Gratuitous sorcery and incantations from actual Wizards.

Friday, November 13 is coming. Some of your competitors will run an ad that says "Don't let your luck run out!" with a black cat and a broken furnace. Don't be one of them.

A while back we wrote about symbolism, superstitions and the messages hidden in ads. Here's the part we didn't say clearly enough the first time: superstition isn't really about luck, it's about control. Once you see that, you'll never write a fear ad again.

Here's the short version. People reach for a lucky charm when they feel helpless, and your customer feels most helpless the moment something in their house breaks. Your brand's job isn't to scare them. It's to be the thing they reach for.

Superstition shows up when people feel helpless

The best proof of that isn't in a lab, it's on the ballfield. George Gmelch spent five years playing in the Detroit Tigers' minor-league system before he became an anthropologist, and in his essay "Baseball Magic" he noticed something: players pile rituals onto hitting and pitching, where failure happens constantly, but barely bother with fielding, which works out more than 90% of the time. He was building on anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski, who'd found the same pattern years earlier: Pacific Island fishermen leaned on ritual out in the open sea, but not in the calm lagoon.

In 2008, a paper in Science pushed the idea further, claiming that making people feel out of control in a lab was enough to make them see patterns that weren't really there, superstitions included. Here's the honest part, though: when later researchers ran seven experiments trying to reproduce that effect, they found nothing. The same thing happened to the famous study claiming a lucky charm improves your golf game.

So no, you can't flip a switch in a lab and turn someone superstitious. But put a real person under real stress, and they'll grab for anything that feels like order. That's the part that matters to you.

The furnace dies, and your customer is stepping up to the plate

Nobody calls a plumber on a good day. They call with water on the floor, kids in the house, and no idea what this is going to cost them. They can't see inside the wall. They can't judge your work. They're about to let a stranger into their home.

That's the textbook setup for magical thinking: high stakes, no control, no way to know what happens next. So people start looking for signals. Does the truck look clean? Does the guy wear a uniform? Have I seen this name before? Did my neighbor use them?

None of that proves you'll fix the leak. But it's what a stressed homeowner can actually see and hang onto. Your symbols are doing the same job a rabbit's foot does: they make an uncertain moment feel a little more predictable.

Fear ads work. That's not the question.

Let's be straight about this. A big 2015 review of 127 studies found that fear appeals do change attitudes and behavior, and they almost never backfire. So yes, "Get your furnace checked before your luck runs out" will book you some tune-ups.

But look closer at what made fear work in that review. The messages that worked best gave people a clear, doable action that actually fixed the problem, and they worked best for a one-time decision, not something ongoing. Put simply: fear works when you hand people back their control.

And that's the trap for a service brand. A scare gets you one call. It doesn't make you the company they think of first for the next twenty years. Fear is a tactic. Being the calm in the storm is a brand.

Be the lucky charm

A lucky charm has three traits: it's familiar, it's always the same, and it shows up right when you're nervous. Your brand should have all three.

Familiar. The homeowner should know your name before they ever need you. That's what mass media is for: you're not buying calls, you're buying a spot in their memory for the day the furnace quits.

Always the same. Superstitions are rituals, and rituals don't change. Same colors, same character, same voice on the radio, same sign-off. Switch them up and you're starting over from zero. That's why we build a distinctive brand-identity system instead of just a logo.

Shows up when they're nervous. This is where most contractors drop the ball. The scariest part of the job, for your customer, is the wait. A text with the tech's photo and name. Shoe covers at the door. A price before any work starts. A tech who explains what broke in plain words. Each one hands a little control back to the homeowner.

One idea can carry all three at once. Sky HVAC became Call Dad, built on a single promise: when you've got a problem, Dad's on the way to help. See how that rebrand grew the company 67% in a year. Nobody's afraid of Dad showing up to fix the sink.

Your November 13 playbook

If you want to play with Friday the 13th, play the lucky charm, not the black cat.

1. Flip the script. Skip "before your luck runs out." Try "Nothing unlucky about a furnace that just works." Same hook, except now you're the fix, not the threat.
2. Make the ritual the offer. A 13-point safety check. A "no surprises" price before work starts. Give the homeowner something concrete that puts them back in charge.
3. Bust a myth, don't spread one. Superstition posts get shared. Pair the folklore with a fun fact, like the Dutch insurance study that found fewer traffic accidents on Friday the 13th than on other Fridays (Global News).
4. Keep your look. Don't swap your colors or your character for a Halloween-style one-off. The whole point of a charm is that it never changes.
5. Time it. Post the article the week before, then the social posts on the 12th and the 13th. The next Friday the 13th after this one is August 13, 2027, so build something you can reuse.

One warning: you'll run across a claim that Friday the 13th costs U.S. businesses $800 to $900 million. That number traces back to one folklore historian's estimate, Donald Dossey, and there's no published method behind it (Marginal Revolution, 2010). Don't build an ad on it.

Don't be the black cat

Your customer is going to meet you on one of the worst days of their month. They'll be stressed, and they'll be looking for a sign. You can be the thing that makes them more nervous, or you can be the thing that makes them breathe out.

Build the brand they reach for when it all goes wrong. That's not luck. That's strategy.

Want help becoming the name your town reaches for? Book a call.

You can't beat the giant at his game. So quit trying.

Guerrilla marketing isn't about being clever on the cheap. It's a survival strategy for the outnumbered: the two-truck shop going up against a competitor with 10,000 Google reviews and a blimp. You can't match their budget. But you can change the terrain.

In this episode, Ryan Chute and the Torbay brothers break down what guerrilla marketing actually is (and what it absolutely isn't), why an apology letter beats a branded door hanger every time, and how a $20 bundle of balloons once doubled a bike shop's Saturday foot traffic.

This is the underdog playbook. Low cost. High effort. Ruthlessly personal.

But there's a catch, and it's the one nobody talks about: every move you make now will be remembered forever. Win the battle today without blowing up your shot at the war.

Episode Highlights:

• Change the Terrain: The only way the outnumbered win is by refusing to play the wrong game.
• The Apology Letter: How a landscaper grew his business by telling his client's neighbors he was sorry — and handing them his personal cell number.
• Brand Fit or Brand Bomb: Why guerrilla marketing works for Red Bull and would destroy The Ritz-Carlton.
• The $20 Experiment: Balloons, a bike shop, and the embarrassingly simple tactic that actually moved the needle.
• The Measurement Problem: Nobody calls and says "I hired you because I saw your poster under an overpass."
• Ugly Letter vs. Pretty Brochure: Why looking like marketing is the fastest way to be ignored.
• Win the Battle. Bank the War Chest: Guerrilla keeps you alive. It won't take you to the top. Know the difference.

🎧 Hit play to learn how to fight smarter when you can't fight bigger. Because the giant's got the budget, the blimp, and the 10,000 reviews. But you've still got the one thing they sold off years ago.

👉 What's the one thing your competitor can't buy their way into? That's your whole guerrilla marketing campaign.

On this episode of Advertising in America, we're talking guerrilla marketing. 

Guerrilla marketing. I learned a lot about this a couple of decades ago. I bought into a small retail store. We had no ad budget, no experience, and no ability to compete on a level playing field. Does it work? No question it does.

I've done it. Is it a replacement for a properly developed advertising campaign? Oh, good lord, no. 

Does guerrilla marketing work? Of course it does. Or no, it doesn't. There are plenty of failures. Why risk it? If your TV commercials are crap, and your media buy is lame, and you bail out after one 13-week cycle when your business doesn't magically turn around, TV doesn't work. Do something great, totally works. 

People use guerrilla marketing tactics all the time, and they work when the ideas are clever and insightful. They don't work when they're unremarkable. Guerrilla marketing techniques can keep you alive, but they cannot take you to the top.

‍

Ryan Chute: The first time I heard the term, I pictured a guy in a monkey suit thumping his chest and chucking coupons at people. David Attenborough was narrating. Turns out it's got nothing to do with the Discovery Channel. That's a guerrilla, different spelling. I did look it up, and everything to do with being that little guy who can't afford to fight the big guys, which if you're a two-truck shop going up against an outfit with 10,000 Google reviews and a blimp it's going to be more or less your whole life.

Mick's leading this one off, and Mick loves the underdog. Mostly, I think, because he thinks he's the underdog, which he is compared to his taller, more handsome older brother. What you gotta say about this, Mick? 

Mick Torbay: Guerrilla marketing. I learned a lot about this a couple of decades ago. I bought into a small retail store. We had no ad budget, no experience, and no ability to compete on a level playing field. I bought the book. Jay Conrad Levinson wrote the original. But the techniques have grown since then, and there are options available now that we didn't have back in the '90s. Does it work? No question it does. I've done it.

Is it a replacement for a properly developed advertising campaign? Oh, good lord, no. Let's explore the concept a little deeper. Guerrilla marketing is very well-named. JCL discussed marketing a small business while being outmatched by major competitors that are more established, better funded, and have a track record of success.

His analogy was warfare. The other guy has an army, infrastructure, a team ready to follow a plan. You've got a few guys, no uniforms, no money. The only thing that can save you is the plan, a plan with no budget and no experience. Guerrilla warfare. On a level playing field, you lose. We all know that, so the only thing we know for sure is that you can't beat them at their game.

Your only hope is to change the nature of the game, and then play that one really well and hope you win the battle. If you win the battle, maybe you'll live to fight another day. Note that it's possible to win the battle. Don't confuse that with winning the war. We're not trying to defeat our enemy; we're trying to stay alive. Just don't get completely obliterated today. And for that, you can buy the book and the sequels and go to town. I don't have time to go over the techniques. There's too many to list.

Rule of thumb, they're all based on having low budgets and an abundance of time and effort to invest. Remember what Penny Williams says, "Time and money are interchangeable. You can always spend more of one if you're short on the other." So if you're a business owner with no customers to serve, then you've got the time to do some of this other stuff. Don't just sit there waiting for the phone to ring. Bang some pots and pans together. Do something, for crying out loud. But consider the transition, because if you do it well and you win the battle, then you've just got a new problem, the transition. 

Being small and insignificant and underfunded is not a long-term strategy. Your goal is to grow, expand, and maybe even take a leadership position, which means you're going to have to build up an army. You will have to play their game their way eventually. So my advice to you is to make sure nothing you do at this stage fucks up your plan for the next one, and bear in mind, everything you do now will be remembered forever.

Keep your eye on the ball. Begin the process of joining the big guys just as soon as you beat them once. Build a war chest, because this war will be fought with conventional weapons, and you can't call yourself a winner until you can hold your own in that world. Guerrilla marketing techniques can keep you alive, but they cannot take you to the top.

And since you wanna be a leader one day, make sure the stuff you do now doesn't bite you in the ass later. 

Ryan Chute: So Mick says guerrilla marketing keeps you alive but won't take you to the top. You gotta build a war chest, and whatever you do today better not bite you in the backside later. Motivational Mick, we call him. Congratulations on surviving. Now please prepare for nuclear war. You're a fortune cookie written by a Navy SEAL, and you're the one who bought into that little store with no budget and lived through this whole thing. Wait, no, that was you, Mick. You two swap war stories so often I lose track of whose foxhole I'm in. Chris, what you gotta say about all this? 

Chris Torbay: Does guerrilla marketing work? Of course it does. Or no, it doesn't; there are plenty of failures. Why risk it? Like any marketing campaign, you make a mistake if you begin by saying that the solution is that medium. Just like people who tell you that TV doesn't work anymore, the answer isn't the medium; it's what you do with it.

If your TV commercials are crap, and your media buy is lame, and you bail out after one 13-week cycle when your business doesn't magically turn around, TV doesn't work. Do something great, and it totally works. People use guerrilla marketing tactics all the time, and they work when the ideas are clever and insightful. They don't work when they're unremarkable. The medium isn't in and of itself a winner or a loser. The bigger question to ask is whether guerrilla marketing is right for your brand, and what I mean by that is, is it the right way to reach your target? And in reaching them that way, what does it say about your brand that you chose that method versus mainstream media?

And for the record, we must surely now have to admit that there is mainstream social media as well. A campaign only on social media was surely considered guerrilla just a few years ago. But a guerrilla campaign says something about your brand, and that something has to fit. You don't sell Mercedes with a guerrilla marketing campaign, or The Ritz-Carlton, or United Airlines.

If you wanna be a trusted leading brand in your category, maybe that's not your vibe either. Guerrilla marketing is for the underdog, the trickster, the disruptor. It might be helpful to define what I mean by guerrilla, by the way. By its original definition, a guerrilla campaign is grassroots and cheap. Mostly fly-posting, or what the Brits call wheatpaste, because that's the cheap glue that they use to stick posters onto construction hoardings. It works great for new album releases by edgy artists or upstart fashion brands. Banksy is great at it. 

But guerrilla marketing isn't marketing stunts, unless you're Red Bull of course, who absolutely have a strong guerrilla marketing campaign of marketing stunts, one after another, and it works like crazy. But those great physical stunts are right for Red Bull because that's the spirit of their brand. One of Red Bull's early guerrilla marketing ideas, by the way, was to go around putting empty Red Bull cans into garbage cans in cool neighborhoods near bars so that people would think, "Wow, everyone's drinking a lot of Red Bull."

Genius. The biggest difficulty with guerrilla campaigns is measuring success. Not the how did you hear about us measurement. We've already ranted about how stupid that is, and even when it works, no one is actually ever going to say, "Oh, I saw your poster under an overpass." So don't ask them. But on TV and radio and out of home, we have third-party verification of viewership and listenership and traffic, so we know people are seeing the messages in specific quantities.

