Gratuitous sorcery and incantations from actual Wizards.

Building brand awareness isn’t magic, but done well, it’ll feel like it. Brand awareness is a blend of strategy, creativity, and consistency. To make your brand unforgettable, you need a campaign that connects with your audience’s emotions, holds their interest, and anchors retention and recall. 

So, what are the key elements that form a truly successful brand awareness campaign? Let’s dive in.

1. A Campaignable Story

At the heart of successful brand awareness lies a campaignable story. Your brand isn’t just about selling a product or service; it’s about offering a durable narrative that resonates with your audience’s conscious and subconscious needs. A great brand story not only demonstrates what your company does and how it makes a difference in the buyers' lives but also why you do what you do.

A powerful story will create a deep connection with your audience, making your brand more desirable. It should reflect how the owner intended to serve their buyers, helping your customers see the values you will die defending for the benefit of the consumer and self-inflicted consequences of the brand. The narrative should be authentic and aligned with your mission to resonate with your audience at the human level.

For example, Call Dad is an HVAC brand that instills the values of a dad caring for their children. Whenever something bad happens, we lean into the trigger of calling dad to come fix it. From goofy dad jokes, to how dad handles the situations of life, we impart the notion of when you’re dealing with something bad, call dad. 

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The takeaway: Craft a story that connects emotionally with your audience. It should be authentic, relatable, and aligned with what your brand stands for.

2. Consistency Across Brand Impressions

Brand awareness relies on recognition, retention, and recall, and this comes from consistent repetition. If your audience encounters your brand in different places—whether on mass media, your website, or in ads—it should feel like they are meeting the same brand everywhere. Your visual style, messaging, tone, and voice should be congruent to avoid confusion and build a memorable connection.

When your brand feels consistent, whether through your design elements or the language you use, people begin to remember and trust your brand more easily. Consistency builds familiarity, and familiarity reinforces trust—an essential element in successful brand awareness.

For example, we have a client that speaks about the “YouTube expert” in every ad. Each one leading to hyping, and general chaos, if it weren’t for the level-headed advice of the business owner. With the campaign well under way, we have now created the YouTube channel of the proverbial “YouTube expert” offering said advice. 

These videos will serve as an additional entertaining layer to the established campaign that we will refer to in social media and email content. This not only deepens the brand narrative, it also adds context to an otherwise vague reference with highly shareable content. 

The takeaway: Consistency is king when building brand awareness. Ensure your messaging and visuals are coherent across all platforms to reinforce your identity and get in front of your audience as frequently as possible each week.

3. Clear Value Proposition

Brand awareness is never about just getting people to recognize your logo—it’s about convincing them your brand matters more than your competitors. A strong brand clearly communicates the distinct advantage of aligning my personal brand alongside your brand. When your brand is a badge of honor, I will proudly patronize your shop. 

A clear value proposition compels your audience to care. It is way more than a catchy slogan; it answers the question why. If you want to be remarkable, you have to do something markable first.  

For example, Home Service company, Maverick, celebrates a maverick in each of their ads. By identifying and then aligning with what a Maverick is, they both identify as a maverick and become a beacon for those who identify as mavericks, too. 

The takeaway: Make sure your value proposition speaks directly to the needs and desires of your target audience. It should clearly answer the question,

“Why should I choose you?”

4. Engagement, Not Just Exposure

Brand awareness doesn’t stop at getting your message in front of people. Engagement is where the magic happens. When people feel connected to your brand, they become your advocates. 

Social media, reviews, and user-generated content (UGC) are all opportunities to engage prospects and previous clients, but the real money is getting an appointment and running the call. Until a prospect sees you in action, all you’re doing is dancing. 

Certainly encourage interaction with your audience through likes, shares, comments, and 5-star reviews. Just don’t forget that the real magic happens when you do something they would give you money for. 

People don’t want to be sold, but they do want to buy when the value you offer is worth more than the cost of their money, effort, and time. The most engaged a customer can be is when you’re in their home making a lasting impression. When you knock their socks off, you’re most likely to earn a brand ambassador.

