry answer. Don’t be that business.

When you do what everyone else does, you get lost in the noise.

Set yourself apart. Make it your mission to answer every single question that prospective customers ask.

Not just the questions you can answer “for free.” Answer the questions that save buyers time, money and aggravation. Answer the questions that reveal those special insider “industry secrets.” Above all, answer the questions everyone else is afraid to answer publicly.

By far, the best source of guidance on how to create useful, authoritative content is Marcus Sheridan’s terrific little book, They Ask, You Answer. (I wish he was a Wizard of Ads partner, but he isn’t. Oh well. His book is still great.)

A New Religion That’ll Bring Ya to Your Knees ⁴

Here’s an amazing little technique that can work wonders for your website. We liken it to Salome’s infamous Dance of the Seven Veils. I asked Grok to explain the origin of that term.

The Dance of the Seven Veils is the name of a famous dance performed by a woman named Salome. In the story, Salome dances for King Herod, while she wears seven thin, see-through veils. As she dances, she takes off one veil at a time, moving gracefully to music. Each veil dropping builds suspense and keeps everyone watching, wondering what’s next. It’s not just a random dance; it’s tied to a big moment in the story where Salome asks for something shocking after she finishes—the head of John the Baptist. The dance is about the power of mystery and drama to influence behavior.

Like Salome dropping one veil after another, each question you answer increases engagement from your audience and builds your credibility. This is what strengthens your website’s authority with AI.

Make it a point of pride to answer every question your customers and prospects ask. Craft your answers like Salome and her veils – each answer you give should link to the next questions.

DISCLAIMER: There is no guarantee that AI will drive people to your website. For the present though, most AI responses do reference the websites used for their answers.

Time Will Show You the Way ⁵

So, is SEO defunct? Is PPC dead? Should you just quit this digital marketing stuff?

Absolutely not.

Yes, digital marketing has changed. And PPC still matters, just not in the way it used to. The content of your website still matters.

It’s still all about patience and consistency.

Your digital marketing specialist can be an invaluable part of your team, but only if he knows which digital analytics matter, and which ones don’t. (HINT: the analytics that matter have changed as well.)

In this new age of Artificial Intelligence, is it really worth the time, patience and effort necessary to add great content to your website?

Absolutely.

Combine your AI-savvy digital presence with an equally potent offline mass media campaign, and you can build a powerhouse business honored by AI, feared by your competition and beloved by your customers.

¹ Won’t Get Fooled Again – The Who, 1971
² Three Little Birds – Bob Marley, 1977³ Changes – David Bowie, 1971⁴ Black Velvet – Alannah Myles, 1989⁵ Echoes of Love – The Doobie Brothers, 1977

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Informative advertising is one of two most popular types of advertising. The other type is persuasive advertising, and both can be effective at affecting consumer behavior. Which one you turn to depends on your goals and the situation you find yourself in. So before we go any further, let me first ask…What is it that you most want to make — money, a name or a difference? Almost everyone seeks all three. But there’s always one priority, so you’ll need to be honest with yourself. What’s your priority with your business? What end should your advertising decisions be in pursuit of? The answer is going to make a difference in how you allocate your resources. If you’re not able to decide which of the three goals you seek most, then read on. By the end of this article, you’ll have a clearer answer regarding your goals and how to achieve them.

What Is Informative Advertising?

Let’s start by defining informative advertising: a facts-and-figures based method of convincing your audience they need your product or service. With statistics and numbers, you can demonstrate your product’s relevancy and value. It’s essential to only cite true information from trustworthy sources, though, or you’ll ruin your credibility. And a company with no credibility can’t market effectively, especially not with informative advertising methodology. In theory, once your audience is made aware of key information, they’ll be convinced to make a purchase. The question is, what information would lead them to the conclusion that they simply have to buy your product? Think about what facts really set you apart from your competitors. Are there any areas where you know you’re stronger than the rest? If so, that’s where you’re going to want to focus people’s attention. At the very least, the information you provide should pique their interest to learn more. That way you can offer them more information down the road that will hopefully lead to sales.