Google will pretend to give you impartial reports on how many people saw your banner ad or clicked on your link. With guerrilla marketing, we're stuck with vague statements about how it went viral or generated buzz, and that's hard to connect to success. We hear great guerrilla ideas all the time.

They're fun, they're clever, but usually they are just empty awareness. They don't build the brand, but work because of the brand that has already been established, usually in traditional media. 

Ryan Chute: So the hardest part of guerrilla marketing is proving it worked? Because nobody ever calls up and says, "I hired you because I saw a poster under an overpass." And also that Red Bull big idea was putting empty cans into the trash so folks would think everybody was drinking it, which means somewhere there's a marketing genius whose entire job was to litter. I don't know how I feel about that. I guess we'll be right back

‍Ryan Chute: We're back. So both fellas agree, guerrilla marketing absolutely works. It's just not a forever plan. It's how the little guy stays alive long enough to become the big guy, and the trick is winning the whole town's heart without spending money you don't have. Let's pull this apart. So, jumping into this, I'd like to start off with where Chris started. Or I'd like to start where Chris finished, and that's that guerrilla marketing has essentially evolved into cheap publicity stunts versus some of the more tactical elements of pooling resources and doing the, the grassroots things that we classically knew guerrilla marketing for. So why do you feel that transition's happened? 

Chris Torbay: It's interesting. So guerrilla marketing's literally was stuff that you could do really cheaply, and that was sticking up posters, right? Anybody could go down to the photocopy shop and run off 100 posters about their band, and they could put them up, and maybe people would come and see you this Friday.

It's interesting when it's moved into other media, right? When the interweb grew, then suddenly people were building funny websites. The subservient Chicken for Burger King, and so people have tried to make guerrilla campaigns work in other media. Ostensibly just as cheaply, although when you think of some of those kinds of things, they're advertising agencies, so still developed, and they still had to go through a production process. And you go, you're actually still spending as much money as you are on a TV commercial, so where's the grassroots sorta cheap way of doing it?"

I think it's interesting in how it's evolved. That is the sort of thing between is it just about cheap, quick, and dirty, or is it about nontraditional ways and nontraditional media and stunt-oriented things that may cost a lot? Red Bull, man, the things they pull off can cost a lot of money.

Mick Torbay: Probably more than a major advertising campaign.

Chris Torbay: When some kid's doing BMX stunts on the back of a moving train while a plane flies underneath him or something there, there's some resources behind that. That is not a local band, sticking their posters up ahead of a concert. 

Ryan Chute: Yeah, and certainly deviates from the original intent and purpose of what Jay Levinson created for guerrilla marketing, in his manifestation of what it is meant to be. It is this, this grassroots, but not just grassroots. Grassroots is photocopying and putting a bunch of posters up with a stapler. Red Bull's the other extreme of that of sheer unadulterated publicity stunt, and I think that's the dichotomy we see between the formal army versus the guerrilla rebel force. Which, if we really explore that, which I have, I'm a certified guerrilla marketing guy. I was one of the first marketing things I ever did well before I was knee-deep into Wizard of Ads used it for my own family businesses and the things that we were doing to, to, to do things on the cheap. We'd come up with these clever cross-promotional type ways that would give us reach, but also add additional value at no cost to us. Ooh, I remember one time with the furniture store, we got a bunch of coupons from a bunch of different local suppliers, from tanning bed companies to coffee shops to other kinds of shops in town. 

Mick Torbay: “Free cancer with every sectional.” 

Ryan Chute: Look, nowadays we barely know it as that, but back then it was like, you wanna get tanned, you live in the north, it's gonna be a challenge. But putting all those things together basically was the cost of us then, and then we'd literally hang these, these things in, in, in bags on people's doorknobs.

So it's very low cost, but a very, very high impact. It got us a lot of traffic that, that we wouldn't have otherwise had throwing our own coupons into the mix along the way, and being willing to do the, the elbow grease work to do that. Stencilling, not stencilling, but cleaning sidewalks.

Chris Torbay: The pressure washer stencilling- with pressure, where your stencil's actually created by removing the dirt- 

Ryan Chute: Exactly. ... 

Chris Torbay: Within the stencil. 

Ryan Chute: Which is completely legal and completely legit. No one can chase you after that and, in a few good rains, you're not gonna see it again. So it solves itself, and it never damages anything. 

Putting 50 stamps onto an envelope when envelopes cost 50 cents, or the stamps did to mail it. All one-penny stamps instead of one 50-cent stamp. Doing the weird things that get you noticed were really the point. At that time, having worked with and becoming friends with Jay, it was a really interesting exercise for us to come up with all of these random, strange, quirky little ways that would just have a person double take and go, "Huh." 

Chris Torbay: I think, like, I love those things, and that's why I say, I think the success is how profound and new and disruptive and interesting the idea is.

Agreed. The first time I saw that, that reverse graffiti thing of Instead's pressure washing off within the stencil, you think, "That's really clever." And if I was walking down the sidewalk and it's like, "Did they paint that? Oh, they unpainted it." It'll stop you in your tracks.

But again, I think like all those things that you talked about, it means that your brand, that furniture store brand, that family brand, was right for that kind of quirky thinking. It only works when that's the personality of your brand within your community. I don't know if Learjet can do it out in front of the bankers' offices to try and attract bankers to buy a Learjet.

They would look at it and go, "What are you, why are you do- why have you hung coupons on my thing? Why have you..." 

Ryan Chute: There are two big pieces that you're mentioning here that I think are very valuable to note. One is that the formal army, the big company that's doing it, it's, it becomes more publicity stunt. One, because there's a budget behind it, because it's more superficial and not necessarily as sincere as a grassroots, relationship-connecting strategy like you would with guerrilla marketing. If we pull this from its roots, from what it was actually conceptualized from, Che Guevara, famous,

Chris Torbay: The original guerrilla soldier, 

Ryan Chute: And he wrote a book called Guerrilla Warfare. In that book, it goes through the tactics and strategies that a guerrilla force would use against a formal army. And this is no different than the same situations that we see ourselves faced with when you're a half-million-dollar operator that needs to get your name out in the local market, your backyard, but don't have any money to spend on that kind of stuff. So how do you get known? The, second part is it being done, right? And it goes right back to that: if everyone's zigging, the only way to get noticed is if you zag. Because otherwise you just blend into the herd. So that's exactly what is intended with guerrilla marketing, is to not do the yard sign, to not do the better version of a yard sign. The better mousetrap, as it were. It's not to do the door hangers or all of the other things that people have already seen and are very comfortable in throwing away and discarding.

Chris Torbay: Yeah, they're no longer guerrilla.

Ryan Chute: They're no longer guerrilla because they no longer have the potency of distinction, right? And how do you tell your story before you have the money to tell it on mass media? How do you tell it before you have the money to spend a small fortune on a truck wrap?

You gotta, you, you gotta be crafty, right? And- very often that's just knocking on the door and introducing yourself, but not too many people are answering the door anymore, even if they're home. So how do we break that barrier in a way that gets people excited? And these are the types of things that we, I would hope to encourage, small operators who are growing to do.

It's not the truck wraps or the logos or the pretty, little things that you do. It's going to be the things that cost you nearly nothing but your time and your effort,  to Mick's point is that's where the energy had to go in the bike shop, and that's where we're gonna see it going in these other small companies that are trying to make their way.

But to do it sincerely is a critical element here 'cause- 

Chris Torbay: I think it comes back to the things we say about lots of aspects of advertising is it needs to come from the brand. And just because, for example, if your competitor's doing these quirky little stunts, it's like, "Oh, we should do some quirky little stunts." No, you don't do the thing that the other guy is doing. You do something that inherently comes from who you are,

Ryan Chute: Your truth, your North Star, exactly. Your values, your tonality. Like, how do you show up? Are you showing up in an extreme, uniform of clown colors and stuff, or are you more reserved and even-keeled and dry, and there's always an opportunity, whether it's with your community, your church, your whatever, there's always that thing that is a great fit, and it is to lean into that. 

Chris Torbay: That's one of those things we've always said about branding, right? We talk about the importance of building a brand, and a lot of times clients think, "How is the brand going to help my advertising?" And you think a properly defined brand, if it is truly, inherently a well-defined brand, it informs all kinds of things about how you do it. It defines how you do things operationally. 

It determines how you decorate the inside of your office. It determines- the one I like is a well-defined brand; it'll define what your charitable giving is. You know, are you the kind of brand that gives to kids baseball, or are you the kind of brand that gives to the cancer center, or are you the kind of brand that donates to the World Wildlife Fund, right? All of those decisions, it's not who I like; it's which one. Patagonia would support the World Wildlife Fund. 

Mick Torbay: And Red Bull would sponsor the fracture clinic. That's right. Yes. 

Chris Torbay: Or the parachute school. Or, something like that. But again, that, those decisions of what you do even in your guerrilla marketing are a product of what is it about the brand? How does that lead, and to me, those are the profound guerrilla marketing ideas. It's not just- “yes... I came up with a cool idea.” It's that I came up with a cool idea out of the essence of who our brand is and how they show up for people or how they sit in people's consciousness. 

Ryan Chute: What I'm hearing you say is to also not spread yourself around, and to lean in and build a relationship with that, that cancer center or the Little League or whatever, so that you can make- 

Chris Torbay: So you can really own it, too. It's like everybody knows that you guys are focused on wildlife, and so you're focused on this, and so these are the brands, these are the charities that you support, and these are the events that you hold, and this is how you have your company picnic. All of those things would be informed by who the brand is. And they get expressed in those ways that are not just your marketing. And guerrilla marketing being outside of traditional is one of those not obviously marketing ways that the brand is expressed. 

Ryan Chute: Yeah, 100%. 

Mick Torbay: I almost wonder how important it is that the consumer perceives one of these things as marketing per se. Just as an example, and this is actually something you can steal, so you should consider this. I did a project for a personal friend who owns a landscaping company, he's a one-truck guy, one truck, one crew guy. He's got four guys who work for him. But he does landscaping, retaining walls and things like that, one project at a time. Very successful. And he literally has one marketing thing, and it's the thing I wrote for him, and that thing was an apology letter. 

So I wrote a letter that basically says, "Hey, listen, we're at your neighbor's house. We're going to have these big smelly trucks and this heavy equipment, and we're going to be loading stuff in, and I'm really sorry." "And it's going to be about four days, and here's my phone number." His actual- 

Chris Torbay: Personal 

Mick Torbay: cell phone ... personal cell phone. Saying, "If our truck is in the way, if we're bugging you, let me know. I'm going to fix it. If we mess up your driveway, we're going to come in, and we're going to clean it. If there's something that we've done that we didn't realize we've done, reach out to me. I'm going to, I'm going to solve it for you. Hope we're not too much of a bother. This is what our trucks look like. This is my, this is who I am, and sorry."

And he has gotten so much fucking business from that. Because all he's doing is, he's not soliciting. He's not talking about all these fucking products and services, and his features and benefits and- no low prices, and the things that he offers. He's saying, "Someone in your neighborhood trusts us to do a project for it. You're going to see it, and at least I give a shit because I know that what I'm doing is not convenient for you." It's all upside for him, it's all downside for you, and I'm just trying to mitigate it. And so his brand is courtesy. That's all it is, except that when you're a one project at a time business based pretty much on word of mouth, it's incredible how powerful that thing can be, and I think part of it is because people do not perceive that as marketing.

They see it as it was legitimately presented to be, an apology letter with ways of mitigating the pain that we're going to cause you. 

Ryan Chute: And look, arguably for the 15 cents it cost to print it and the five minutes that it took to deliver the letters to eight houses around the property being serviced compared to a yard sign that's going to get yanked down and-

Mick Torbay: you compare that to the door hanger, everything done, which looks, it's art directed. Looks like marketing, and it's die-cut, and it's clearly marketing. Somebody put 

Chris Torbay: another one of those on my 

Mick Torbay: door. Then it's, you know, get rid of that. This one, because it looked handwritten, it looked legit. It looked like, this is actually what it's pretending to be. 

Ryan Chute: And this falls into a couple of buckets. One, the debate of whether or not the underdog is demonstrating a weakness, or is it a position of strength. And it comes from basically the bucket of guerrilla marketing strategy that we'd call the ugly letter, right? It's black and white. It is photocopied. It is not pretty. It is not pretty. It is not branded. 'Cause you've got John Smith and an actual phone number: "Call my personal number" If you get a problem with your property or the guys. 

Chris Torbay: And that's the thing that makes it not look like marketing because if this was marketing, somebody would've had a meeting, and they would've made this better. 

Ryan Chute: They would've made it pretty. 

Chris Torbay: So now I'm convinced 

Ryan Chute: That it's not marketing. So we can't obsess about this whole notion of, "My truck wraps and logos and my, the, all this stuff matter." You could have a white plain truck sitting out there, the base level unit, making all kinds of noise with guys that are basically wearing $3 T-shirts from Walmart that might have a little emblem on them, or nothing, and those letters that are going to give you just as much impact as all of this highly curated manufactured stuff. This isn't about, marketing should never be about being super precious about yourself. 

Mick Torbay: Now, bearing in mind that the thing I was suggesting, he's never gonna be the king of landscaping in his community, right? He's not trying to be. He doesn't wanna be, and so that's the right program for that guy. And it's true to his brand. But also, that's not a way to build an empire. 