For example, a plumbing company on the outskirts of Dallas has risen to $5 million in revenue in 2.5 years by not sweating the small repairs. When they go out for a service call, minor repairs requiring very little time and no real parts are done for free. 

During meaningful repairs, they always look to find and do a minor repair for free as well. This has earned them a sound word-of-mouth reputation for under-promising and over-delivering, quickly making them the local brand of choice. 

The takeaway: Don’t just focus on impressions—focus on creating revenue-generating opportunities that turn into remarkable interactions. Engagement builds trust and loyalty, and that's what drives lasting brand awareness.

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Brand awareness is essential for disproportionate new client growth and long-term retention of previous buyers. Therefore, brand awareness is more than just a clever idea—it’s an ongoing process that requires strategy, consistency, and emotional connection. 

To be successful, your campaign should tell a campaignable story, be consistent across all impressions, communicate a clear value proposition, and foster genuine engagement. When you get these elements right, you don’t just raise awareness—you build a lasting relationship with your audience.

Yup, we’re going to delve into some military propaganda and persuasion techniques and how they might be applied to your branding efforts.

Specifically, we’ll look at modern Russian propaganda techniques, as described by the RAND corporation under the title “The Firehose of Falsehood”.

But don’t let the title fool you, there’s some good stuff there, even if you’re committed to “truth in advertising,” as I certainly am.

And keep in mind, these techniques are powerful enough to make federal agencies and media authorities shit their pants, clutch their pearls, and whine at their inability to effectively counter them.

In other words, it’s shockingly effective stuff, well worth examining in detail.

So according to RAND, the “Firehose of Falsehood” model has four distinguishing factors:

1. High-volume and Multichannel
2. Rapid, continuous, and repetitive
3. Lacks a commitment to objective reality
4. Lacks commitment to consistency

Obviously, since we are interested in truthful persuasion, we’ll have to put a spin on those last two factors, but I promise it’ll all make sense if you stick with me.

So let’s take these factors one at a time…

1. High Volume and Multichannel

Think of volume as frequency. If you want your brand persuasion to work, you need your campaigns to have high frequency.

The higher frequency the better.

At a minimum, you’ll want your average audience member to encounter your messaging multiple times per week. Standard Wizard practice is to aim for three or more exposures per week.

And in my experience, you’ll get dramatically accelerated results with four or more per week.

However, since mass media channels make you pay for that frequency, this means you’ll reach fewer people than you would with a lower-frequency media buy.

That’s the trade-off. But it’s totally worth it.

You’ll do much better reaching fewer people frequently enough to actually persuade them than you otherwise would by reaching a larger audience too infrequently to make an impact.

Multichannel means two things:

1. Using more than one mass media IF you can afford it, and
2. Employing your brand elements at every possible customer touchpoint

On mass media, there’s a classic S-Curve of Spend vs. Efficacy that looks like this:

When you’re starting out with your branding efforts, you generally don’t want to jump to using more than one form of mass media until you can afford to get to the point of diminishing returns on your first media.

And you certainly don’t want to invest in multiple media when you can’t afford to get past the threshold of effectiveness on any one of them.

But once you CAN afford to jump to a second mass media, by all means, do so. There is documented evidence that you get a synergistic boost by adding multiple media channels to your mix.

Just understand that multichannel extends beyond broadcast media.

You can take your branding multichannel by ensuring that your website, social media, packaging, truck wraps, and staff are as fully branded as your ads.

The “voice” you use to speak to customers on your website should match the one used in your ads, which should match the voice used by your staff when interacting with customers, etc.

This is why Brandable Chunks and Brand Codes are so vitally important to your campaign — they help with this multichannel aspect of effective modern branding.

2. Rapid, Continuous, and Repetitive

Let’s start with Continuous and Repetitive.

Your branding campaign should run 52 weeks per year, for multiple years, so you can be on the air and in the minds of customers continuously.