Informative Advertising vs. Persuasive Advertising

In contrast to informative advertising, there’s persuasive advertising. Persuasive advertising relies on the emotional side of an audience’s decision making process. By appealing to emotions, these persuasive ads aim to make their audience feel a certain way. And then that feeling leads to the decision of purchasing the product. For example, a persuasive ad for sneakers might try to make you feel lazy for sitting around on your rear all day instead of getting out for a walk or run. In simplest terms, informative advertising relies on logic while persuasive advertising relies on emotion. Which appeal will make a bigger impact on your target audience?

What Is the Main Purpose of Informative Advertising?

Any advertisement aims to sell a product or service. The only difference is how they try to make that sale. With informative advertising, the marketing method centers on offering education that convinces a potential buyer to make a purchase. This type of advertising works best when a product is superior to its competition in a measurable way. Are facts and figures on your side because of your product’s high-quality? If so, informative advertising can be extremely effective. Identify what you’re most proud of in your product, and then use whatever metrics you have to prove it. Another benefit of informative advertising is that prospective customers are more likely to feel that they made their own choice. With persuasive advertising, if it’s done too heavy-handedly, then you risk your audience feeling manipulated. Remember: advertising is as much of an art as it is a science, so it requires a delicate and nuanced approach. But if you aren’t very well-practiced with these two types of advertising, you don’t need to get all wound up. We’re here to help. We have the experience to help you set and follow your marketing strategy to best meet your goals. Contact us at Wizard of Ads® for Essential Services today!

Examples of Informative Advertising

Now that we’ve covered the theory behind informative advertising, let’s go over some real-life examples. Seeing what other companies do in their ads is a great way to study marketing methods. Use those ads to jumpstart your efforts. When you find an ad that you think works well, try to figure out what exactly works and why it does. That way, you can apply the same ideas to bolster your own strategy. We’ll help you get started with the following ads.

The Surfrider Foundation

In this ad, The Surfrider Foundation is using the informative advertising method. The ad reads, “What Goes in the Ocean Goes in You. Recent studies estimate that fish off the West Coast ingest over 12,000 tons of plastic a year. Find out how you can help turn the tide on plastic pollution at www.surfrider.org/rap.”The goal is to educate the audience on the extent of pollution in the ocean. More specifically, it highlights the exact amount of plastic that fish eat in The Pacific Ocean. Lastly, they tie that figure to human seafood consumption: if you eat fish, you’re eating plastic. People generally don’t want to eat plastic, so this ad is going to grab the attention of its readers. The Surfrider Foundation is hoping that people’s actions are driven by a lack of knowledge or awareness, and that if they just really knew, they’d change. They’d want to reduce their harmful contribution to ocean plastic pollution, and they’d turn to the foundation for more information. For informative advertising, keep in mind that your information has to be reputable. By citing real and high-quality research, this type of marketing is much more effective. Otherwise, it’ll work against you.

Front App

One situation in which informative advertising tends to be effective is a product launch. How can consumers choose your product if they don’t know about it? Some basic information can go a long way with initial advertising efforts. Front App teamed up with a blog in their industry to launch their product. By choosing TechCrunch, a reputable site, Front App is offering their target audience information. That information on their product is meant to help them gain a following. By educating readers on how their product works and benefits them, Front App can establish their audience base to further grow. Establishing a base can help build momentum down the road. This article acts as a full run-down of the relevant information about Front App, including what the product is and who can benefit from it. General informative advertisements aren’t always a good idea, though. If you’ve already established a customer base, you’re going to want to hone in on some more specific information. Since your audience would already know about you if you’re an established brand, they won’t be interested in basic information. Instead, focus on something more unique that your audience hasn’t heard before.