Ryan Chute: That's eight doors at a job. You can never grow past the extreme there. You can get up to a momentum where you can have enough money to do other things that reach more people- in a powerful way- and that's where we might start to consider logos and wraps and things like that that elevate just a little bit. But it's an order of operations with a lot of this stuff. 

A guerrilla marketer doesn't want to be necessarily noticeable in the traditional way, like you put on a fancy, shiny truck wrap with all kinds of colors and looks and everything else, and people immediately think, "Ooh, these guys are too expensive."  

"Never heard of them, but I don't know why their trucks are so fancy. They must charge a lot." 

There's a, there's an interim balance there where it's just like it's okay to be low-key, right? There's plenty of companies we've worked with that still have shitbag frigging truck wraps that crush it in sales.

It's not about flash and pomp and circumstance. It's really about: How can I be perceived as the person they want to do business with?  

And that starts with as simple as, "The best I got is an ugly old letter that's gonna tell you that I'm a decent human being." So I, again, I circle this back to the underdog, and this is something you brought up, Mick, was, is the underdog, the position of weakness or strength and how do we play with that?

Mick Torbay: How long can you be the underdog? And I guess that depends on the mindset of the business owner. Do you wanna be a one-crew guy like my friend is, and that's perfect. He's got a job. He doesn't have a business; he's got a job. He's got a very successful one, and he does very well for himself. But let's not compare that to the person who wants to have a business, which means multiple trucks on the road, bigger staff, infrastructure, the sort of business that could take a leadership position and make it very difficult for other people to compete in that space. If that's your goal, then be mindful of the fact, that if you created a letter that was disruptive, quirky and interesting, but inconsistent with a leader. Then all that stuff could one day hurt you or undermine what you're trying to accomplish now when you take that leadership position. If you want to be an empire builder, if you want to be the leader in your category or among the top three in your category, understand that eventually you will have to become part of that group and do some of that stuff.

You can't say any company with truck wraps is ripping you off, because one day you're going to have truck wraps, guys. 

Chris Torbay: One day you're going to have three or four trucks, and somebody's going to say they should all look the same. 

Mick Torbay: So you're, exactly, this is really stupid, right? Or anybody with uniforms is charging you too much because they're spending all their money on uniforms. You know what? Customers like freaking uniforms. They sure do. Don't put that stuff down. In fact, buy uniforms as soon as you can afford it, and start looking professional.

Start looking like a company that might actually going, be going places and get the benefit of that sort of inherent, "I believe in these guys. They seem like not a fly-by-night operation. They seem like maybe they're going somewhere." And but like all, all the digital stuff you do, all the video stuff you do, if you say stuff that's controversial because "Ah, I don't care, I'll offend half the people because I only have to get the other half," it's like, but then when someone goes and finds that and says, "Four years ago these people were saying this incredibly offensive stuff."

And now you're trying to run for mayor. This is a problem. So always have in your head that what I'm doing now, this is a temporary thing to accomplish a temporary goal with a long-term strategy. Your c- competitors will not see that coming, by the way. They'll only see you doing this small-time thing, acting like a small-time guy and say, "I can ignore him." Good, let them ignore you. But then be ready. Build that war chest. Get yourself a budget. And then do what Chris is talking about. Get on TV, get on radio, and then be like, "No, actually, we're for real, and now you have to deal with us 'cause we can afford it." 

Ryan Chute: That’s it and walking before you run, right? We just recently did a rebrand for a customer, and they're looking at it and going, "We don't have much. We can make a website work. We can get a, a logo truck wrap. We can get a basic uniform. What can we do for that level of impact to just get that first baseline of professionalism, that next level up?"

So half wraps, right? We got decaling instead of full wraps. But we used it in a very strategic way to make sure that, that unit, the truck driving around, looked just as great as something that was fully wrapped without looking overproduced. So finding that fine-tuned balance. As you build brand equity, people are going to be willing to pay you more for the perceived value that you're bringing based on your presence. 

We all know that in fact, it was a very recent study that was showing, and I don't have it written down on this one, but it was that of the things that drove presence, radio, social media, and the sheer size of the company were the top three things, that drove the business at, at, at any given location for a service business. That's a big deal. That's a big deal because it tells us that a formal army is playing a different game, and it's completely okay. People are going to trust the 10,000 reviews and the blimp. What we need to do is have a way to carve out your piece that allows you to work towards that same level of momentum. So it's not to diminish the elements that get us there in marketing, be it brand-building assets, be it sales activation, be it lead capture. All of these things are going to help, but we have to spend the money that we have, not try to spend money that we don't to look bigger or try to do something that the formal army is doing. This is a huge mistake and a risk that a lot of small companies make, buying this stuff way too soon if they don't have the budgets. Some companies step into market with budget. 

If that's the case, deploy it as effectively as possible, but that's where guerrilla marketing comes in as a tool, a device. It all boils back to the same thing, and always the same thing, relationship. Are we presenting ourselves and communicating and interfacing with the public in a relational way, or are we just going in there with discount sales offers and flashy trucks and hoping that people just buy our bullshit?  You're going to get the customer that you advertise to the way you advertise to them. If you wanna win the game transactionally, expect price shoppers. Expect people that are going to be difficult to close. Expect people that are going to grind you for that stuff. Expect to be the best price in town because that's how you presented, right?

If you started the conversation in a different narrative, shouldn't we have a different result if we came in with a, "Here's what I think from an underdog position," from whatever the case? 

Underdog doesn't mean you have to shit talk the big guys. It can also just be The underdog is a great option because we know we have to prove ourselves and work real hard and prove ourselves to do a good job.

And we're looking for people that want to spend a little bit less to get a good result. As long as you are the guy who's spending a little less because you have a no office or a tiny office, or your office is in your garage, right? And your staff is lower cost, and you present a good value proposition. I say embrace it, right? Show them who you are, but also don't be afraid to show that you're slowly and gently evolving without the greed and more of the intent of serving your people, your customers better. 

Chris Torbay: And I think when you do that, your whole thing about how it's gonna, it could come back and bite you in the ass, the opposite is also true, which is I remember these guys. This happens with bands. It's like I remember when I used to see their posters up, when they were just a small band gigging around. And now you, now they got a major label deal and then whatever. Sometimes that guerrilla past can be an interesting thing. I remember when he was the little guy, and now he's the big guy, and I feel like I was part of the growth, right? If the if I'm a client, it's like I remember when it was just one guy and his whatever, and now look how successful he is, and I feel like I'm part of who, who helped it. 

Mick Torbay: I remember when Amazon was an upstart and absolutely the underdog. They were going up against, Barnes & Noble. Barnes & Noble, and trying to sell books online. It's like that's insane. If they had decided to build their brand on being the underdog that would be a fucking problem now, wouldn't it? You gotta have that long game. You have to, you have to. 

Chris Torbay: The underdog in rocket ships. 

Mick Torbay: You give them that. Technically they are. 

Ryan Chute: Currently. 

Mick Torbay: I think their tagline is, "Ours blow up 50% less than they used to blow up." Exactly. 

Ryan Chute: One star, still not good for people. 

So one of the coolest guerrilla marketing strategies that I heard from years ago that Roy did was a direct mail campaign. He had 500 bucks a month to spend. He sent out these very nicely drawn limited edition cards that had these funny little kind of fireside styled jokes and styling on them.

Mick Torbay: Woody Justice. Woody Justice, right? 

Ryan Chute: This is a jewelry store in the middle of nowhere, and they doubled their business in two years doing that, which allowed them to do the next thing. And Woody Justice became one of the most famous jewellers in America by 2009. And look, this is where these evolve to: any guerrilla army that wins is the guerrilla army that becomes the formal army because they won, in an army situation. In a business, it's market domination it's becoming the leader and holding true to your roots. 

So if you're doing these guerrilla marketing things, just remember to hold on to those assets, 'cause there'll come a time when you'll wanna look back and go, "Remember when?"  Not just to your staff and to yourself to remind yourself where you came from, but to your customers. 

Mick Torbay: Who are always slower to evolve in what your brand means than you are.

Ryan Chute: So much so on the kind of the kind of the biggest key point of kind of summing this all up is the guerrilla marketing wins the battle. It's not gonna be the thing that wins the war. And we have to be cautious of when this transitions into something that could be perceived as disingenuous. If you can hold true to your value system, your north stars, all of those things, great. That's core, it's important. As you get more people, that becomes more difficult. So you have to look at this whole perspective and go, "What's gonna get me where I need to go? What's the gonna be the thing that lets me win this battle?" Getting payroll paid. Taking care of the customers, and making sure they're looked after. Maybe putting a couple of bucks in the bank by the end of the year or next year if we're lucky. Heck, taking a frigging a payroll for yourself, as the operator. And serving yourself as much as you're serving your staff. Or at least somewhat, supporting yourself. 

So what are your guys' perspectives on how we go about guerrilla marketing and where it's best placed?

Mick Torbay: The good news is that since most of these techniques are not expensive, you can try shit out and see if it works. And if it doesn't work, do something else. Because unlike most advertising techniques, you don't necessarily have to try it for a year. 

Chris Torbay: They are much more one-off ideas. 

Mick Torbay: One of the crazier things that I found when I owned the retail store, at one point I thought I wonder, there was a flower shop just down the road, and I took 20 bucks out of the till, and I walked down to the flower shop, and I said, "How many balloons can I get for 20 bucks?" And she's "I don't know, 30." And I said, "Great." And then I walked out, and I put it in front of the store, these 30 balloons. Twice as many people came to the shop that day. It wasn't a birthday. It's balloon day. It wasn't a sale. It wasn't anything. It was the stupidest thing in the world.

But it was a Saturday, and we had balloons, and damn it, pulled in and looked at the bicycles. I cannot explain it. It makes no sense. But fuck that shit. Every two weeks I would go back, and I'd buy some more balloons and stick it in front of the store. And people would come in. But if it hadn't worked, fucking try something else. I don't know. That's something. 

Ryan Chute: It's pretty amazing doing these little experiments. We spend a lot of time just hanging balloons, doing balloon stuff. Balloon, there's something magical about balloons.  

Mick Torbay: Maybe having a guy spinning a sign is a good way to sell a pizza. Maybe it works. I don't know.  

Chris Torbay: But I think it's funny. It you're right. In a lot of stuff, and we've talked a number of times about how the one-off is rarely successful, right? That you wanna build a brand over time. And the one killer ad is never, the, the secret to transforming your business. But I feel like guerrilla things, by their nature, you can't do them 10 times, or now it's a campaign, in which case it's not guerrilla anymore. 

Mick Torbay: If there's always a guy- if there's always outside of your place spinning the sign. 

Chris Torbay: Then everybody's seen, or if everybody's got a guy spinning a sign out in front of your thing, then it doesn't work. And but as a disruptor or something like that, try an idea. If it works, it's worked. You may not even be able to play it again because it was the one-off that it was.

Ryan Chute: What are the powers of that, as you said that, it had me thinking about something that we just recently did as not this last weekend, but the weekend before that, which was to pop by an ice cream shop that had just opened. It was like an ice cream truck. And it was their grand opening. They were new, but the family- we had the family go out of the owners and park the truck, take a picture, golden hour, beautiful shot, celebrate them. And just talk about them. Now, yes, your truck just happened to be in the picture. Great. But at the end of the day, the sentiment, that anchoring effect of who doesn't like ice cream? 

Chris Torbay: And again it's what that says about your company, that I think of as a potential customer, "Wow, this is a company that is supportive of other businesses in their neighborhood." That says something about- that's you, the character, speaks to your character of these people, and if they're gonna come in and fix my air conditioner or whatever.

Mick Torbay: There's a lot more humanity in that than marketing. 

Chris Torbay: I come to a conclusion from that. So it's, again, what does the guerrilla idea say about your brand, and how is that helpful to me making a decision on what brand to choose? 

Ryan Chute: And that, that's cumulative in effect, too. Unlike where you drop 500 bucks on pay-per-click, it's gone. You spend 50 bucks getting ice creams for five or six people, if we can be lucky enough to get that for five or six people nowadays, and take a picture of it, and then tag them and then celebrate them, and then they share it because they're just like, "Oh, that, that was thoughtful." Thanks, guys. And that compounds to your character, your personality. And what is it we're trying to do as a business?

You're trying to get know, like, and trust. You're trying to get, demonstrate your empathy before your competence. No one cares about what you do before they know that you care. So just go out and care for people. Roy told me this five years ago. He's like, "Just do a campaign for com- of excuse me. Just go do a campaign of compliments.” Just go out and be complimentary to people and be kind to them. Don't expect anything in return and give, provide, be helpful, show up. Don't just phone it in with the lame, soft, easy answer. Answer it properly. Go to the extra effort and length to, to do what you do best. And that'll pay dividends. And it has paid dividends, and it's, these are all guerrilla marketing tactics. Give the person what they need, not what you think you would like. 

The platinum rule versus the golden rule. I- and then if there ends up being this really kind of interesting- thing that's newsworthy or noteworthy, this is PR 

Don't stop to go, "Oh, eh, hey, whatever." Make a press release of it. Get it posted. If it is newsworthy or noteworthy, then you are absolutely in a spot where you should tell the world.