And your central message should be repetitively delivered by every ad, often multiple times within each ad.

In other words, your Brand Codes should be applied with what feels like ridiculous repetition and density.

How often should Volvo remind buyers that they build safe cars?

As often as they can. In every ad. Probably multiple times within an ad.

How many Brand Codes should Coca-Cola pack into their ads? As many as will fit

And they do! Check it out:

This billboard has:

1. Coca-Cola red
2. The distinctive, flowing Coca-Cola script
3. The distinctive Coke “dynamic ribbon device”
4. The distinctive Coca-Cola bottle
5. The “real thing” brandable chunk

So that covers continuous and repetitive. What about rapid?

Rapid means that your ads change — while keeping the core messaging consistent — more rapidly than your audience can tire of them.

The higher your ad frequency, the more often you’ll want to rotate ads.

3. Lacks a Commitment to Objective Reality

Obviously, you’d want your advertising to be based on the truth, and aimed at communicating the truth.

But in order to be persuasive, you’ll need to be as committed to subjective truth as objective truth.

So techniques like hyper-realism, absurdist drama, humor, caricatures, and schtick should be embraced.

Don’t be so committed to objective reality that you forget to make your ads emotional and memorable.

For instance, Eggo Waffles are actually delicious. But I rather doubt any family has ended up in a tug o’ war over an Eggo Waffle popping up out of the toaster.

Or that beer drinkers ever actually argued whether Miller Lite tasted great or was less filling.

Both techniques represented absurdist drama aimed at communicating subjective reality, even if that meant moving past objective reality to do it.

4. Lacks a Commitment to Consistency

This could seem confusing.

How in the wide world of sports can a campaign be repetitive and consistent while lacking a “commitment to consistency”.

In propaganda terms, this means being able to float multiple disinformation rumors that might well flatly contradict each other. The idea is that as long as all the stories work to discredit the truth, the contradictions won’t hurt.

But in advertising, you’re not looking to discredit the truth. You’re looking to create associations that improve the desirability of your brand.

So contradiction will only hurt. In this sense, you absolutely must have a commitment to consistency in your core messaging and your use of brand codes.

What can be thought of as “inconsistent,” however, is where you put your focus in any given ad.

For instance, when detailing the quality of your product, you could list out all the factors that go into your premium widget.

Or you could make a series of ads, where each ad focuses on only one factor, allowing you to dramatize and bring to life that single factor.

Coors Beer did this when they launched their first national campaign and it worked wonders.

The thing about Brandable Chunks is that you don’t have to have every chunk in every ad, nor do they have to show up at the same spot within the ad.

The fact that you can mix and match allows for variation with repetition. It’s consistently inconsistent. Or inconsistently consistent.

The other “inconsistency” that you should consider is Code Play.

Once you’ve established your Brand Codes in the minds of the audience, you can then play with them, as Absolut Vodka did with their legendary print campaign.

Or like Snickers did recently with their packaging.

So certainly have consistency, but also be willing to leverage the right kind of inconsistency to your advantage.

The Firehose As a Cheat Code to Fame

So that’s how you can pack (Russian) Military-Grade Persuasion Power into your branding campaign.

And the best way to think about these techniques is as cheat codes to achieve fame for your brand.

Making your campaign:

1. High-volume and Multichannel
2. Rapid, continuous, and repetitive
3. Subjectively resonant
4. Delightfully and Playfully Inconsistently Consistent

Will allow you to grab more fame for your brand than your budget would otherwise allow.

That’s why I think of this more as a Firehose of Effectiveness than falsehood.

But what do YOU think?‍

P.S. It’s interesting that many of these Propaganda techniques match strategies for manipulating crowd psychology first proposed 135 years ago.

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Somewhere in the rolling hills of the mind, where ideas crackle like distant lightning, there exists a truth as old as the spoken word itself: radio is magic. Not the cheap parlor trick kind, but the real stuff—the kind that bends time, shapes perception and places your voice directly into the minds of thousands. It’s the whispered spell, the incantation riding the FM and AM waves straight into the ears of your next customer.