Miller Lite

Bud Light created an ad campaign that pointed out some information about Miller Lite. Miller Lite’s ingredient list includes corn syrup, and the implication behind the information is that Miller Lite is more unhealthy than Bud Light. As a response, Miller Lite clapped right back with their own advertisement. They did so in the form of a counter-campaign, again based on informative advertising principles. They compared the calories and carbs in both beers to show that Miller Lite has fewer calories and carbs. This information is meant to imply that despite the corn syrup, Miller Lite is still a better option than Bud Light for health. Then, the information is also used to back up their central claim, which is that Miller Lite has more taste. Another example is what happened here with another of Miller Lite competitors, Michelob Ultra. Michelob’s advertising pointed out that they had fewer calories than their competitors, including Miller Lite. So, Miller Lite ran an ad that pointed out that the difference was exactly one calorie. In the commercial, a person goes to check out at a liquor store with Michelob Ultra. The cashier looks at the Michelob Ultra beer and says, “You know Miller Lite only has one more calorie, right?” The customer immediately goes back and chooses Miller Lite instead. This commercial implies that if users knew that the difference was so small, they’d always choose the superior-tasting Miller Lite instead. After all, what beer drinker cares about one measly calorie? This ad definitely shifts toward persuasive methods at the end. When that tone shifts and the customer goes back to choose Miller, it serves as an example of how you can blend both philosophies.

Often, it’s effective to start with a factual presentation then move on to its emotional impact. Regardless of your marketing, advertising, or sales needs, we’re here for you. If you need a push in the right direction, then Wizard of Ads® for Essential Services is happy to provide you with our expertise. Contact us today to get started!

Step aside, Professor— your marketing plan isn’t a TED Talk.

In this episode of Advertising in America, we put the kibosh on one of the most persistent myths in business: that your ad should "educate the consumer."

Spoiler alert: If your audience walks away from your ad knowing more about your product but still doesn’t want it, you’ve failed, sweetheart.

Ryan, Mick, and Chris roll up their sleeves and take the scalpel to feature-heavy, fact-laden ads that bore instead of sell. You’ll hear stories from Porsche to pork chops, gemology to body spray—and why the only education your ad should deliver is why the customer should give a damn.

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Episode Highlights:

• Why "telling me about x-factor" is useless unless I care about y-factor
• How selling benefits still misses the mark if you don't know what I really want
• When to use education (and when to shut up and entertain)
• The difference between marketing, advertising (and a masterclass on Retinol-9)
  
  

If your ads sound like Charlie Brown’s teacher, it’s time to grab a seat, take some notes, and learn how to say something that sticks.

🎧 Hit play. Then stop teaching, start enticing, and for the love of Madison Avenue—talk to the heart, not the hard drive.

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Educating the consumer is not the advertiser’s job. We should educate the consumer in our advertising. Now this one should have come with a trigger warning. This one takes me back to when I was a cub writer. Speak to me about what I care about. And if you're so deep in your business that you don't know what drives regular people, then for goodness' sake, find a copywriter who can meet the customer where they're at.

When I worked on Porsche, we never started our body copy with, “Do you have a $100K to spend on a car that you drive only in the summer?” No, we made people yearn for the experience of taking an exquisite piece of German engineering out onto the racetrack. If we could get one of those people into the dealership, take a test drive, it was up to you to figure out how they could pay for it. Closing the deal is your job. 

Dude, that exchange worked great between those two people. Yeah, but it doesn't necessarily continue what motivated you, which was stuff that is not motivating the consumer. The only person who matters is the consumer. It's not you.

Ryan Chute: On today's episode of Advertising in America, we ask, should good ads educate? Would we get more action off our ads if we just told them the problems we solve, the deals they get, and the standup folks that they're dealing with? Here to poke that bear, Mick Torbay, everyone. 

Mick Torbay: We should educate the consumer in our advertising; this one should have come with a trigger warning. This one takes me back to when I was a cub writer. I was doing a first meeting with a jewelry store client, typical situation, family, business. The owner had been in the jewelry business since Nixon was in office, and I'm a punk kid who thinks he can write ads.

Client pulls me aside and says, “You know what our advertising really needs to do is educate the consumer about Gemology because you see, if people knew more about Gemology, they would make better decisions in the jewelry store.” 

Now, he wasn't wrong. If we all knew more about gemology, we would make better decisions in the jewelry store. But as he was drawing, what he believed was a very profound conclusion, I couldn't help but notice a diploma on the wall from the Gemological Institute of America as a graduate Gemologist. He's passionate about gemology. You don't go to school for this stuff if you're not really into precious stones, and he wants to transfer his passion to the consumer, and that's where he got it wrong.