Now, what does that mean in 2026, 2027? It means you're going to show up in AI search more. You're going to- get referenced from other people. You're going to show up on high authority sites. You're going to show up in the seven ways that digital search entities look for you to show up. A- and there's mainly two big things that you gotta note, the stuff you say about yourself and the stuff people say about you.

And the stuff that people say about you is actually a little bit more important, so let's make sure it's nice stuff. How can we do that? Guerrilla marketing again, not high expense, not difficult to get it posted to the universe nowadays, but it has to be noteworthy. If you're not doing anything of substance, don't tell the world about it, 'cause no one's listening.

How can we do that? Guerrilla marketing again, not high expense, not difficult to get it posted to the universe nowadays, but it has to be noteworthy. If you're not doing anything of substance, don't tell the world about it, because no one's listening. You're asking more questions that no one's asking.

‍

Ryan Chute: So looky here. If you're running an essential home service business in America, heating, cooling, plumbing, electrical Here's the three things I want you to walk out the door with. Number one, you can't beat Mike Tyson in a boxing match, so quit trying. Guerrilla marketing is just the math of the outnumbered.

Change the terrain, make it personal, and beat him somewhere his budget can't follow, your customer's actual driveway. Number two, embrace the vulnerability of being the underdog until it's no longer true. People root for the scrappy crew that obviously cares. Tell your real story of starting small and fighting for it.

Just don't fake it. Folks can smell a costume from the curb. Number three, win the town one appointment at a time. They will eventually demand that you grow. Guerrilla marketing keeps you alive, but it's not a forever plan. Bank every happy customer and build your brand equity in a war chest. One day you'll realize you're leading a formal army.

If you don't hear anything else, hear this. The giant's got the budget, the blimp, and the 10,000 reviews. You've got the one thing they sold off years ago, the ability to make a single neighbor feel like the only customer that you've got. Use it. Win them. Win them one at a time. Love the one you're with.

Sell them all, big and small. That's not losing the war. That's how you start a movement. Until next time, this is Advertising in America. Thanks for tuning in.

‍

Thank you for joining us on Advertising in America. We hope you enjoyed the show and captured a nugget of marketing magic. Want to 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 at Advertising in America.

Want to 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.

Target audience analysis gives service contractors a real map of how homeowners decide, built from demographic, psychographic, and behavioral research instead of a guess dressed up as a pay-per-click strategy. Business owners and contractors who learn how prospects actually think, instead of chasing keywords, earn the kind of brand recall that outlasts a single ad click. That's what turns a spot in Google's 3-Pack into real Main Street recognition, and turns undecided shoppers into customers who keep coming back.

What Will You Gain From This Analysis?

The first thing you get is a clear picture of the right homeowner, built by combining demographic, psychographic, and behavioral data into one usable profile. Skip this step, and a contractor ends up aiming advertising at everyone, which means connecting with no one. Target audience analysis exist to close that gap before a single ad ever airs.

The stakes here are higher than most contractors realize. The average person absorbs roughly 10,000 advertising messages a day, enough noise to drown out a generic pitch before it even registers. A furnace repair ad thrown into that noise can't just exist; it has to be built to be remembered, not merely placed. Analysis is what tells you which words, tones, and channels actually cut through that clutter for a specific homeowner segment.

What does the analysis actually produce?

The output is a strategic blueprint: it names the specific group a contractor's business is trying to reach, and pairs that with the psychological mechanics that make advertising persuasive to that group. Instead of guessing at messaging, owners walk away with a documented understanding of how their ideal customer thinks, decides, and responds.

That blueprint typically delivers:

1. A defined audience profile combining location, life stage, and behavior patterns
2. Insight into the psychological triggers that make an offer feel trustworthy
3. A messaging direction built for recall, not just a one-time click
4. A foundation for creative that stays consistent across every channel

Why does this matter more than another PPC campaign?

Paid clicks vanish the moment the budget runs dry. A brand message built on real audience analysis keeps working in memory long after the ad has stopped running. Contractors who understand what actually drives their audience's decisions build advertising homeowners remember at the exact moment a pipe bursts or an AC fails, instead of advertising that gets scrolled past and forgotten.

Why Do Demographics Alone Mislead Home Service Business Owners?

Age, income, and zip code can't predict who picks up the phone first when a furnace dies at 2 a.m. A broken heating system on a cold morning creates the same emotional emergency no matter the bracket or the neighborhood. The retired couple on a fixed income and the young family with two incomes both panic the same way when the house goes cold. No spreadsheet of demographic averages captures that shared moment of dread.

What happens in the homeowner's mind during an emergency?

Panic overrides price comparison. In that moment, a homeowner grabs the phone and calls whatever name feels familiar, not whichever ad bid the highest. Demographic targeting assumes a rational shopper weighing options; real homeowners default to recognition under stress. That one behavioral fact exposes the limits of age-and-income targeting better than any dataset ever could.

Advertising itself splits into two camps, and demographic lists only serve one of them. Informative advertising, built on facts and features, is one of the two most popular advertising types, but it only speaks to the rational buyer. Persuasive advertising, built on emotional recall and brand familiarity, wins in the moment demographics can't reach: the panic call.

Genuine Target Audience Analysis Services close that gap by layering in what demographics omit:

• Interests and values that shape which brand feels trustworthy
• Beliefs and attitudes toward hiring outside help
• Buying habits during both routine maintenance and emergencies
• Preferred media channels where recognition gets built before the crisis hits

Contractors who lean on age and income brackets alone are chasing a shopper who barely exists. The homeowner who actually matters is the one in crisis, searching on instinct, not spreadsheet logic.

What Tools Do You Need To Start?

A documented process for examining advertising has to come first, before a single new campaign gets written. Contractors and marketing leaders need a real method for determining what effect an ad has on homeowners, not a guess about what sounds clever in a meeting. Skip that diagnostic step, and new creative just repeats old mistakes instead of correcting them.

Target Audience Analysis Services supply exactly that method. The work starts by reviewing the ads already running, to see how they're shaping what prospects think and want. That review is a diagnostic skill, not a creative flourish, and it has to happen before a single new script gets drafted. Skip it, and you're writing blind and hoping the market responds.

Why does analysis have to come before creative writing?

Successful marketing research demands a documented, clear understanding of the target audience before any ad gets built. Contractors who skip this step end up with content that feels good in the office but never lands with the homeowners who actually call for service.

What does the analysis actually produce?

Applied correctly, this diagnostic work generates more leads, more sales, and more profit. The output isn't a report that sits in a folder gathering dust. It's the foundation every future ad, call script, and landing page gets built on.

The toolkit itself is simple to describe, even if the execution takes discipline:

1. Collect every existing ad the business has run, across every channel.
2. Examine each one for the effect it had on consumer behavior, not just its look or tone.
3. Document the gaps between what the business said and what the audience actually heard.
4. Translate those findings into a written audience profile before writing begins.

That sequence protects the budget, and it protects the brand's voice from drifting every time a new campaign launches.

How Do You Map Emotional Buying Triggers?

Emotional buying triggers surface the instant a furnace quits on the coldest night of the year. A homeowner shivering under blankets asks one instinctive question: who can I trust right now? That single moment of panic, not a feature list or a price point, is the real trigger contractors need to map before writing a single ad.

Mapping starts with a sequence, not a guess. Each step builds on the one before it, and skipping any of them weakens the whole map.

1. Identify the moment of crisis. Pinpoint the exact circumstance, a broken AC in August or a flooded basement at midnight, that pushes a homeowner to search for help.
2. Separate facts from feelings. Informative advertising leans on facts-and-figures messaging to convince an audience a product solves their problem, but facts rarely move someone mid-emergency.
3. Connect as a consumer, not a prospect. Precise identification of the audience comes first; only then can messaging land on a human level instead of a sales pitch.
4. Catalog wants, needs, and expected value. Document how homeowners make purchase decisions and what added value they expect from a service call, from speed to reassurance.
5. Match copy to the trigger. Write ad language that speaks to trust and urgency rather than specifications.

What makes emotional triggers different from standard marketing data?

Standard data measures clicks and demographics; emotional triggers measure fear, relief, and trust at the point of decision. Target Audience Analysis Services exist to translate that difference into usable creative direction, mapping the feeling behind the search instead of just the search term.

Why do facts-based ads fail during home emergencies?

Facts-based ads assume a calm, comparison-shopping buyer, but an emergency strips away all patience for specifications. A homeowner facing a broken system wants reassurance first and details second.

How Do You Capture Auditory Memory Cues?

Capturing auditory memory cues starts with building a sonic signature: a repeatable sound, phrase, or jingle that lodges in memory long before a homeowner ever searches for a plumber or an HVAC crew. Contractors who skip this step lose the call the moment a prospect opens a map app and scrolls through a crowded list of look-alike listings. Google Maps now functions as the modern storefront, and ranking high there only delivers real visibility once a brand already lives in memory. That digital Main Street stays packed with undecided shoppers, and only the name already anchored in recall earns the tap and the call.

Before building an auditory identity, marketing leaders should run a round of Target Audience Analysis to confirm which sounds, phrases, and cadences actually resonate with the homeowners the business serves. Skip that groundwork, and you risk a jingle that sounds generic instead of one the brand can own.

Follow these steps, in order:

1. Define the one or two emotions the brand wants homeowners to feel during an emergency call.
2. Draft a short phrase or sound mark built to repeat across every call center greeting, radio spot, and video script.
3. Test the phrase aloud with staff and real customers before locking it into paid campaigns.
4. Repeat the cue across every touchpoint for a full media cycle before judging whether recall took hold.

Why did print directories disappear so fast?

Print directories vanished from households almost overnight once search engines took over, proof that attention always migrates toward the easiest channel to recall. For decades, households reached for directories organized by service category rather than brand name, a habit any distinctive audio identity now has to override.

Does a jingle still matter in a digital-first market?

Yes, because the same recall mechanics that made category directories obsolete now reward brands that own a sound. Homeowners search for a name they already remember, not a category they have to scroll through.

How Do You Build A Homeowner Persona?

Building a homeowner persona starts with research, not assumption. Contractors and marketing leaders define the exact household calling for repairs, replacements, or new installs, then build messaging around how that household actually behaves. Guessing at an audience just wastes media spend. Any business that wants to win at marketing has to understand, recognize, and actively target its specific audience instead of guessing at it.

Persona development follows a sequence, not a brainstorm session. Every step builds toward one outcome: turning an undecided homeowner into a paying customer.

1. Define the core target group first. Persona work should always tie back to converting a visitor into a buyer, which means identifying that core group with precision before writing a single ad.
2. Map the homeowner's triggering moment. Pinpoint what happens right before someone searches for a plumber, an HVAC tech, or an electrician.
3. Document decision patterns. Note how the household compares providers, what stalls the decision, and what pushes it f​orward.
4. Align the persona to brand voice and media channels. The persona should dictate where dollars go and what the ads say, not the reverse.

Target Audience Analysis Services from Wizard of Ads for Essential Services, headquartered in Halifax, NS, build these personas directly for contractor clients, turning raw homeowner behavior into usable creative direction. A ten-person team keeps that research tightly coordinated across every phase, from discovery through media buying, so nothing gets lost between strategy and execution.

What makes a homeowner persona different from a typical buyer profile?

A homeowner persona centers on urgency and trust, not just demographics. Most essential service calls happen under pressure: a broken furnace, a leaking pipe. The persona has to reflect decision-making under stress, not leisurely browsing behavior.

How Do You Apply Insights To Media Buys?

Media buys succeed when persona research dictates channel, message, and timing, not the other way around. Homeowners don't dig through directories for help anymore, so media dollars need to follow them into the digital and broadcast channels built for recall, not into outdated listings nobody opens. Target Audience Analysis Services translate raw persona data into a buying blueprint that media planners can execute with precision.

The process follows a defined sequence:

1. Map the persona to channel habits. Identify where the target homeowner actually spends attention, broadcast, streaming, search, or social.
2. Match creative tone to the moment. Decide whether the message needs to inform or persuade; that choice depends entirely on the business goal and the situation being targeted.
3. Align the Google Business Profile with persona language. A cleaned-up profile becomes a first impression, a source of social proof, and a conversion engine once persona insights shape its content.
4. Lock in buying power before launch. Secure placements that reinforce the message across every touchpoint simultaneously.

Should informative or persuasive creative run first?

Neither format wins universally. An informative approach suits a market that doesn't yet recognize it has the problem. A persuasive approach suits a market that's ready to choose between providers. The persona research is what tells you which stage the target homeowner is in.

Does Google Business Profile optimization belong in a media plan?

Yes. A profile shaped by persona insight becomes a digital storefront. Skip that alignment, and you waste the recall built everywhere else by paid and broadcast media.

Wizard of Ads for Essential Services builds this sequencing into every buy, so strategy, not guesswork, decides where dollars land.

What Mistakes Undermine Audience Analysis Results?

Three mistakes sabotage most audience research: chasing SEO jargon instead of strategy, treating every homeowner as identical, and stopping at surface demographics. Home service businesses that fall into these traps burn ad budget on tactics that generate clicks but never build lasting brand recall. Correcting course takes a disciplined, repeatable process, not another shortcut.

Why does chasing SEO tricks waste marketing budget?

Confusing SEO jargon promises fast rankings but delivers results that don't last. A strategic, sustainable approach built on real audience insight outperforms magic-trick tactics every time, because it targets the homeowners most likely to call instead of gaming an algorithm.

How does treating all homeowners the same hurt results?