But radio, like all great magic, must be wielded with skill. Many a business owner has thrown their gold into the airwaves only to watch it scatter like dust in the wind, never to return. Others, those who understand the true nature of radio, have turned their brands into legends. The difference is not in the money spent but in the wisdom applied. So, if you’re ready to enchant an audience, gather ‘round. Let’s begin.

Step One: Know Thy Purpose—The Golden Thread of Radio Success

Before you spend a single dollar, answer this: Do you want an immediate response, or do you want to own the market’s mind?

Most advertisers fall into the trap of expecting radio to behave like a Google ad—click, buy, done. But radio isn’t the realm of the impatient. It’s a long game, a slow burn, the voice that lingers in the listener’s subconscious until the moment of need arises.

Sure, you can run short-term promotions—clearance sales, grand openings, holiday blowouts. But the true power of radio comes when you’re not just another noise in the din of desperation. The true power comes when you become the first name they think of when they need what you offer. That’s called branding, and branding on radio is where the real magic happens.

Step Two: Understanding Format—Dialing in Optimal Frequency

Not all stations behave the same. Some stations are packed with loyal listeners who wouldn’t dream of changing the dial, while others are just white noise in the background of life.

The secret? Don’t buy based on the station you like—buy stations based on how likely you are to be heard frequently. Your personal taste is irrelevant. Find out listen times and the shows that are most tuned into to touch as many of the same souls each week, every week. 

• Talk radio? People who listen for longer periods of time. 
• Classic rock? People who listen nostalgically to feel good. 
• Country? People who listen to feel seen. 
• Top 40? People who listen to amp their energy to feel good. 

Some of them will be homeowners. So of them will not. Some of them will own homes in 3 years, 5 years, or never. The good news is you’ll never go out of business reaching the wrong people with the right message. They’ll always tell the ones who need to know. 

Your choice of station should align with your strategy of repetition with the right message, not your ego or limiting beliefs.

Step Three: Repetition Before Reach—The Law of Mental Imprint

Here’s why most radio strategies fail. They spread their radio budget across too much reach without enough repetition. The only problem is the brain doesn’t work that way.

The mind is a predictable thing. It will forget something irrelevant within 7 seconds. That’s why one ad heard three times in 7 days is infinitely more powerful than one ad heard once in the same week. 

You gotta hammer your message in, again and again, until you are no longer just an advertiser—you are a familiar voice in the listener’s life.

It is better to dominate one station than to burp once across many. The goal is never to be heard once. The goal is to be retained and recalled when the listener eventually needs your thing.

Step Four: The Message—A Story, Not a Slogan

Here’s another reason why radio ads fail. They sound like…radio ads.

They are packed with clichés, company attributes, and desperate pleas to “BUY NOW!” 

But the human brain is built for stories, not sales pitches. If you want your radio ad to work, make it a conversation. Make it a story worth listening to.

• Say something new, surprising, and different. (insert Billy Ray Hole Digging Yelp Reviews Radio Ad)
• Make them laugh, cry, or angry. (insert Millers Real Tech ad)
• Tell a vulnerable story. (insert Goettl Ad, Ken Goodrich first ad fathers funeral)

The best radio ads don’t sound like ads at all. They sound like as story.

Step Five: The Call to Action—A Gentle Nudge, Not a Sledgehammer

The worst thing you can do is scream at your audience. The second worst thing you can do is forget to invite them in.

Your ad should end with a simple, easy-to-remember call to action. Not a laundry list of phone numbers and website URLs, rather one clear path:

• “Why not fix the one you’ve got?”
• “Call ACME plumbing dot com”
• “If you’re hurtin’ today, call right away…”

People don’t write things down while driving. Make your call to action easy to recall, easy to repeat, and easy to act on later.

Step Six: Consistency—The Alchemy of Brand Immortality

The final step is the most important, and the one most business owners fail to sustain. Stay. The. Course.