It's the curse of knowledge. He's forgotten that we can buy gemstones, and actually want to buy expensive gemstones without knowing a damn thing about them. Why? Because sadly, the gemstones don't matter a bit. We're. Not buying a gemstone. What we're buying, what we're really buying, is the reaction of another person. We want the person we love to open up that box and say, “Oh my God, what have you done?” That's what we're buying. And the gemology, don't even enter into it. 

We don't need to be educated in anything in particular to want that and to go ahead and buy that and I would submit that this pretty much applies to everything else in the world that you buy. I don't need to know how an iPhone works to know I want the new one. Ditto for my air conditioner. If you try to educate me on stuff I don't care about, you'll be wasting my time. And consumers don't have warm, fuzzy feelings about people who waste their time. In fact, we tend to tune them out. We're really good at ignoring stuff we don't care about.

I know you're passionate about gemology. Good for you. Keep it to yourself and keep it the hell out of your advertising. Speak to me about what I care about, and if you're so deep in your business that you don't know what drives regular people, then for goodness' sake, find a copywriter who can meet the customer where they're at because you ain't it.

Ryan Chute: A Cub writer for inquiring minds, is a junior writer, typically lacking the life experiences of grizzly writers. Trust me, when I say Mick’s seen things, a lot of traumas are locked up in there. Chris, what can you teach us other than the juice on mixed, tumultuous past of course?

Chris Torbay: Educating the consumer is not the advertising's job. When I hear a client say they want their ads to educate the consumer, I equate that with wanting ads to pre-qualify their customers, which is not. The advertising's job when I worked on Porsche, we never started our body copy with, “Do you have a $100K to spend on a car that you drive only in the summer?”

No. We made people yearn for the experience of taking an exquisite piece of German engineering out onto the racetrack. If we could get one of those people into the dealership and take a test drive, it was up to you to figure out how they could pay for it. Closing the deal is your job. Same goes for ‘educating the consumer”.

Usually, clients want me to teach potential consumers how gosh darn complex their offering is so that when the consumer finds out how much it costs, the sales team doesn't have to work so hard on their end. No, I'll do my job. You do yours. The only thing I need to educate the consumer on is why they should choose you.

My job isn't to teach people how complex air conditioners are and what other expensive work might be required to install a new one in your home. My job is to inspire consumers on why they should pick you to do it. Advertising should entertain. It should be distinctive and memorable. And yes, it's not just about getting your name out there. It's about why I should remember that name and choose that brand when I need that thing. We need to educate people on that. 

When I was a kid, there was an automobile undercoating place called Ziebart Rust Proofing, and they had mounted their sign upside down on the roof of their building. The idea being people would come in and say, “Hey, your sign's upside down.” And he'd say, “Made you look.” And then he'd try to sell you on rust proofing for your car. 

So sure, educate the consumer on why Ziebart is better than any other idiot who sprays used motor oil under your car, enough to get me interested in coming in and learning more from the experts. But the experts are still the ones doing the educating part.

Educating is important if it will make me excited. Educating is important if it will make me see you as different. Educate me on what is unique about your brand and why it will make my life better. 

Old Spice advertising is weird and memorable, but it also tells me that my man can smell like Isaiah Mustafa. It doesn't educate me on the science of body chemistry and perspiration, and which chemicals are effective in clinical trials, or why the expensive chemicals are more effective than the cheap chemicals. So I should be prepared to spend more if I really want to smell like Isaiah Mustafa. They just tell me that this brand will make a difference in my life. I will be better for it. I'm more handsome, more sexy, and have an awesome six pack. When I'm on a horse, and that's way more compelling than a lecture about new scientifically formulated techno derma-ultra, now with Beta-carotene six. Educate the consumer on your time. Here ends the lesson.

Ryan Chute: Preach. Woo. I can just tell we're gonna have some fun discussion on this one, but before that, let's hear 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 Chute: There’s really a good and bad to everything, right? Whatever decisions that we make, there's an appeal to education as much as there is to entertainment, and there's also a consequence that comes with those things. With appeal, you have credibility, authority, you feed the ego a little bit.