Lumping every prospect into one bucket erases the real differences between an online-savvy single professional, a budget-conscious working family, and a high-earning homeowner researching from a mobile device. Target Audience Analysis fix this by separating those groups before a single message gets written. Contractors avoid this mistake by following a clear sequence:

1. Segment prospects by income level, household type, and age range.
2. Identify how each segment shops: mobile-first, desktop research, or word-of-mouth.
3. Match messaging and media channel to each segment's behavior.

Skipping the deeper layers, attitudes, interests, values, lifestyle, only compounds the problem. A contractor who knows nothing beyond a prospect's zip code is still guessing at what actually triggers a service call. Engagement patterns, not just demographics, show which homeowners respond to urgency, which respond to trust-building, and which need both.

The fix stays the same in every market: build a strategic, sustainable, service-driven presence instead of reaching for whatever ranking trick is trending this quarter. Audience analysis done right protects the budget and builds the kind of recall that outlasts any algorithm update.

FAQ

What is target audience analysis for home service contractors?

It combines demographic, psychographic, and behavioral research to map how homeowners actually decide, replacing the guesswork common in pay-per-click targeting. The result is a detailed customer profile that drives measurable marketing results.

Why do demographics alone fail to predict customer behavior?

Age, income, and zip code can't predict who calls first during an emergency, like a furnace dying at 2 a.m. Homeowners across every bracket and neighborhood panic the same way when they're facing an urgent crisis, and that panic overrides price comparison.

How does audience analysis improve a contractor's advertising?

It identifies which words, tones, and channels actually cut through the daily clutter of advertising messages homeowners see, building brand recall that outlasts any single ad click.

Conclusion

Target audience analysis transforms contractor marketing from reactive guesswork into strategic precision. By mapping homeowner personas across demographics, psychographics, and behavior, service businesses align every message, channel, and dollar to the moment of greatest need. The result is a brand homeowners remember first when crisis strikes, not because of clever tactics, but because strategy drives every decision. This disciplined approach builds lasting market leverage and the kind of trust that outlasts trends.

‍

Effective direct mail strategy for HVAC, plumbing, and electrical contractors requires repeated weekly mailings, not one-and-done postcards, paired with consistent brand messaging across every touchpoint. Service businesses see stronger results combining carrier-route prospecting with radius. Retention campaigns targeting new homeowners, building the recognition that turns a single mailer into reliable, repeatable call volume over time.

Key Takeaways

• Weekly direct mail campaigns acquire and retain more customers through data-driven prospect carrier route mailings.
• Radius, Retention, and New Homeowners programs target specific customer segments for HVAC, plumbing, and electrical services.
• Direct mail products include both paper and plastic options to maximize response rates and brand visibility.
• Fast Track Postcard service delivers quick-turnaround campaigns for essential services contractors seeking immediate market penetration.

Why Does Generic Direct Mail Get Ignored?

Generic postcards get ignored because homeowners have trained themselves to stop seeing them. Most contractor marketing, including the standard coupon mailer, looks. Interchangeable that recipients file it as junk before reading a single word. A discount offer with a furnace graphic and a phone number blends into every other flyer sitting on the kitchen counter. Invisible coupons mailed to homes routinely fail to capture any real attention.

The math makes this worse, not better. The average American encounters roughly 10,000 advertising messages a day. A bland postcard has almost no chance of breaking through that noise. HVAC postcard marketing that looks like every competitor's mailer simply adds to the pile recipients have already learned to tune out.

Brands that get remembered take a different path:

• They surprise recipients instead of pitching them.
• They delight before they sell.
• They make the mail piece feel like an event, not an ad.

That distinction separates a home services direct mail campaign that builds brand equity from one that funds the recycling bin.

Does Mailing Once Ever Work?

Rarely. Sending a single piece of direct mail and stopping is almost always a wasted investment for service companies. One mailer, however clever, struggles to compete with the 10,000 daily impressions that vie for attention.

What Makes Direct Mail Memorable Instead of Disposable?

Memorable mail breaks the pattern recipients expect from contractor advertising. Direct mail marketing for HVAC companies, direct mail for plumbers, and electrical contractor direct mail all succeed on the same principle: surprise earns a second look, and a second look earns a call.

What Makes a Home Services Direct Mail Campaign Work?

A winning home services direct mail campaign combines consistent weekly mailing, sharp audience targeting, and bold creative that refuses to blend into the stack. Three elements separate results-driving campaigns from forgettable postcards: frequency, targeting, and distinctiveness.

Weekly prospect carrier route mailings form the backbone of effective direct mail marketing for HVAC companies, plumbing contractors, and electrical businesses. Consistent weekly drops build the repetition brand memory requires, rather than a single blast hoping for a lucky response.

Targeting determines who receives that mail in the first place. Radius, retention, and new-homeowner targeting strategies help direct mail for plumbers and electrical direct mail campaigns reach households statistically primed to need service soon: recent movers, past customers overdue for maintenance, and neighbors near a completed job.

Does frequency matter more than targeting?

Neither element works alone. A home services direct mail campaign built only on frequency wastes spend mailing people unlikely to respond. Targeting without repetition, meanwhile, fails to build the recall that drives calls when something breaks.

Why do generic postcards underperform?

Templated, me-too postcards get tossed with the rest of the day's mail before a homeowner reads a single word. Guerrilla-style marketing proves bold ideas outperform big budgets. Pieces built on timeless persuasion principles beat generic layouts almost every time.

This is the strategic lens Wizard of Ads for Essential Services brings to HVAC postcard marketing: distinctiveness engineered on purpose, never left to a printer's default template. The payoff shows up in direct mail ROI contractors can actually measure, booked calls, not vanity impressions.

Should HVAC, Plumbing, or Electrical Companies Try Direct Mail?

Direct mail earns a place in the marketing budget only when owners treat the decision as strategic, not experimental. Service companies evaluating direct mail marketing for HVAC, plumbing, or electrical operations face a real investment question: does the channel deserve real dollars and real time, or does it get tested once and abandoned?

That single-test instinct sinks most campaigns before they start. Owners often ask to run one mailing, see what happens, and decide later whether more makes sense. A mail program built on that logic rarely produces the data needed to judge performance fairly. direct mail ROI contractors chase gets buried under a sample size too small to mean anything.

What should a contractor decide before committing to direct mail?

The choice starts with a harder question: what does the business actually want to build? Owners weigh three outcomes: revenue, reputation, or genuine community impact. Most companies want all three, but one has to lead the strategy.

That priority shapes which advertising approach fits. Marketing splits into two dominant camps:

• Informative advertising: built to educate prospects and drive action through facts and clarity
• Persuasive advertising: built to move emotion and build long-term brand preference

Does the right approach differ for electrical contractors versus plumbers?

Goals, not trade labels, determine the right path. Whether the business runs electrical contractor direct mail, direct mail for plumbers, or a broader home services direct mail campaign, the same rule applies: strategy comes before creative, and creative comes before stamps.

How Do You Measure Direct Mail ROI for Contractors?

Direct mail ROI for contractors comes down to tracking which pieces generate calls, then comparing that cost against revenue from booked jobs. Many contractor mail programs collapse at this exact step. Owners spend on printing and postage, then have no reliable way to connect a specific postcard to a specific phone call, leaving the entire home services direct mail campaign running on guesswork instead of data.

Tracking failure usually starts upstream, with the list itself. Batch-and-blast mailing lists spray a wide radius with no segmentation. HVAC postcard marketing dollars get spent on households unlikely to ever need a repair or install. Contractors running direct mail marketing for HVAC companies see stronger ROI when targeting replaces mass distribution.

Why do most contractor mail campaigns fail to show ROI?

Most campaigns fail because tracking gets bolted on as an afterthought rather than built into the mail piece itself. Without dedicated phone numbers, codes, or response paths tied to each drop, owners cannot separate the mail piece that worked from the one that got tossed. That blind spot makes every renewal decision a guess.

What actually improves ROI on contractor mail?

Analyzing performance data reveals how messaging influences homeowner decisions, which sharpens the next list pull and the next creative draft. Electrical contractor direct mail and direct mail for plumbers campaigns both improve when creative applies neuroscience-based memory triggers, anchoring the brand in a homeowner's mind instead of landing in the recycling bin. Measurement should track:

• Response rate by carrier route or list segment
• Cost per booked job, not just cost per piece mailed
• Repeat-response rate across multiple mail drops
• Recall and brand recognition among target households

Contractors who treat tracking as a design requirement, not a reporting afterthought, turn mail spend into a measurable growth channel rather than a recurring expense with no visible return.

What's the Smartest Direct Mail Strategy for Growth?

Growth comes from treating mail as one instrument in a larger orchestra, not a solo act. Postcards alone rarely move revenue; coordinated campaigns do. The strongest home services direct mail campaign sits inside a multichannel marketing strategy. Mail builds awareness, pulls in new customers, and strengthens retention alongside other channels.

Strategy has to come first, creative and channels second. When strategy sets the direction, mail design, call center scripts, and digital content all say the same thing in the same voice. Misaligned touchpoints confuse prospects and bleed trust before a truck ever rolls.

Should contractors drop PPC for direct mail instead?

Dropping pay-per-click entirely is not the recommendation; rebalancing the budget is. Many contractors overspend on costly, unpredictable PPC auctions while under-investing in direct mail ROI contractors can actually track and repeat. A smarter mix leans on direct and organic search, supported by national buying power that secures better media rates than a single-location business can get alone.

What does a strategic rebrand add to mail campaigns?

A rebrand gives mail something worth remembering. One HVAC brand grew revenue substantially by owning its local airwaves through a strategic rebrand paired with memorable radio messaging.

The lesson transfers directly to paper: a postcard tied to a forgettable brand gets tossed. One tied to a distinctive identity gets kept on the fridge. Smart growth strategy includes these elements:

• Treating electrical contractor direct mail and HVAC mail as part of one coordinated brand system
• Matching direct mail for plumbers messaging to call center and digital scripts
• Letting rebrand work make mail memorable, not just mailed

FAQ

Why does a single direct mail piece fail to generate results?

One mailer cannot compete with the roughly 10,000 daily ad messages homeowners see. It gets lost before building any brand recognition or repeat call volume.

What strategies help target the right homeowners for HVAC, plumbing, and electrical direct mail?

Radius, Retention, and New Homeowners programs focus mailings on specific customer segments, combining carrier-route prospecting with targeted messaging to drive consistent response.

How can contractors make their direct mail stand out from competitors?

Successful campaigns surprise recipients, delight before selling, and turn the mail piece into an event rather than a generic coupon ad that blends into the pile.

Conclusion

In closing, direct mail remains a powerful lever for essential service contractors who commit to strategic consistency and authentic messaging. When your brand voice aligns across every touchpoint, from the envelope to the follow-up call, you build the trust. Recall that turns prospects into loyal customers. The contractors who dominate their markets aren't chasing trends. They're anchoring themselves in the minds of homeowners through disciplined, memorable storytelling. Your direct mail campaign succeeds when it reflects who you are and why you matter.

Local SEO for home service contractors comes down to three things: ranking in the Google 3-Pack, running Local Service Ads well, and showing up strong on Google Maps. HVAC, plumbing, and electrical companies win leads by claiming their spot on the map and catching "AC repair," "plumber," and "electrician" searches before competitors do.

Key Takeaways

• Home service contractors see measurable SEO results within three to six months of implementation.
• Local search dominates: homeowners tap maps, skim three reviews, then call contractors immediately.
• Google's AI filters now prioritize contractors appearing real, established, and trustworthy to customers.

Why Does Local SEO Matter For Contractors Now?

Almost every customer looks up a plumber, electrician, or HVAC technician online before dialing a number, which is why home service contractor SEO has become a growth essential. Homeowners search, skim a few reviews, and call whichever company looks established. A contractor invisible in that moment loses the job before a competitor even bids.

Local SEO for home service businesses closes that gap between searching and hiring. Website visits alone don't win the job — what moves revenue is phone calls, booked appointments, and jobs on the schedule. Built right, a local search strategy turns search intent into dispatched trucks.

Is weak advertising actually a targeting problem?

Rarely. Advertising rarely fails because it reaches the wrong people, it fails because it doesn't stick. Prospects forget a brand the moment it stops showing up. Most contractors don't need a bigger audience; they need sharper, more consistent visibility right where the decision gets made.

Why does this matter more now than five years ago?

Search behavior now boils down to a few fast decision points: a map listing, a review score, a click to call. Wizard of Ads for Essential Services helps essential service brands earn that recognition instead of chasing it. Contractors who treat local visibility as core strategy turn searchers into scheduled jobs before competitors even show up.

How Does Google Maps Replace The Old Yellow Pages?

Google Maps is the modern storefront window for home service contractors. A high ranking inside the map pack delivers the visibility a prominent Yellow Pages listing once guaranteed — except competition is fiercer now and the window to be seen is shorter. Ranking well decides whether a plumbing, HVAC, electrical, or roofing company gets found the moment a homeowner needs help.

For decades, printed directories were the go-to tool for finding household services. A homeowner with a leaking pipe or broken furnace flipped through the pages, scanned the bold-print ads, and dialed a number — until real competition showed up.

Why Did Yellow Pages Disappear So Fast?

Search engines dismantled the printed directory business almost overnight. As Google became the default place to find services, phone books disappeared from households faster than the industry expected. Contractors who leaned on directory ads lost that channel outright, with no transition to adjust to.