Do not buy a few weeks of radio, see no immediate windfall, and pull out. Radio works like water wearing down stone. Persistent frequency with the right message will get you known, liked, and trusted in your trade area. 

• Nine weeks? Your brand registers in the brain of the listener.
• Six months? You’ve held their interest.
• One year? More people need your thing, and their current “guy” has let them down. 
• Two years? You own the heart of your listeners. Now, you just need to patiently stand by until they need what you sell. 

The companies that win on the radio don’t quit when they get bored. They don’t quit when the audience isn’t responding fast enough. They keep showing up until the market needs what you sell.

Be the Brand They Choose to Remember

Radio is not a game for the timid. It is not for the impatient, the fickle, or the boring. But for those who understand its power, it’s an exponential amplifier of influence.

Master the craft, tell the right stories, stay the course, and one day, someone will need what you offer. And when they do, your name will already be there, waiting in the quiet corners of their mind, ready to be remembered.

If this sounds too hard for you, or you struggle with what to say to get and hold attention, I’m happy to help you. I have 80 writers and media negotiators available to get you noticed in your town. Let’s have a chat and see if radio is right for you and if you are ready for radio.

Endorsement ads are easily separated into two categories: live reads and true personal endorsements. One is more effective than the other. Which are you getting? Are you sure?

The power of personal endorsement ads

Not since the days of Arthur Godfrey (Google it, kids), has anything on radio or television eclipsed the power of personal endorsements; a trusted friend persuades you to try something new. Good endorsers are hard to find, but so worth the search. Good ones weave engaging narratives featuring your business that rise above the din of other ads.

Unfortunately, what’s sold as “personal endorsement” is too often merely a “live read” by someone who has little to no connection with the client or what’s being sold. It’s just another ad delivered with all the warmth and sincerity of a generic on-hold greeting.

An objective standard for a subjective product

Each endorser is a special case demanding unique coaching. But, since each endorsement is its own special snowflake, how do you give them uniform evaluation? 31 years of experience creating endorsement copy points and coaching talent has taught me to watch for how well six components are integrated in personal endorsement ads.

Before we get started, though, let’s first assume you have a branding strategy in place; endorsements are a tool, after all, not a strategy. With that said, check that your endorsement ads integrate all six of these components:

Six components of an effective personal endorsement

1. Relatable: Choose a personality who’s relatable to your customers. If you’re selling mortgage services, an apartment-dwelling disc jockey would be a bad choice. Do you really believe Shaq drives a Buick?
2. Believable: When you first meet the personality, do they show a genuine interest in what you’re selling? If not, walk away. If they try and fake it, run. Listeners don’t blame personalities for a weak endorsement. They blame you.
3. Specific: Provide specific proof points to substantiate the endorsement. It could be a first-hand experience the personality had with you, customer quotes, or something the endorser really likes. Specificity adds impact.
4. Contextual: Personal endorsement ads happen in the here and now. Let your endorser give your message context; weather, holidays, events, news stories, etc. Anchoring your message to the real world reinforces authenticity.
5. Credible: Your endorsement’s credibility is in direct inverse proportion to the number of endorsements made by your personality—and others on the station. Endorsements work best in limited supply. What do you call a girl who kisses all the boys? Make sure your personality isn’t one of those.
6. I quotient : My favorite secret sauce of effective endorsements comes down to a single vowel: I. The more your personality uses it, the more effective your ad is. I like it. I use it. I recommend it. I know you’ll like it. Boosting I’s boosts involvement which boosts your ads’ persuasiveness.

Grade your endorsement ads on a curve

There are several other lesser components I watch for, but these are the do-or-die ones every ad needs. Used together, they give you a set of measures for evaluating the quality of your endorsements ads. Just remember: perfection is rare and not entirely necessary.

Few ads score perfectly. That’s okay—as long as you continue working with your personality to improve week to week. Yes, week to week. Personal endorsements are like orchids in the greenhouse of advertising. They need much attention but deliver beautiful results.

