Maven Marketing with Brandon Welch

How to Make Your Ads Impossible to Ignore

• Frank & Maven

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 36:38

Send us Fan Mail

Don’t Advertise to Goldfish

Most ads don’t fail because the budget’s too small.
 They fail because they’re too boring.

This week, Brandon and Caleb tackle the real cost of predictability in advertising—and share the offbeat but powerful tactic that’s helped them write campaigns that people actually remember: random entry.

It starts with a sentence you didn’t write (maybe from the back of a Swiss Miss packet), and ends with an ad that makes people laugh, lean in, and maybe even buy.

They also break down how they used this exact approach to turn a local electrician’s ad from background noise into a campaign strangers quote at the grocery store.

If your ads feel flat, this episode is your way out.

Want to workshop stuff like this in person with Brandon and the team?
 Apply for the next Maven Method Mastermind: https://www.mavenmethodtraining.com

FREE MARKETING AUDIT: MavenMarketingAudit.com

Our Website: https://frankandmaven.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/frankandmavenmarketing/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@frankandmaven
Twitter: https://twitter.com/frankandmaven
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/frank-and-maven/

Host: Brandon Welch
Co-Host: Caleb Agee
Executive Producer: Carter Breaux
Audio/Video Producer: Nate the Camera Guy

Do you have a marketing problem you'd like us to help solve? Send it to MavenMonday@FrankandMaven.com!

Get a copy of our Best-Selling Book, The Maven Marketer Here: https://a.co/d/1clpm8a

Introduction: The Advertising Landscape

Caleb Agee

You are being advertised to right now. We've got all of these ads, but then, outside of that, we have a lot of real things vying for our attention. We've got kids, we've got a schedule, we've got work. We've got all these things, and I think the attention span of the average American is less than that of a goldfish. Now we're jumping from thing to thing to thing.

Brandon Welch

Don't advertise to goldfish. You got to be even more interesting than that. You got to advertise to human beings. Human beings. Welcome to the Maven Marketing Podcast. Today is Maven Monday. I'm your host, Brandon Welch, and I'm joined by Caleb Coffee or tea Agee.

Caleb Agee

Oh, always coffee every morning. But fun fact about me I don't like drinking caffeine after about 10 am, so in the afternoon it's gonna be a nice tea if it's, if it's cool outside a nice tea or an iced a nice, nice tea herbal tea, herbal tea, you know something?

Brandon Welch

green tea has more caffeine, I think something without caffeine.

Caleb Agee

It'll be an herbal tea for sure.

Brandon Welch

Cool, we'll send your white oolong wishes Winter tea, summer coffee. Pretty much Okay.

Brandon Welch

Yeah, and it's got nothing to do with caffeine. I claim it doesn't affect me. I'm sure it does. But hey, this is the place where we answer your real life marketing questions so you can grow your business, eliminate waste in advertising and achieve the big dream. Not necessarily in that order, but you never want to be doing the waste in advertising and achieve the big dream. Not necessarily in that order, but you never want to be doing the waste in the advertising which is what we're talking about today. Yes, so advertising in America, advertising everywhere, right?

Caleb Agee

Advertising in the world On the moon.

Brandon Welch

Yeah, is expensive. Yes, and unfortunately, the research that we compiled doing our book called the Maven Marketer, a bestseller and now available in a hardcover and soon on audiobook. As soon as I get a free afternoon to publish it, we'll let you know. Yeah, that has been our thing that has been discovering why ads don't work, and the research that we came in touch with is that 8 out of 10 business owners are not sure that their advertising is working for them, yet they spend over a trillion dollars a year on marketing. Collectively, we want to help you do all of the things in business that make your life better, more peaceful, more on mission, more impactful for your community, and advertising can be a part of that happening faster.

Brandon Welch

Yeah, but we just insist that you do it. If you're going to do it, don't let it be wasteful. Yes, Make sure it brings you something back. And so we asked the question today why don't ads work? And the title of the episode promised to help you make them better. And so we're going to reveal ooh, drum roll please.