What Does a Homeowner Do Instead During a Service Emergency?

A homeowner facing a broken air conditioner or a flooding basement doesn't reach for a directory anymore. The phone comes out right away — a quick search names the problem, surfaces nearby providers, and ends in a call within minutes.

That shift changes what visibility actually means for contractors:

• Local SEO for home service businesses now occupies the position directory ads once held.
• Map pack placement replaces bold-print listings as the trust signal homeowners scan first.
• Speed matters more than ever—searches happen in real time, during active emergencies, not weeks in advance.

Contractors who treat map visibility as optional are competing with one hand tied, chasing a customer base that already moved on.

What Makes Your Google Business Profile A Storefront?

Google retired the old "Google My Business" label years ago; contractors still calling it that are working from an outdated playbook. The correct name today is the Google Business Profile, or GBP, and treating it like a plain directory listing costs plumbing, HVAC, electrical, and roofing companies real revenue. Google Business Profile optimization is where a real contractor local search strategy starts.

A well-optimized GBP does three jobs at once: it's a digital storefront, a trust signal, and a booking engine, all in one search result. Prospects size up a contractor before ever clicking through to the website.

Why does the profile double as a storefront and a sales tool?

Homeowners scanning map results aren't browsing — they're deciding. The photos, reviews, hours, and services on that profile carry the same weight a clean storefront window carries on Main Street. Skip the polish, and a competitor with a sharper profile wins the click, the call, and the job.

The stakes climb even higher for essential service categories. Here's how ranking priority shifts with business maturity:

• Established brand with strong name recognition — Moderate priority; GBP supports existing demand.
• Newer plumbing, HVAC, or electrical company — Critical priority; often the primary discovery channel.
• Contractor with no prior brand-building — Essential priority; the 3-Pack becomes the storefront.

Why does the Google 3-Pack matter so much for newer trade businesses?

Companies without brand recognition depend heavily on strong local pack rankings for contractors, those top three map results carry the weight a known name would otherwise carry. Without a name to search for directly, prospects find contractors almost entirely through the 3-Pack. This is where local SEO for home service businesses starts: a neglected profile means being invisible right when demand shows up.

How Do Homeowners Actually Search For Emergency Help?

A broken furnace at midnight doesn't send anyone to a blog. Panic drives the search, not curiosity: open the map, scan a handful of reviews, dial the top result. No research phase, no comparison shopping, just a tap, a glance, and a call.

That exposes a hard truth for trade contractors. A business absent from searches like "HVAC repair near me" or "emergency plumber" loses the job before the homeowner finishes typing. By the time the phone rings, the map has already picked the winner.

What does a homeowner see in those first few seconds?

Three listings, a handful of star ratings, and how far away each one is; nothing else registers during a crisis. Local SEO for home service businesses exists to control what shows up in that narrow window, turning a profile into the obvious, trustworthy choice before a competitor gets the tap.

Why does ranking matter more than having a website?

A polished website means little if it never surfaces at the moment of need. Visibility in the map pack works like a digital billboard planted in the path of someone already searching for help. Contractors who treat that real estate as optional hand every emergency call to whoever occupies it.

The searches that matter share a pattern:

• Immediate-need phrases: "AC repair near me," "emergency plumber [city]"
• Location-anchored terms: service area names, neighborhoods, ZIP codes
• Trust shortcuts: star ratings, review count, response speed

Contractors who understand this map-reviews-call sequence build their local presence around winning it, not around ranking for keywords nobody types at 2 a.m.

Should Local Service Ads Replace Organic Search?

No. Local Service Ads (LSA) work best as a supplement to organic visibility, not a replacement. Google built LSA for businesses providing local residential services — plumbers, locksmiths, HVAC companies among them — helping homeowners find verified, trustworthy businesses fast. That makes it great for quick jobs but limited as a long-term growth engine.

Contractors chasing every paid click lose sight of what builds market share. Local SEO for home service businesses creates durable visibility that outlasts the ad spend. A sound strategy leans away from expensive pay-per-click campaigns and toward direct and organic search, backed by national media buying power.

Is LSA Enough on Its Own?

Rarely. LSA earns trust through Google's verification badge, but that trust lasts only as long as the ad budget does. Once spending stops, so does the visibility — organic rankings and brand recognition don't disappear the same way.

What Should Contractors Prioritize Instead?

Owners chasing sustainable lead flow need both channels working together, not one replacing the other.

• Local Service Ads: fast visibility for residential service categories, verified-business trust signal, pay-to-play model
• Organic and direct search: compounding visibility, brand equity that outlasts ad spend, less dependence on rising click costs

Smart operators treat LSA as a short-term bridge while organic authority builds underneath it. Skip the foundation to chase paid placement, and a contractor is exposed the moment competitors outbid them. Brand-first businesses don't rent their visibility — they own it.

How Long Until SEO Delivers Real Leads?

Real momentum from search optimization shows up within three to six months for most home service contractors. In highly competitive trades — crowded HVAC or plumbing markets — it can take six months to a year before the phone rings with real frequency. Patience separates contractors who build lasting visibility from those who give up too soon.

Local SEO for home service businesses means optimizing a website for customers inside its actual service area, not a vague national audience — a distinction that matters for roofers, electricians, and general contractors competing block by block, not state by state.

Why does the first few months feel slow?

Search engines take time to trust a new or newly optimized site. Those early months build foundational signals — content, structure, local relevance — before rankings climb. Slow doesn't mean broken; it means the groundwork is going in for results that compound later.

What happens once rankings improve?

Earning the number-one spot on Google often decides whether a homeowner calls that contractor or a competitor. That single ranking position carries outsized weight in emergency-driven trades like plumbing and HVAC repair.

Three factors accelerate the timeline:

• Content depth — informative, facts-and-figures content builds trust and gives prospects reasons to choose one contractor over another.
• Competitive intensity — fewer competitors means faster ranking gains.
• Consistency — steady optimization outperforms sporadic bursts of activity.

Contractors who commit to six full months before judging results position their brand to own local search rather than chase it.

Why Does Structure Beat Rankings In 2026?

Rankings alone no longer protect a contractor's visibility. Structure — the underlying signals search engines trust — now decides who survives in local results. AI-generated answers didn't eliminate the need for a strong local search presence; they filtered it, rewarding clean, consistent digital foundations and burying the rest.

Google evaluates contractors faster than ever, deciding within moments which businesses feel real, established, and worth showing to a homeowner in crisis. That raises the stakes for any Local SEO for Home Service Businesses strategy — a number-one ranking earned last year is no guarantee today, since the algorithm rewards structural integrity over a static position.

Three signals determine whether a contractor stays visible or disappears:

• A complete, accurate Google Business Profile that reflects current services and hours
• Clearly defined service areas that match the search intent of nearby homeowners — the backbone of service area local SEO
• Consistent messaging across the website, directory listings, and call center scripts

Weak profiles, blurry service boundaries, and mismatched signals push contractors out of view right when demand spikes. A homeowner searching at night for emergency help never sees a business buried under inconsistency — the call is lost before the phone even rings.

What Makes A Contractor "Feel Real" To Google?

Consistency across every digital touchpoint signals legitimacy to Google's evaluation systems. Matching business names, addresses, phone numbers, and service descriptions builds the structural trust that rankings alone can't buy. Neglect that alignment, and competitors with weaker brand names out-rank by presenting cleaner, more coherent signals.

Structure, not position, decides who gets the call in 2026. Home service brands that treat local visibility as an ongoing discipline — not a one-time ranking chase — protect their place in front of ready buyers.

What Should Contractors Do Next To Build Brand?

Brand-building for contractors starts with pairing distinctive creative to durable media, not chasing another algorithm update. One HVAC company grew from pricing varies million to more than pricing varies million in revenue after a strategic rebrand paired with memorable radio let it own the airwaves in its market — an outcome that comes from creative built to be remembered, not just clicked.

Local SEO for home service businesses earns the calls that come in today, but memory wins the calls that happen months from now. Neuroscience-based creative principles trigger recall in ways search rankings alone can't reach. Mass media builds that recall by repeating a distinctive message until a homeowner's brain files the contractor's name under "the one to call."

How does strategy prevent wasted ad spend?

Strategy has to dictate creative and channel choices before a single dollar moves. When strategy leads, every touchpoint, call centers, digital content, mass media — tells the same story instead of ten different guesses.

What does a disciplined rollout actually look like?

Execution follows a defined sequence rather than a rush to publish:

1. Uncover — pinpoint what makes the brand genuinely distinctive, not just different.
2. Research — validate the story and the market before writing a single ad.
3. Write — craft creative built for memory, not filler copy.
4. Buy — secure media placement with clout and intent.
5. Approve and Launch — align every channel before the campaign goes live.

That sequence protects contractors from the scattershot habit of running ads first and asking questions later.

Results compound with volume and discipline. A track record built on 211 satisfied clients and 109,033 ads produced shows what sustained, strategic output achieves over years, not weeks. Contractors chasing quick wins skip that discipline and rebuild brand equity from zero every time a campaign underperforms.

The next move: treat brand as infrastructure. Local search brings the homeowner to the door for one job; a distinctive, memory-triggering brand brings them back for every job after that and sends referrals along with them.

Conclusion

In closing, local SEO builds the digital foundation, but distinctiveness builds the demand. Search rankings capture homeowners who already know your name; a strong brand ensures more of them search for you by name at all. Contractors who align technical optimization with strategic, memorable storytelling stop competing for clicks and start owning their market. Treat local search as one instrument in a larger brand strategy, and every ranking, review, and impression compounds into lasting trust and recall.

Cute and clever gets you watched. A campaign gets you remembered.

And in a business where they don't need you until the day they really need you—remembered is the only one that pays the light bill.

Most businesses think they have an advertising problem. They don't. They have a memory problem. They ran a funny ad. People laughed. Nothing stuck. Six months later, nobody can name the company—or worse, they're confusing it with the competitor down the street.

In this episode, Ryan Chute, Chris Torbay, and Mick Torbay go to war with each other—and themselves—over one of the most misunderstood tensions in advertising: the difference between cute and clever and a real campaign. One's a great joke. The other's a relationship. And most brands are spending real money on punchlines that evaporate the moment the laugh track ends.

Chris makes the case for humor done right—and exposes why the real crime isn't cute and clever, it's cute and clever as a trend-chasing reflex. Mick defends the long game while admitting that in a landscape of boilerplate mediocrity, even a halfway decent joke is ahead of the pack. And Ryan ties it all together with the question no business owner wants to sit with: are you building a character, or just wearing a costume?

Episode Highlights:

• The Character vs. the Costume:  Why a campaign builds equity and a one-off ad just gets a laugh at the 19th hole.
• The Competitive Landscape Test:  Before you pick a tone, read the room. If your whole market is doing quirky dances, profound is your disruption.
• The Super Bowl Trap:  Why the most-watched ad event in the world teaches brands the worst possible habits.
• Brand Tonality Isn't Optional:  Guinness doesn't do cute. Mercedes doesn't do quirky. Know what your brand is before you choose your voice.
• Category Entry Points:  The science of why the brand that gets remembered at 11pm on a Tuesday—when the AC dies—wins everything.
• Attention Is Cheap, Memory Is Expensive:  Anyone can get three seconds of notice. The win is being the name that surfaces eight months later.
• The H.L. Bowman Standard:  What campaignable cute and clever actually looks like when it's done with precision and commitment.
• The Optimal Number of Complaints:  Why zero complaints means your ads are invisible, and why the target number is never zero.

‍

🎧 Hit play if you're running ads that get attention but never seem to stick. This episode will show you exactly why—and what to do instead.

‍👉 Are your ads building a character people remember—or just wearing a costume they forget?

On this episode of Advertising in America, we're talking about campaigns versus cute and clever. 

I'm a big proponent of cute and clever. I write a lot of material for my clients that embodies that tone. I'm hilarious, and humor sells. Humor disarms people and gets them to think about you and remember you and never realize they're actually internalizing someone's ad campaign.

Me, I'm taking the long game, and I'm not satisfied to allow my clients to succeed simply because their competitors are doing it worse. I'm not going to give that competitor the opportunity to beat my client by doing what they should have been doing all along. 

Didn't we already rant about why making your marketing look the same as your competitor's marketing is a bad idea? Why is it a good idea on Insta? 

Cute and clever is better than nothing, and most advertising is nothing. Cute and clever is also relatively cheap to acquire because you don't have to be a master strategist to come up with it. You don't have to find somebody as expensive as us to do cute and clever. 

‍

Ryan Chute: I already know how this ends. These two are gonna agree. They always agree. They walk in through their different doors, shaking hands in the middle, and then they act surprised about it every single episode. But here's my predicament with this one. I like cute and clever. Cute and clever is fun. It's the talking frog, the wise-cracking lizard, the ad that catches your attention. Nobody ever pulls their truck over and tells a buddy that a friendly staff with great parking and hours that's been open for 38 years with people who really care about your needs. So somewhere in the next few minutes, one of these fellas is gonna look at me in the eye and tell me my favorite thing is a trap, and I can feel it coming. Chris, you're up. 

Chris Torbay: If the question is, should I develop a long-running campaign or instead try a one-off cute and clever ad? Then no question the answer is do the campaign. Campaigns work. Campaigns weave their way into the subconscious, and years from now, maybe when people need something in your area, they will have come to identify with you through that campaign.