What are some of the other things that we should be thinking about when it comes to what we're actually dealing with here? 

Mick Torbay: I think the idea of educating the consumer comes from an instinct that the client has; the client is almost always very educated within their own category, and so it's difficult for that client to imagine that somebody could have a valuable opinion if they don't know all the things the client knows.

And so the client just in their heart just says, “if you knew all the things that I knew, naturally, you would choose me”. And so that's it's an instinct thing that, but that doesn't actually necessarily translate to how to persuade a consumer. 

Chris Torbay: Yeah. One of the great sort of tenets of advertising strategy that I learned when I was working in London is a saying amongst planners, which is, “Don't tell me about your fertilizer. Tell me about my lawn.” And that comes right off of what Mick was saying, which is the guy who makes fertilizer would like to tell you that having phosphorus in there does this chemical reaction that does this instead. But having nitrogen there has this other thing, and then these other kinds of things respond, eh? And so there's a scientific thing, and that guy is entirely versed on it, and he would love to get that out into the consumer. The consumer just wants to know it's gonna be green and lush, and that his neighbors are gonna say, “Hey Dave, I don't know what you've been doing, but that is the best looking lawn on the street. Tell me about my lawn.”

Is there room for a little bit of education to try to get me to pick your fertilizer versus the next guy? Sure, but I'm not, but don't tell me about the fertilizer at the expense of telling me what it's going to achieve for me emotionally, personally. 

Mick Torbay: Probably the best example of that was an ad campaign from the eighties that people will still remember today. I used to write the ads for a chain of tire stores. And what makes a tire different is tread pattern and rubber compound. Those are the only two things. If you change the tread pattern, change the rubber compound that will make a tire different one from the other. And so naturally, a tire store wants to talk about tread patterns and rubber compounds 'cause that's actually the only thing that matters. One tire to the other. And Michelin took a baby, put it in a tire, took a picture of it and said, “There you go. That's everything you need to know.” And people were like, “Dammit, I need to buy the expensive tires 'cause that's my family in that car.”

They absolutely figured out, and I'm sure it wasn't Michelin's idea, I'm sure it was, their brilliant ad agency, who said, “You guys gotta stop talking about the shit that matters to you, and start talking about the shit that matters to the consumer.” That's the only thing that matters. 

Chris Torbay: And the interesting thing to your point at the setup, is there room for it? There's a hundred percent room for it. When you get to the tire store, that's where the guy at the tire store should start talking about rubber compounds and tread patterns. And then you can have a discussion. You can maybe upsell the guy to a better tire because you can educate him. Give him that little bit of information. 

Mick uses the example of the jewelry store. If you we've all been through this, when you're ready to propose to your significant other and you're out there to buy that diamond ring. There's a bunch of guys at that age who suddenly know all the things there are to know about cut and clarity and inclusions and all that sort of stuff. And they quickly spruce up on that knowledge, and until they make their purchase decision and they dump it outta their brain 10 years ago, they lie, they can't figure it out anymore.

So there is that period of time where you need to be educated, but it's the salesperson that does that. It's the client that does that. Don't ask the advertising to do that, so that you have this customer who walks in like a robot and goes, “I know everything and I just want you to sell it to me.”

That is an unreasonable ask. You still need to do your part of the job, and you can't offload that to advertising.

Ryan Chute: And I appreciate that we're talking about advertising here right now. We're not talking about marketing as a whole because marketing has many layers, and advertising at the very top of the funnel is about first and always foremost, establishing our empathetic position. Are we somebody as a brand or as an individual that is safe to operate around and near, and with? And then credibility comes in as the second layer. The data has always proven that you always have to lead with empathy, and that's going to be the laugh, cry, make them angry. It's going to be the thing that, as you stand for something and stand against something else, and education is what happens next, and it can actually happen in quite clever ways, where we can tuck it in, like mom, spaghetti sauce, jamming a little bit of that broccoli without us ever knowing as kids.

Chris Torbay: And that's where you get stuff like, an iPhone. We'll say we've gone from a 12 megapixel camera to a 24 megapixel camera, and they'll do a quick piece of animation or a quick shot of some sort of chip or something like that and say, and but then they've quickly turned the corner to, which means that your selfies are now even more crisp or even better in low light or even something like that.