Brandon Welch

A tactic that we learned from our friends at Wizard Academy, a non-traditional business and communication school you should definitely go to Totally not a cult. Go to totally not a cult. Go to wizardacademyorg. You go spend two or three days there. You're going to walk away a better, really a better everything a better communicator, a better artist, a better leader. You're going to be connected with people all over the world, and they don't pay us in any way to say this. We are just forever in debt to what we have learned there, and they're a big part of why we're able to do this podcast with such frequency and, I guess, depth. So disclaimer and credit to our friends at Wizard Academy. The core of our message today is a tactic we learned there, but let's talk about first why don't ads work?

Caleb Agee

Well, for one, there's a lot of them. Right, you see more than 5,000 ads a day, and they're coming at you from every angle right. You see them on the when you're pumping gas. You see them definitely when you stay at your phone or even when you're at work, you go to the different websites you needed to go to I can see one now.

Caleb Agee

Yeah, can you see I can't really yeah, wow yep, I can't.

Brandon Welch

It's the. Uh, it's the. It's the billboard that's just right above those air conditioning units out there.

Caleb Agee

So yeah, you are being advertised to right now, yep, and and I think that's the that's the key is, we've got all of these ads, but then, outside of that, we have a lot of real things vying for our attention, right? Sometimes Brandon wants my attention, sometimes I need his attention.

Brandon Welch

Sometimes Brandon wants my attention. Sometimes I need his attention. The one I want, and I want it now. Yeah, yeah.

Caleb Agee

And. But we've got, we've got kids, we've got a schedule, we've got work, we've got all these things. Health and status and Dividing us as humans? Yes, and our attention? And I think the attention span of an of the average American is that is less than that of a goldfish now yeah certainly we're jumping from thing to thing to thing. Yes, Of course. What else does a goldfish have to look at?

Brandon Welch

Let's be honest, exactly yes. So don't be a goldfish, that's another topic. But don't advertise to goldfish. You've got to be even more interesting than that. You've got to advertise to human beings. So we say ads are expensive, but attention is even more expensive.

Brandon Welch

expensive, but attention is even more expensive because of all those things that Caleb just talked about. There's a gajillion things dividing our attention and the ad's expensive, but the worst thing that can happen is that you pay for the ad and you don't get the attention. Yeah, what can we do about the attention factor?

Caleb Agee

We have to earn it. That's the thing I think. You think you pay for an ad. I love this division between an ad like advertising. That's where my dollars go. But attention is something you earn from a human and advertisement happens. You earn that from a media, you pay for it and you earn it there. But the attention you earn from a human and pay for it and you earn it there but the attention you earn from a human. And the reason we lose attention most of the time is because your ads are boring. They're boring.

Brandon Welch

They were predictable. We said it yeah, there's no such thing as too many or too few people, or too targeted or too untargeted. There's only such thing as too boring. And we put that into a phrase just predictability. People will give you their attention. You earn it by offering them something more interesting. Right, and we talked about the average American being exposed to over 5,000 ads a day, plus all the things they have going on in life. And if you break it down to its essence, you just have to be in that moment. Maybe in that 15 or 30 seconds of your ad. You have to be more valuable to either their status Donald Miller says, help them thrive or survive, and I think it goes to one of those categories. We don't walk around as unengaged people. We're constantly engaged.

Brandon Welch

We have to try very, very hard to not be engaged, but the things that we engage with are things that we perceive to give us more of something that either takes away our pain or makes us thrive and have status and fun and joy and all of those things. But most advertisers are not starting there. They are starting at predictability things. They are a plumbing company that comes right on and starts talking about plumbing. How do we make a plumbing ad? Yeah, that's the first question you ask.

Brandon Welch

I would say they don't even talk about plumbing because that might be of interest to at least a small amount of people.

Brandon Welch

They start talking about their plumbing company which is of zero interest and they start talking about them and their years of experience and you know their trucks and their yada, yadas, yeah and um. It's the same thing that happens in a, in a boring joke that we don't laugh at. When it's predictable, we're like okay, I know, this is, I don't have any more time. There's five other things over here trying to take my time or a boring person that you talk to.

Caleb Agee

They'll tell you a lot about themselves instead of when they start engaging with you. Uh, I think it's how to win friends and influence people. He talks about how he was. He was told by some of his friends he was the best conversationalist and he's like I don't actually talk, I just ask them questions. Yes, and I mean I'm engaging and that's unpredictable actually, because most people just want to talk about me, want to talk about I Number one, oh, my, me, my, yeah.

Advertisment Example

I thought you'd pick it up.