One charming ad, as quirky and memorable as it may be, does not accomplish that. Now, if the question is, does cute and clever as a tonality work in building a memorable brand, then sure, it absolutely does. But so do other approaches, trendy right now or not. I'm a big proponent of cute and clever. I write a lot of material for my clients that embodies that tone. I'm hilarious. And humor sells. Humor disarms people and gets them to think about you and remember you and never realize they're actually internalizing someone's ad campaign. People love to hear that little GEICO gecko prattle on in British and never realize they're actually paying super close attention to an insurance ad.

And lots of brands suit the personality of cute and clever. Macs are quirkier than PCs. Mountain Dew is quirkier than Coca-Cola. Volkswagen Beetles are quirkier than Cadillacs. If it's a tonality that matches your brand personality and the sensibilities of your target audience, then have at it. Do both.

Create a campaign and make it cute and clever. What surprises me is the number of brands that have turned to cute and clever because that's what's trendy these days. It started out that Taco Bell was snarky and funny on social media, commenting on events in real time. Then suddenly KFC started being quirky and snarky, then Wendy's. Now every fast food social media feed has some Gen Z social media wisecrack vibe. Why? Because every company hires a 20-something Gen Z wannabe influencer to run their social media feed, and they all sound the same, but the brands they represent aren't. 

I have a number of clients where we took the campaign the other direction: serious, thoughtful, earnest. The campaigns are just as disruptive in a quality service selection wasteland of generic advertising because of how deep and committed they are. People think, "Wow, these guys really think hard about stuff I've never even thought about." So cute and clever is a disconnect for brands like that. What's funny to me is when the same brands hire a 20-something Gen Z wannabe influencer to run their social media feed, and suddenly they're doing trendy dances, and wacky challenges, and goofy dad jokes just like every other advertiser.

Somebody decided the way to win socials is to post every day, more than once if you can, and make it light and goofy and quirky because that's what everyone else does. Wait, didn't we already rant about why making your marketing look the same as your competitor's marketing is a bad idea? Why is it a good idea on Insta?

Advertising has always followed trends. When Budweiser released the frog spot in the '90s, people started using animals in their advertising all over the place. When MTV was popular, beer commercials all looked like music videos. These days, on-screen graphics and TV ads all look like the captions on TikTok videos. Go ahead, be trendy. Be cute and clever, but do it because it's the right thing for your brand and says the right thing about you to your audience. 

Ryan Chute: See, this is the thing nobody warns you about. Chris is for cute and clever, and he still made it sound like homework. Do both, but do it right. That's my doctor telling me I can have the cheeseburger as long as I have it in a kale bun. And Chris, you went after that 23-year-old social media intern pretty hard. Somewhere out there, a kid just lost their light, and an angel lost their wings. Mick, you're the one who's gonna tell me that cute and clever is a trap, aren't ya? Go ahead. 

Mick Torbay: I've gone on record as saying the campaign has all but disappeared on American radio and TV advertising, but does that mean there's no other way to do it?

Yes. I'm always right. Unless I'm wrong. We have to remember that the ideal is exactly that. It's an ideal. You can't judge every piece of work by what it could be. You have to judge it against what else there is. That's how your audience is judging it. What's the norm? What's the status quo? Lucky for us, the status quo is rubbish. It's not a good campaign. It's not even cute and clever. For the most part, it's a sad rehash of, "Here's who we are and here's what we sell," which is, of course, answering two questions that nobody is asking. Who are you and what do you sell? So if you're struggling with how to stand out in mass media marketing today, you could do a lot worse than cute and clever.

Hell, in a lot of cases, cute and clever could make you a leader. Me? I'm taking the long game, and I'm not satisfied to allow my clients to succeed simply because their competitors are doing it worse. I'm not going to give that competitor the opportunity to beat my client by doing what they should've been doing all along.

But that's me. I'm competitive, and I do this for a living. My standards are high, but so are my fees. What you, the business owner, have to do is first take a good, hard look at the competitive landscape. What's everyone else saying? Is it boilerplate stuff? Quality, service, selection, price, convenient location, free parking, a professional staff who really cares about your needs.

Okay, then you're in a safe place. Half your work is done by simply not just doing that some more. And if you can replace the table stake shit with something that's interesting or memorable, you can pass all of these guys, no matter how big they are and no matter how long they've been doing it.

Because all of those things are easily dismissed the minute you give them a reason to remember you. Never forget, radio listeners and TV viewers are watching because they want to be entertained. So entertain them, for crying out loud. Give them what they want and slip your stuff in while they're laughing. It's a legitimate way to cheat your way to the top, and your competitors are probably handing you the opportunity because they can't be bothered putting in the most basic effort. Cute and clever is better than nothing, and most advertising is nothing. Cute and clever is also relatively cheap to acquire because you don't have to be a master strategist to come up with it.

You don't have to find somebody as expensive as us to do cute and clever. Just remember, when someone decides to raise the bar, you'll have to raise your game, too, because whoever makes the first move into the big leagues will be hard to beat. 

Ryan Chute: So Mick's whole pitch is, "Cute and clever is great. Please go do the cheap version your competitors are too lazy to do. And oh, the second somebody gets serious, you're toast, because I'm always right." That's the most Mick thing I have ever heard. This is a pep talk and a threat holding hands. We'll be right back.

‍Ryan Chute: We're back. So the twins agree. Shocker. But listen to what they agree on. Cute and clever isn't the enemy. Cute and clever with nothing holding it together is the enemy. One's a character, the other's a costume you wear once. Let's pull it apart. 

So jumping into it, we're talking about cute and clever does work, but you have to decide how you're gonna place these things out. And you'd mentioned, Mick, about the competitive landscape. How do you tackle this when you're starting to look at what should I actually create for advertising that's going to make a difference? 

Mick Torbay: You need to know is there someone in your marketplace who is a leader? Are you number one, are you number two, are you number three? Is there somebody else who's much bigger, much stronger than you, and if so, why? What are they doing? Is it just that they've been around longer and nobody's bothered to take them down, or are they actually very good at their marketing?

Because your response to that has to be proportional. If you've got a guy who has a very strong, memorable, meaningful campaign, you can't beat him with cute and clever; you have to beat him with what he's doing, only more. But the truth is, I think statistically, that's the outlier market. 

Where I live, which is a market the size of Chicago, there is nothing. So anything cute and clever would easily beat that guy. But you need to know, are you going up against Heinz Ketchup? Are you in the ketchup category?  Because you've got someone strong you need to beat, and they've got a campaign, and they've been working on it for a long time. That’s what I was getting at. 

Ryan Chute: Yeah, absolutely, and we see that in a large market. It's a huge market. There's really nobody that's owning that space.

Mick Torbay: Lot of money to be made, and no one has decided to take that role. 

Chris Torbay: Yeah, but I think a lot of people start with the style of how they write rather than starting with the brand, right?

I think a lot of the tonality in advertising comes from the fact that a lot of the copywriters are 28-year-olds, and they're writing in the tonality that they would speak to other 28-year-olds, rather than digging into the brand and saying, "What is the tonality of this brand?" And for some brands, cute and clever and snarky and fun and parody and all that kind of stuff will make a ton of sense.

If you're selling Skittles, it totally works. The interesting comparison for me is the beer brands. If you're selling what the Brits refer to as a session lager and the Budweisers and the Millers and the Molson Canadians and the Heinekens of the world and things like that, by all means, be fun. That's what beer is. It's a party atmosphere. But if you're selling Guinness, you don't also play in cute and clever because Guinness will be different from those beers by going the other way, and it'll be Guinness, and it'll be proud, and it'll be about waiting, and it'll be watching the bubbles rise. And it will go as far as you went into quirky; it'll go the other way as well, and it is equally powerful, and it comes from the brand. If you're a 28-year-old copywriter and you get put on the Guinness brand, you need to learn what Guinness is and start writing to that emotion. Then to say, I was really successful last week when I was writing for Kit Kat, and so now I wanna take that quirkiness and make it work for this next assignment that I've been given.

Ryan Chute: I think that really reflects at what Roy H. Williams is about. He's a person who deeply studies fine art, classic literature, and poetry. He's a renaissance man who's able to create a unique angle of entry. And he certainly encourages the writers in our group to do the exact same thing.

But in a way that doesn't run out of metaphor, right? Doesn't run out of the stories that we can tell to continue deepening the relationship with the characters. And I think that's the truth about any good sitcom or series that's been going on for decades, is that they might be doing the same old shtick, but they're doing it from a new angle of approach. 

Chris Torbay: And you need to define yourself as a brand, then, that's different from the other one. If the leader in your category, in your market, is doing two quirky guys who banter with each other and bust each other's balls, then don't do a campaign where you've got two people who are being quirky with each other and busting each other's balls. Do go a different direction. If you have two quirky people bantering and they have two quirky people bantering, then essentially those two brands are gonna get mushed up in people's minds, and they're not gonna remember which one was which. And frankly, they may reflexively go to the one that's been around longer, right?

If you're the upstart, come in with a different perspective. Maybe you're the one who just thinks so deeply about hat you have a sort of profound contemplative approach to it. And that is gonna be equally disruptive. Because in a market where the beer commercials are trying to be quirky, and the candy commercials are trying to be quirky, and Mountain Dew's trying to be quirky, and half of the automakers are trying to be fun and "Hey, pile the kids in the car, let's go have a good time," you're gonna be the one that comes in and says, "I'm gonna think about this at a profound level." And you say, "What the heck is this about?" 

That's gonna disrupt just as much. And it's gonna carve out a different space for you. So it's not- while it is trendy, and while humor often conceals you trying to say strategic things in a way that makes being advertised to more palatable, it's not the only way to do it.

Mick Torbay: You know who I blame? I blame the Super Bowl for all of this. Be- if you think about it… 

Chris Torbay: Who can do the funniest ad ... 

Mick Torbay: because we build our whole freaking calendar around the Super Bowl, I'm talking about big brands. Where you cannot do a campaign on the Super Bowl. So we'll talk about the ads through the years that have made such a big deal; we still quote them. I'm still talking about this stupid ad where Seal turned into a freaking seal. And I still can't tell you the name of the client. But the point is, what a great ad, what a cute and clever ad, what a shocking ad.

We're all talking about it the next day at the water cooler. But you can't do a campaign on the Super Bowl, and are you gonna waste the freaking $4 million it costs to run a 60-second ad on the Super Bowl to be number 27 in your campaign, right? Instead, they're gonna probably dedicate a whole budget and a whole team to, "Yeah, but on the Super Bowl, we're gonna do this crazy one-off ad."

Chris Torbay: The challenge becomes what's the most outrageous gag we can pull. 

Mick Torbay: So they talk about our thing tomorrow instead of talking about the Seal ad. Except that, that is a one-off thing and has nowhere to go, almost by definition. And therefore, it's actually, it doesn't serve your brand. If you're planning on continuing to do business for the next 12 months, you can't ride on your laurels of your Super Bowl ad for the other 11 months, can you? No, exactly. 

Ryan Chute: And I guess that's the fun part of it, though, right? And we're also, again, we're reflecting on things that are internally triggered identity purchases. These are things like, "I'm fun. I like to hang out with pretty girls and drink beer. Let's do that," right? "I like to wear plaid shirts and have a beard. Let's do that," right? Like, all the things that you see in beer ads. Or Lululemon ads, or whatev- like insert interesting thing here that aligns with your identity very easily. These lessons that we are learning are teaching us bad habits for the future.

Chris Torbay: And that's what gets me is I sometimes feel like all the copywriters are developing their chops by watching late-night TV.

So they're listening to the Jimmy Fallon monologue, and they're listening to all the late night monologues, and they're all watching SNL, and they're all watching funny TikTok videos and Instagram videos and things like that. And so that's the vibe of all the writers, as opposed to take it from the brand.

What is it about the brand? Your tonality should come from what your brand is, and then you can make it a campaignable idea. And interesting, it just occurred to me: Budweiser in the Super Bowl will always do a Clydesdales ad. And so for years, they have built the campaign of the Clydesdales ad. And they will try to do a more and more profound one each year in the Super Bowl. But also, they have stuck with that idea over time. 

Ryan Chute: Orlando Wood, very famous market researcher out of System1 Ad Testing Data, he's saying, look the advertiser's brain has turned sour in his 2019 post of the same name research document. And it's talking about how the characters, the sense of place, the story that unfolds is gone. It's replaced with this... It's almost shove a square-peg-in-a-round-hole kind of thing, and it doesn't make any sense. It's like it's this mismatch to the brand. And it's empty and vacuous.

It's the Barbie doll of copy because we're not celebrating or embracing what is true to the brand, which has huge ramifications. If you look at companies like Call Dad, they are the brand. Their culture is the brand is the culture. Their mechanism of making decisions is what would Dad do, and that's the start of the conversation. That is purely and 100% oriented to the brand in their structure so that they show up right. That's often very manufactured. Like, when you have three random letters, and all of a sudden you just have to make stupid shit sound funny enough for you to get a laugh at the water cooler. Or people who are gonna do goofy dances in front of their trucks and hope it sticks. Look, if you're relatively good-looking fellas, and you can pull off a Chip and Dale thing long enough to not emasculate all of the husbands out there that are gonna feel like you're gonna go in there and take advantage of their wives.

Mick Torbay: The way it would happen if you and I were to do that.

Ryan Chute: It would ... This is the problem, right? It's just, it's one of the things.