It's a tiny bit of education. Just enough to say that way it is better for you in this personally relevant way, right? And then move on. We don't delve into how difficult it was for us to invent that chip. And therefore, that's why we're gonna charge even more. Hey, we gotta back off of that stuff. Gimme just enough information right to go, “I think that phone's the better choice.” Make the education steer directly to why you. 

Ryan Chute: I think you just touched on something, that micro storytelling of transformation, the before, after the, it used to look like this, now looks like that kind of transformative storytelling is a part of the story. And we really do get often wrapped up in, as salespeople do, features, benefits.

One of the biggest misnomers I've ever heard of in the marketing industry, which should have been in the sales industry, but it was given up by a marketer, which is probably why it's so messed up, is that it's not the one inch hole that a person goes into Home Depot to buy the drill bit for. It's not the one-inch drill bit that they want. It's the one-inch hole. 

Mick Torbay: Or do they, in fact, want the picture on the wall? 

Ryan Chute: Thank you. 

Mick Torbay: And that's how far away do you have to get from the drill bit to find out what they're actually looking for? 

Ryan Chute: And that's my argument: they're not looking for the feature. They're also not looking for the benefit. They're looking for the advantage that comes from that. The picture on the wall, the transformation. The hole in the door so that they can lock and close their door. They're looking for security. They're looking for functionality.

Mick Torbay: But the hard thing for the business owner is that they, I think, sometimes have to go against what their instinct is, and this is a very difficult thing to do when you sort of feel in your heart, this is what I have to do, and then make a conscious decision to say, and yet I'm not going to do it. 

I'm a pilot, and so I'm very passionate about airplanes and aviation. I know a lot about aviation 'cause I have to, 'cause I'm a pilot, but you don't need to know a lot about aviation to buy a ticket to Vegas. United Airlines is very good about letting people know, “Hey, we are passionate about aviation, but what we know you wanna buy is you want to go to Vegas today.”

So you need to ask yourself as a business owner, are you selling airplanes? Or, are you selling aviation, or are you in fact selling a trip to Vegas? Because the messaging for those two things is very different. 

Ryan Chute: Very disproportionately different. And no one cares how many seats they have left and all that other stuff there. 

There's also issues with education. There's the likelihood that you're going to pull low engagement on that ad. There's not a whole lot of excitement around that. There's incredibly low recall. People don't remember the words that we. That we say they remember how you made them feel. And people are fundamentally buying things for a couple of reasons. 

Now, it all fundamentally leads back to identity and what they're showing the world who they are as a person, be it a smart buyer for those transactional or grudge purchase type things, to where I rank in the world as a person. Now the world includes my internal world, how I value myself, how my immediate peers see me, the ones that I love and the greater tribes that I'm a part of, be it my office or my community, my church or whatever. All of these things tell the world who I am as a person and where I rank from a good decision maker on through.

Chris Torbay: And sometimes, clients will use education in order to justify that this is the superior product. The new iPhone will have the M3 chip in it, so that you can say, “Oh, you see I got the new one 'cause it's got the M3 chip in it”. But the interesting thing about a lot of these brands is you can stop there with the education. The education has to, it doesn't have to go too far into why the M3 chip is better than the M2 or even the Intel from way back. And that's what I made fun of this, now with Betacarotene six, like how many dermatologists, how many skin cream ads have we seen in the past where they say,  “Now with Retinol nine…”

Oh good. That's all the education I need. I'm gonna buy that one. It's got Retinol nine. What is Retinol nine, and how is it better than Retinol eight? I don't even know what Retinol means. Yeah, but you have this much education. You have just enough to make you think this is the good one. This is going to, this is gonna be the one that shows that I'm at that station in life. It's vitamin X. But you don't have to, you don't have to dive in. You don't actually have to, I don't need a biochemistry lesson. 

Mick Torbay: And I think the challenge is that if we say nobody cares about the differences between products, people will catch you on that and say that's not true, 

Chris Torbay: 'cause they do. Yes. 

Mick Torbay: Because they do care about it. And specifically, the people who care about the different things are in fact the ones making this decision. 