Brandon Welch

Rest in peace, toby Keith. So that's almost a 100-year-old book. He wrote that in the 30s, I think yeah crazy.

Brandon Welch

And keep in mind that was before there was the firehose of digital media and all the things we have to deal with today, and fire hose of digital media and all the things we have to deal with today, and he, you know, they were observing us then and, I'm sure, hundreds of years before that. Um, but compare it. If you, if you just think about the last bad movie you saw, or the last cheesy sitcom, or the one that just made you cringe, like don't be that, because the reason it was cringe to you is because it had no entertainment value, had no surprise, it had no surprise, it had no rhythm to it that made you want to stay involved. So it's also, by the way, think about recipes, think about bland food, think about things that aren't interesting. It's things we've, we can predict, and our senses aren't at divergence. So that's really nerdy, all to say. Uh, if we want to kill waste and advertising, we have to first kill predictability, right? Um? So how do we do that?

Caleb Agee

We have to, uh, we have to surprise them. We're going to do a little bit of a workshop today, which I think is a lot of a lot of fun, um, and you can do it. You can do it with us. You'd have to pause that episode. We'll tell you when you, when you can. But, um, yeah, you, we're going to use what's called random entry and we already talked about this with, uh, we got this from the wizard of ads um crew and they, they helped us do this and it is the most it's made.

Caleb Agee

Some of the most magnetic campaigns unusual way to approach writing ads, but that's what makes it work and that's the brilliant part of it. It's also a little bit daunting the first time you try it, but then the second time it's a little bit easier. And the third time and actually you'll be surprised You'll be like this is going to suck. I'm just the, I'm just putting it out there You'll be surprised. You'll be like this is going to suck. I'm just putting it out there, this is going to suck, and you can say that that's fine. But then you'll be surprised at how good the ad is that you end up with and then, if you just put in the time to refine it, you could really find something cool there, yes, so what's it even mean?

Brandon Welch

Most people, when they sit down to write ads, they think oh, what is the ad about? Oh, I must write about that product or service and that in and of that. Second, which most advertising salespeople and business owners and all the people involved in the thing don't realize that that's the fatal flaw. That's actually where it fails is the moment they go ah time to pay for money or for media. I best write about the thing I'm, you know, from a client that's giving me the money. Yep, what you want to do instead is, in any number of ways and we're going to teach it through the random entry tactic- yes, but in any number of ways.

Brandon Welch

you want to drop people off in an unpredictable state we talked about this with a Super Bowl ads episode a few weeks ago. But you're going to select the product or service that you want to promote. Pick one thing like, one value that you're going to sell like, and figure out what you're really selling. You're not selling.

Brandon Welch

You know heating and air. You're selling a comfortable home. You're not selling a romantic restaurant. You're selling healthy marriages, right, but you're going to pick that product or service and you know that and that's kind of where you're going to get back to, Then you're going to get back to.

Brandon Welch

Then you're going to go over to a bookshelf. You're going to flip open a book to a random page, pick a random sentence and don't think too much about it, just the first thing your eyes go to and pick the sentence and it's going to sound like nothing you've ever. Well, it's about advertising. So Kayla's flipping open her book, but it's going to sound like nothing at the top of your page. And then you're going to set up a timer I recommend five minutes, because it's going to force you into creativity mode and, out of logic, predictability mode and you're going to pick that sentence and you're going to start writing an ad about your product or service, but the rule is you have to start with that sentence. Now, what's that going to do to you?

Caleb Agee

It's going to force you to connect that thought back to the thing you're selling. And don't forget, like Brandon said, we're not talking about what we're selling, the thing at face value. We're talking about the thing behind the thing, which is how it changes my life, the human at the other end, that you're working very hard as an ad writer to earn their attention. And if you fight for your listener, if you fight for your reader, you will earn it. If you are lazy and you fight for yourself because you're just trying to grow a business that's self-serving, you have to truly believe that you want to help them and you have to connect with that.

Brandon Welch

So it's a way to hack you out of your own curse of knowledge. When you have that all of the awareness about all the things you do, or all the things your client does, or whatever you will automatically start talking about those and it's hard to ignore them until you change the challenge.