Beware the downside of endorsement ads

One more point: Before going all in on these ads, please take this warning to heart: Endorsements work incredibly well—until they don’t. Think how bad behavior by Lance Armstrong and Tiger Woods tanked their endorsement deals with Nike and others. Even Arthur Godfrey’s value took a nose dive after a famously bad decision.

Okay, you’re not Nike and Godfrey’s long gone. But, your local personality’s endorsement value is equally volatile. That’s why I recommend clients also run alternate non-endorsement campaigns in conjunction with endorsement ads. Endorsers are human, after all. And, your show must go on.

Billboards: A Smart Play or an Expensive Roadside Decoration?

Essential home service business owners often wonder: Should I be using billboards?

They see competitors plastering their names across highways and feel the pressure. "If they’re doing it, maybe I should too?"

But here’s the truth:

🚫 A billboard by itself is almost always a proper waste of money.
✅ A billboard reinforcing a strong radio or TV campaign? A powerful brand multiplier.

Billboards don’t create demand. They reinforce retention and recall by anchoring a message people have already heard. If a customer hears something catchy on the radio and then sees it again on a billboard, this is brain candy.

You can make billboards work like this for your business, too.

The Real Role of a Billboard in Home Service Marketing

1. Billboards Work When They Reinforce a High-Frequency Message

Asking a billboard to be an effective first-touch marketing tool is like asking a fish to climb a tree. Billboards are great at being a reinforcement, a memory anchor.

🔹 The radio tells the story to stir an emotion.
🔹 The billboard reminds them of that feeling.
🔹 When they need your thing, they remember your brand in a positive light.

Think about it:

• If someone hears a message about your company 10 times on the radio...
• And then sees that same core message while driving...
• When their AC fails, your brand is the first positive thing they remember in their time of need.

Just like Pavlov’s dog learned to associate a bell with meat paste, your customers will associate your brand with their need paste.

Example: Fix it Frankie

Frankie’s Ma always said, “My Frankie can fix anything.”

It’s a warm, familiar, and sticky phrase. If someone hears this slogan on the radio all the time, then sees a billboard that simply says:

🛠️ "MY FRANKIE CAN FIX ANYTHING."
🛜 Visit FIXITFRANKIE.COM

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It’s not just an ad—it’s a mental hook that brands Fix it Frankie into the prospect’s memory.

That’s how you use billboards correctly.

2. Billboards Make Sense When They Cost Less Than a Wrapped Truck

If you have to choose between a wrapped service truck and a billboard, wrap the truck first.

A wrapped truck is a moving billboard:

✔️ It’s seen in driveways, at job sites, and in traffic
✔️ It gets hundreds of daily impressions
✔️ It directly connects the brand to the service

A billboard just sits there. If the billboard costs more than a wrapped truck, it’s may be a bad deal.

Best Strategy:

🎙️ Run high-frequency radio or TV ads on mass media channels at the correct repetition.
🚛 Wrap your trucks and drive them around town.
🛣️ Use billboards as message reinforcement or when trying to penetrate a new service area.

3. Billboards Work for Tactical Messaging (Hiring & Offers)

A billboard is not great for explaining things, but it’s perfect for quick, bold messages like:

✔️ Recruiting:
💰 "ARE YOU A FRANKIE? NOW HIRING HVAC TECHS"

✔️ Special Offers:
🔥 "FREE CLUB MEMBERSHIPS FOR SENIORS"

✔️ Emergency Services:
💡 "Broken AC? Guaranteed 1-Hour Appointments"

A single, clear message drives action. A cluttered billboard with too much info? Wasted money.

4. Billboards Work Best in High-Traffic Areas

A billboard isn’t overly useful if people see it infrequently. It ideally should be placed where the same audience will see it repeatedly.