Here's what I'm getting at. Let's say you're in the air conditioning business, and so you might think to yourself I sell air conditioners. Okay, cool. You sell air conditioners. So then the first question we're gonna say is, “Do you sell air conditioners or do you sell, I have a perfectly cool, comfortable home, even though I live in Florida and it's July?”

Easy to make that point. But do you know who buys Air Conditioners? So the consumer doesn't buy air conditioners. Who does buy air conditioners? Guys who own HVAC companies, they care about features and benefits 'cause they understand them. So there, there is somebody who's selling air conditioners, we call them HVAC equipment wholesalers. That's those people sell air conditioners, and the people who buy them own companies that install that equipment.

So when you understand it, and that's how you buy air conditioners, you think that you need to transfer that to the consumer. It’s like, No, dude, 

Chris Torbay: That exchange worked great between those two people. But it doesn't necessarily continue.

Mick Torbay: What motivated you, which was stuff that is not motivating the consumer? The only person who matters is the consumer. It's not you. And that's a very difficult thing to say, it's like what motivates me is not what motivates the end user. 

Ryan Chute: But I think it's important that we put that into the appeal of education, is that we need to educate people just enough, and Apple does this, as you'd mentioned, with the chip.

You'll see what that means on their website, and it's really that little little circle with the question mark, and it means it's gonna be faster and you're gonna be able to do this, and this. And people go, “Oh, okay. That's why that thing's good. Like I don't need to know what those cores are all made out of, all that other stuff.”

But what you're fundamentally saying here is that ,it's a defensible position when questioned, again, coming back to identity. It's, I made a good decision here. I need to know enough about it. I need to be educated enough to say no, this is the best thing that you can do. 

Chris Torbay: And the interesting thing, just coming back to something you said earlier, a lot of that also comes from the marketing, not the advertising. So if you look at an Apple commercial, it’s one thing. Apple commercials famously it was just people dancing with iPods when they were the only ones with the white wires. It was just stuff like that. Even now, it's just like really cool things floating in space. Then you go to the website, now they'll tell you that this year's model is 10-core instead of eight-core. And it'll say that it's the new such and such trip whenever, so it's in the marketing, and that's how you justify to your boss. I want a new computer. And you justify to your boss. I had to get the new one 'cause this is the 10-core, not the eight-core. But you didn't get that from the advertising. You got that from the website. And by all means, many customers in many different places will like to geek out on some of this stuff and actually dig into it. But the advertising is not the place to do that.

The other channels, the other places, they can dig into it. Advertising should tease them and go, “Oh, is there a 10 core out there? Let me look into that, and let me read about it, and then I'll have all that information.” So by all means, it's gotta be in the process, but the advertising is not the place for the lecture.

Mick Torbay: That's it. Don't confuse making people want the thing to helping the people justify buying the thing. That's not the same thing. 

Ryan Chute: When it, to this goes right back to what Roy says as a first principle of advertising, specifically advertising, is that first, we have to reach the heart of the people. It's the heart that we tickle and entice, to lead to the mind. 

The mind will follow where the heart is. 

Chris Torbay: They will justify that, and the mind will actually call up some information and do some digging to find a way to justify and cherry-pick the information that's out there, absolutely.

Mick Torbay: To justify the thing I decided to do a while ago, actually.

Ryan Chute: Because the heart said you're buying this. And the brain, the left side of the brain, had to go. I have to figure out how to justify this. 

Chris Torbay: Yeah, I want this guitar. And then, and when and now I have to look around for some information so that when my wife asked why I bought a fourth guitar, I have to inform, I have, 'cause this one's got a double hamburger on it.

Ryan Chute: And everyone needs hamburg. 

Mick Torbay: That's twice as hamburg right there, 

Ryan Chute: Probably the only humburg you're gonna get. You know what I'm saying? So now there's the appeal of entertainment. Entertainment has huge amounts of value in that stickiness. 

One of the things that we learned as we went through the Wizard of Academy and the process that we learned about stickiness, is the emotion, the chemical cocktail, the mortar of the bricks that we're putting in as impressions across all different brand elements or impressions of our brand in whatever way that might be. 