Chris Torbay: And this is an extension of the thing, and I think we've talked about this is that sense where a lot of times clients will say to us, "Hey, our competitors are to doing this. We should do what they're doing. In their ads they're talking about this, so in our ads we should be talking about this."

It's any time that's what your competitor is doing, my first instinct is what could we do that's different than that they can have that, and we will take some other territory, and we'll make more hay out of that. 

Ryan Chute: It's a lot easier to take the hill that's not being defended by the competition.

Chris Torbay: And this is what gets me, especially on socials, is people say, “These other guys are doing, like, quirky videos. Should we get a person, or should we do quirky videos?" I don't know. Are you the brand that does quirky videos? They seem to think they are a brand that does quirky videos. Before you go do that, if you're Mercedes, kike I say, if you're Mini, or if you're, I don't know a, a various sort of maybe younger focused car brands and stuff maybe you're fun. Maybe you're happy-go-lucky. Maybe you're a young couple, out having joyrides. If you're Mercedes- you're serious ... is that the same thing to do? Or should you be talking to that person and saying, "Where's, where is that person's head? What, how do they think about the world?" 

What are the, are they gonna respond to something else because of who they are? 

Ryan Chute: Probably white trench coats and tigers on chains. Walking in slow motion all over the place, right? It's yeah, there is a different vibe, and we have to recognize that. But this isn't an exercise of story writing so much as it is an exercise of being remembered and specifically your name.- and this is, 

Mick Torbay: This is a strategic question.

Ryan Chute: being remembered ... 

Mick Torbay: I have to wonder, are we sometimes, as advertising people, giving ourselves permission to do it the easy way? Do we so easily dismiss the consumer and say, "They don't have the, they don't have the attention span to stick with a campaign, so we just have to bombard them with cute and clever over and over again, one-off ads the way we do at the Super Bowl.” Which might go over very well at a meeting, but I think we make a mistake when we under- underestimate the attention span of the consumer, because I think they've got it. If we would just freaking deliver something that they, that's worth paying attention to.

Ryan Chute: I think this is, if I'm gonna be so brave and bold as to to say that there's a lot of self-esteem baked into this, and ego, where one, they might not be completely convinced that their people can deliver on the promises that are being made in these feeling-oriented campaigns.

Chris Torbay: Yes, because you have to stick with it. 

Ryan Chute: Beause you not only have to stick with it, but you gotta do what you say you're gonna do and then do a little bit more. 

Chris Torbay: And you have to do it equally well to win the game. I think some people think cute and clever is easy, because it's easy to make a kind of  a bunch of small jokes. And it's interesting. I wrote a a campaign years ago when I was working in London, and my British creative director I'd written a script, and it was quite thoughtful. And I'll never forget what he came up, he came up to me, and he looked at the script and he said, "It's a bit worthy, Chris."

Meaning, you're a bit full of yourself. You're a bit proud of your own intellect here. And, but I think the takeaway from that is not that is not a way of doing advertising, but boy, you better do it well. And so if you think it's easy to just knock out a wisecrack, and hey, people will go for that. Yeah, just go put a couple jokes in there. Yeah, because if you're gonna, if you're gonna commit yourself to a, a dramatic or a philosophical perspective, you need to be- 

Mick Torbay: Very good at that.

Chris Torbay: ... interesting and make me go “Never thought of that." Because if it's just you trying to sound a little bit full of yourself, then I'm gonna go, "Oh, look at this guy who thinks he's," "he's the be-all and end-all of beer. It's just freaking beer, man. Stop being so full of yourself." And the ones who do it well, you need to be good at it that way and yeah maybe we take the easy way out and go, "You know what? I can just pull the rug and do a joke and finish." 

Ryan Chute: And look, I think that people hide behind the quantity of crap, slapstick comedy to be, do something of actual worth without being worthy. It's not about pretension or esotericness or that's not a word but esotericism.

Chris Torbay: Esotericism 

Ryan Chute: Is the word ... eso- sosily. I think there's a, I think the T is silent. 

Chris Torbay: It's, 

Ryan Chute: as is the X. Yeah, it's like a pterodactyl. 

It's not a philosophical righteousness. It is a, "I've chosen to have a North Star that I stick to, that I fight for, that I'm in the foxhole with the client with." And, that's frankly hard, because it's way easier to have interchangeable beliefs that you just turn on and off based on the situation. 

Mick Torbay: And in the topic of that long-term promise, you can try shit out with Cute and Clever that you can't try out with the campaign. Once you're campaigning an idea, you better be committed to this for years, whereas you can try a thing out on a Cute and Clever ad, and if you change your mind, it doesn't work out, it's like, "Oh, just stop doing that." And six months later, everybody will forget. It's, yes, six months later, everybody's forgotten your fucking ads. That's bad. Exactly. 

Ryan Chute: That’s kind of the whole problem.  

Mick Torbay: That's what we're trying to avoid. 

Chris Torbay: Or it can't be campaignable. This is, Budweiser did the What's Up spot, and it's okay. They, and then they did a sequel, they did one more because of how well it did, but you can't campaign that sucker- No ... out for five years. 

Mick Torbay: You can't stand for What's Up. 

Ryan Chute: But, and as much as we don't go in and write, social media campaigns that's, beyond a scope that we're looking to do. We have had it a number of times where we have outlined the campaign idea to have campaign-ability. 

If you're the company that is just doing what everyone else is doing, tugging on the current trend and doing the goofy thing, you're not getting remembered. You're getting a laugh, right? You get a little chuckle, and the, and your buddies will give you a little bit of the gears because they're like, "Oh, doing dances and dude, you look like a dipshit," and you're, like, all laughing around the golf at, on the 19th hole. Great. That did nothing for you, right? Could you grow a little bit from that? Yes. Does it have legs? No. Does this have the ability to actually anchor you in and do the thing that matters in your trade area?

Arguably not. Right now, you look at building out something that you can repeat and continues to evolve, change, and have flavor that can be added to it in different ways. Absolutely. There's a number of things that are being done right now with clients of ours that have consistency to them so that they do anchor the brand and elevate the equity, which is golly, if you're not chasing after, like, building more worth in the hearts and minds of your customers, you're gonna spend an awful lot of time farting around doing goofy dances, when what you need to be doing is running your frigging business.

Fun fact number two: Jenny Romanek. This is, again, Ehrenberg Institute: the category entry points; these are the cues a buyer's brain uses to locate a brand at the moment of need. The when, the why, the situation. It's 100 degrees, and the AC died, right? Brand grows by linking themselves to those cues; I call them anchor points and triggers. You've got the trigger that happens; an event occurs. How did you anchor your business in a negative situation to a positive result that has them compelled enough to go, "Them"? We've already decided. It was decided weeks, months, years ago. That's frigging hard in home services. Super easy in Lululemon and in cars. 

Chris Torbay: One day, when I'm old enough and rich enough, I will finally buy myself a Ferrari.

Ryan Chute: Exactly. And then drive it off a cliff before the first payment's made. Exactly. I have just enough credit to die in this thing. 

So this has been studied. This is proven data. This isn't a guess of “oh golly, we hope a campaign's gonna do it this time." It always friggin' works. Where it's going to fail is if you don't do something that's good. And it's gotta make them laugh, cry, or angry. And not angry at you, but angry at the villain that you're fighting. And the villains are proverbial villains. They're not real villains. They're not Marvel movies. They're hot weather and sweat and frustration for waiting for bad people to do the thing that's right for you, and all the stuff that we can play with. 

So educating yourself is really about sneaking in the vegetables into the spaghetti sauce. Or in your case, Mick, it would be sneaking the meat into the vegetable sauce so that he doesn't know that he's eating meat, because he's a vegetarian. 

So as we've been talking about this, the thing that kind of sticks in my mind is this, this notion of getting attention and getting attention is super easy. Holding attention is really hard. Now, if you have a long purchase cycle and a higher average ticket and a grudge purchase and an externally triggered, some event has to happen, geez, getting attention is pretty empty because it's how many times do you have to get attention over and over again. That's never going to get the know, like, and trust factor in there. You might be likable, but you're also equally forgettable. 

So how are we balancing this out? Martin Lindstrom talks about it in his book Brandwashing, 2011, about how brands plant subconscious cues. These jingles, these sound signatures, these, these brandable chunks, as we call them at Wizard of Ads, where you can anchor things in over and over again that they go click world connection. As Robert Cialdini would say in his book, it's about that immediate I see this, hear this, and I'm going to- 

Chris Torbay: Respond that way

Ryan Chute: trigger that into existence. And that's an important piece of this whole idea of why we're doing this, is because we want to be able to say the same stuff. 

Chris Torbay: Yeah. And that can be a cute and clever thing if that's your brand and if you can replicate it. If you've always got to use Call Dad, there's always a dad joke, right? Or there's always the GEICO gecko always says funny, sarcastic things. We continue to get his personality in every spot. 

Ryan Chute: I think of H.L. Bowman. Why don't you give the H.L. Bowman example? 

Chris Torbay: Yeah. We've got the, we've created a character, the H.L.Bowman Bow Man, and he's a superhero, but he's so over the top that we're making fun of him, and he is overly proud and overly triumphant in everything that he says.

 Once you've created that character, if you can continue to write him in that way, like a great sitcom character, there's always the crazy guy next door, right? Then yes, that is cute and clever. But it is a replicable cute and clever and it plays, and campaignable directly into the brand because that's their logo, and that's the, that's their identity. So if it is in your character, and if it is something that you can continue to develop, then you can campaign cute and clever. What doesn't work is cute and clever just once for a brand that is generally not that personality. 

Ryan Chute: Yes. We see that down in south Texas, where we have characters that have been evolving at the pace of the dinosaur age. And it's like it's taking forever for it to happen, but we're also playing ads for a month, and then they disappear and never get seen again.So we're baking this kind of evolutionary process. The people are deeply invested in the two characters. 

Chris Torbay: You're drawing people into that story to see where it goes. 

Ryan Chute: Yeah. And they, love or hate, does not matter. The truth is remembered is what matters.

Mick Torbay: Just don't confuse me with the competitor. 

Ryan Chute: That's right and that's where the flavor comes in of the anchors. Yes, the H.L. Bowman bowmen, campy 1950s superhero, over-the-top, over-exaggerated in every way to get anchored. But then we have the ability to sing the H.L. Bowman bowmen, and we have the, the, the constant character development of the different quirky thing that he's shooting an arrow into this time. 

Mick Torbay: Which is always never quite the thing that he's supposed to be shooting at. 

Ryan Chute: It’s never the right thing. It's right, "Oh, that's my fridge." 

Mick Torbay: Yeah. Sorry about the window. Sorry. Sorry. Yes. 

Ryan Chute: But there's a lot of comedy in that, and that is, you guys are meticulous with those things. But there's a precision to cute and clever that a lot of people lose sight of, and I think it's important to recognize, hey, this isn't careless humor. 

If you had me writing your stuff, it would be tragic, right? I would go off the rails. I would get you banned. I'd get you canceled. There'd be all kinds of issues that would arise from the goofy crap that I would do that seemed whimsical and funny to me in the moment, but doesn't actually strategically play out the way it needs to do the things that we're doing and remembering behind every campaign there are anchor points and consistency and pulling and deepening that relationship, not testing the waters and seeing how funny we can be, and some people will or will not like it and cancel us because of it. Now, that's not to say that we won't have people that'll be mad at the ads.

Mick Torbay: It's always gonna happen. And we encourage it ... 

Ryan Chute: As Mick Torbay says. 

Mick Torbay: There's a certain number of complaints we're looking for, and that number is not zero. 

Ryan Chute: That number is not zero. The optimal number is never going to be zero. Is never gonna be zero. Because if, look, if we don't get some reaction, we know that we haven't gotten any reaction, and people are much more primed to stick their hand up on something negative than they are on something positive. 

Mick Torbay: I understand people who complain better than I understand ... Some people call to say how great the ads are, and I never get that. I can never figure that out. I've never- thank you ... I've never under- it's lovely when it happens. Yes, sure. Appreciate it. But I do not understand it. Wow. 

Ryan Chute: Yeah, how many times can your mom call, though, and- 

Mick Torbay: She's awesome. That's right.

Ryan Chute: And this has been a fantastic episode. I appreciate the conversation here.

Ryan Chute: So look, if you're running an essential home service business in America, heating, cooling, plumbing, electrical, here are the things I'd want you to walk out the door with. One, keep the funny. Just make it a character, not a costume. Cute and clever isn't the problem. Cute and clever with nothing holding it together is. Give the joke a recurring home, and you've built a campaign. Tell a different clever joke every quarter, and you've built a highlight reel nobody can name. 

Two, pick one big thing and stay married to it. Your campaign is your North Star. One idea told as an episode for years. The water heater is just the vehicle. The character's the thing they actually fall in love with. 

And three, attention is super cheap. Memory is the real money. Anyone can get noticed for three seconds. The win is being the name that floats up eight months later when it breaks at 11 at night. That's not a clever ad. That's a cue you planted on purpose over and over.

If you don't hear anything else, hear this. Cute and clever gets you watched. A campaign gets you remembered. And in a business where they don't need you till the day they really need you, remembered is the only one that pays the light bill. So go be that character. Then show up again next week. Until next time, this is Advertising in America.

Thanks for tuning in.

‍

Thank you for joining us on Advertising in America. We hope you enjoyed the show and captured a nugget of marketing magic. Want to 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 at Advertising in America.

Want to 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.