✅ GOOD Locations:
✔️ Major commuter highways and crossroads
✔️ Traffic bottlenecks (stoplights, exits)
✔️ Near high-service areas

❌ BAD Locations:
🚫 Rural highways with low traffic
🚫 Hidden by trees, buildings, or vehicles
🚫 Areas outside your service zone

The more exposure your prospects get, the more you reinforce your embed cues. If they rarely see it, it remains invisible.

How to Make a Billboard Work: 4 Golden Rules

1. One Message, One Focus

A billboard is not a business card. If people can’t read it in 3 seconds, it’s ineffective.

🚫 Bad Example:
"Smith & Sons HVAC – 24/7 Emergency Service – Free Estimates – Family-Owned – Financing Available – Call Now! 602-555-HVAC — Visit SmithAndSonsHVAC.com"

✅ Good Example:
🥵"MY FRANKIE CAN FIX ANYTHING"
🛜 FIXITFRANKIE.COM

2. Make It Instantly Readable

✔️ Bold, high-contrast text
✔️ No fancy fonts
✔️ No tiny details

If they can’t read it at 60 mph, it’s not a billboard—it’s wallpaper.

3. Trigger Emotion, Information is Invisible Ink

Billboards aren’t about what you do—they’re about how you make people feel.

🚫 “We Offer HVAC Services in Phoenix”
✅ 🔥 “HOT AS HELL? CALL 555-COOL!”

🚫 “Now Hiring Technicians”
✅ 💰 “GET PAID TO LEARN HVAC!”

Emotion drives recall. Facts are forgettable.

Are billboards worth it for your essential home service company?

✔️ YES—If:
✅ You already have wrapped trucks
✅ You run high-frequency mass media (radio/TV)
✅ You use them for reinforcement, not first-touch marketing
✅ They are placed in high-traffic areas

❌ NO—If:
🚫 You don’t have a strong auditory campaign
🚫 You hope a billboard alone will grow your business
🚫 You can buy a truck and wrap it for less

The Winning Formula:

🚛 Wrap your trucks → 🎙️ Run mass media → 🛣️ Use billboards as reinforcement.

When used strategically, billboards don’t just get your brand noticed—they ensure you get remembered.

TL;DR – Billboards Only Work When They Reinforce a Message

🔹 Radio/TV is the storyteller.
🔹 The billboard is the reminder.
🔹 When the need arises, your brand is the first they recall.

That’s why Frankie’s Ma said:

"MY FRANKIE CAN FIX ANYTHING."

And that’s why it belongs on a billboard. 🚀

You’ve seen the billboards exclaiming, “Does Billboard Advertising Work? Just Did.” These signs often fill empty spaces on billboards that couldn’t be sold, but here’s the reality: they didn’t “just work.” A successful billboard campaign requires a careful mix of elements, with a compelling message being the most critical.

As consultants, we frequently hear, “I tried billboards once, and it didn’t work,” which mirrors sentiments about radio and TV advertising. The truth is simple, yet often overlooked:

1. Long-term Repetition (Frequency): Success isn’t achieved overnight. Consistent exposure over time is essential. Lengthen your time horizon.
2. Widespread Visibility (Reach): Your message needs to be seen or heard by as many people as possible, repeatedly.
3. Engaging Content (Message): Without a compelling and entertaining message, even the best placement will fall flat. And you only have eight words to say it on a billboard.

Any mass media advertising can yield results when these ingredients are in place. Unfortunately, many campaigns fail because advertisers expect immediate returns from a one-off effort, neglecting the need for sustained visibility. Additionally, if the message doesn’t resonate—if it answers questions no one is asking or is cobbled together from clichés—it’s likely to be ignored.

The effectiveness of billboard advertising, like any marketing strategy, hinges on understanding and implementing these key components. By committing to long-term strategies, maximizing reach, and crafting messages that truly engage and aren’t saying the same thing as everyone else, businesses can transform their advertising efforts from forgettable to unforgettable. Remember, successful advertising is not just about visibility; it’s about making a lasting impression.

“Does Billboard Advertising Work?” Absolutely, just do it properly and be prepared for the results.

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