So what we're really looking for here on the entertainment side is something sticky, something that's actually gonna allow us to build something bigger than just a stack of bricks.

Chris Torbay: And so there has to be enough education because we've made the point that entertainment for entertainment's sake is not enough. It can't be a hundred percent be borrowed interest. You can't just do 26 seconds of comedy and then at the end, say, “brought to you by Dave's Air Conditioning.”

Like it cannot just be entertainment, and just try to make it ownable entertainment. There has to be a link through to something tangible. But that's not an education. That tangible thing is just a tangible thing. It's not an education. 

Ryan Chute: Absolutely. Tangibility and education live in two different worlds, but equally as much if we just lived in the world of entertainment for a moment, we have to recognize that the fundamental difference between cute and clever entertainment versus maintainable entertainment there is strategy behind one. There is a lack of weight behind the other. 

As you guys say, it's very often when we see somebody talking around the water cooler about the ad that they heard. But they can't recall the brand name. 

Chris Torbay: They've remembered the cute and clever, but they haven't remembered the most important thing that we write there to accomplish.

Ryan Chute: So it's all equal to that, as we go deeper into that, as the brand continues to embed in the customer's brain, is that trigger alignment. When we have an externally triggered product, when we have an internally triggered product, we're pulling it on different threads here, but we're doing the same thing when they feel like they need to have that thing.

Or if we can create a feeling around needing that thing on the internally driven stuff. Then we need to align our brand with that trigger externally, something has to break. 

Mick Torbay: And we're, whenever you're wondering why all ads sound the same, 'cause basically all ads sound the same regardless of category, regardless of situation, which is really good for us because half of our job is just not sounding like everybody else.

But when you look at most advertising, in most categories, and you look at what they're focusing on and nine times outta 10, it's quality and value. That's what it's all always gonna come down to: quality and value. And then you think to yourself, what does a retailer consider when they're purchasing their inventory? The quality of the merchandise and the value, what they're getting for the amount of money. So, using quality and value to make a purchase when you're a retailer is really smart. It's actually, in fact, the only thing you should be considering. If you're a contractor and you're buying water heaters, you should be focusing on the quality of the water heater and the value of how well it performs versus how much it costs.

And then we're all surprised when that same contractor who just bought 50 water heaters says to his ad guy, “Now you gotta tell people about the quality and the value of these water heaters, 'cause it's really excellent quality and the value is tremendous”. And then their ad guy says, yeah, “we're not talking about that”. It's whoa, that's very difficult for that person. 

So we have to understand that emotion doesn't just apply to the consumer, it also applies to the business owner. It's just that we have to remind the business owner that your emotions. Motivates you, but we're not talking about motivating you, we're talking about motivating the consumer. So you have to take your emotions, and you have to put that aside and say you made an emotional decision, too. Your emotions took you to make the right call, which was quality and value. Now you have to set that aside and say, we're not doing that when we talk to the consumer. 

Ryan Chute: That was one of the biggest lessons I had to learn as a sales guy coming into the Wizard of Ads was that marketing, top of funnel marketing in particular, doesn't directly correlate to the way I perceive sales. 

The education part and the seeking out and learning part and the diagnosis part, and then the solving of problems part all have a lot more nuance to it as far as the nuts and bolts. But far less in the way of entertainment, encouragement, hope, and all the other things that matter so much in branding for us to be able to pull the lever and to get a person to viscerally act upon our brand versus the alternatives, and that was a game changer. It really was. 

So, are you Charlie Brown's teacher in your ads, or are you getting people to know your brand in a likable and trusting way? When we come back, we'll wrap things up with three engaging ways that we can educate your prospects rather than just in your ads. 

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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 Chute: There's a time and place to educate, but like great ads, it should be just as strategic; articles, YouTube videos, email campaigns, and during the sales process, while these are elements of marketing, they really aren't ads. 

Education can be effective further down the marketing funnel, but should fundamentally stay out of the advertising. Effective advertising shows, not tells your competence by being the story, not telling a story of a story. Savvy ads are memorable and aligned with buyer triggers. Until next time, thank you for tuning into Advertising in America. 

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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.