Caleb Agee

Yeah, we, we have the hardest time writing ads for ourselves, for Frank and Maven Website copy, whatever it is, because it's really hard to read the label from inside the bottle. We write hundreds of ads a month for other people, but somehow, when we get to ours, we're like, oh, how do we do this? This is a way to cheat, to trick yourself out of that writer's block. Essentially, um, it's a way. It's not the way. It's a way, um to to knock yourself into that.

Brandon Welch

Yes, unless you, carter, the camera guy who is filling in for Nate. Yes, hey Carter, hey Carter. John Muir said when we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe, and that's the same thing that's going to happen here. We're going to demonstrate this for you how to automatically be interesting. And so before this episode, we were going to do it live. We could have done it live, but then we got interrupted. But, like an hour ago, before we did this, we made somebody go find us something random from the other room for us to start this ad from. We could have done a book, but it wouldn't have been fair, because most of the books in here are about advertising.

Caleb Agee

I'm going to give you a sentence later that you can do this on your own, Not you. I'm talking about talking to you, the listener. I have a sentence for you.

Why Don't Ads Work? The Attention Crisis

Brandon Welch

They brought back this Swiss Miss hot chocolate pack. I had to pick something on here to start my ad with. I flipped it over the back and it said empty delicious cocoa into a mug. Add hot water or milk sip, stir and savor.

Caleb Agee

That's good. Okay, what was yours? I got a. It's an Earl Grey Supreme tea. Pretty sure this has caffeine in it, so I probably won't be drinking it.

Brandon Welch

He's out on it. Yeah, earl Grey, he's out on it.

Caleb Agee

Yeah, um, but uh it, you know, on the back it says organic black tea, natural Bergamot oil, fair trade certified. So, um, kind of an interesting angle that we're going to. We're going to take and we're going to work on writing some ads connecting that to our to our product.

Brandon Welch

So what's going to happen? Stick with us, because you but we're going to show this in real time us doing this exercise. Caleb and I are going to read each other our ads and then we're going to show you a campaign where we did take something this wacky and crazy and we put it into something that is making really good money right now, and it is making this company we did this for irresistibly interesting. So do you want to read your ad first?

Caleb Agee

Sure you ready, yes, okay, what did you pick? We went with vinyl windows from the window source.

Brandon Welch

So premium virgin vinyl yes, windows that we've been talking about with one of our clients was the product Yep.

Caleb Agee

Yep, and so we're going to just start with natural bergamot oil. What is that? Imagine, literally, you're sitting on your couch and you hear someone say natural bergamot oil. You think, no way. This is a window ad, right, all right. I saw it on the back of my teabag this morning and I thought I don't know what this is or what the heck it can do for me. And then I thought, just like I don't know about premium virgin vinyl or what it could do for me. That's when I asked Tyler at the window source Tyler, what in the heck is premium virgin vinyl? And then he told me that's how you know. Your window is strong enough to last for decades. It's pure, so it won't stain or discolor, and it's impermeable, so it will keep in heat and cooling better than other materials and other windows. Maybe I'll ask tyler about natural bergamot oil, but first I think I'm going to get some of those premium vinyl windows and you can too at windowsourceatlantacom strong, pure, energy efficient windowsourceatlantacom.

Brandon Welch

Okay, so he took I love that pivot. Took bergamot oil, and how many lines was it before we were able to turn that into something about? Let me count. So he took I love that pivot. Took bergamot oil, and how many lines was it before we were able to turn that into something?

Caleb Agee

about windows. Let me count Probably three, four. Fourth line is when it kind of pivoted.

Brandon Welch

So you're on yeah, you're hearing this ad. There's just pictures radio ad or maybe even a Facebook ad. Natural bergamot tea oil or natural bergamot oil. Nobody's ever said that, ever in the history of any advertising much less Natural bergamot tea oil or natural bergamot oil. Nobody's ever said that, ever in the history of any advertising, much less, you know, an ad about windows. Yeah, and what was it that?

Caleb Agee

you said I saw it on the back of my teabag this morning Is that what you're saying?

Brandon Welch

That was true, yeah.

Caleb Agee

And then what did you say? Well, yeah, and I thought I don't know what this is or what the heck it can do for me.

Brandon Welch

Kind of being honest, yeah, and then really quickly the pivot after that was like, just like I don't know what premium version.

Caleb Agee

I think the key another couple notes here is this forces your ads to not sound like ads. Another couple notes here is this forces your ads to not sound like ads. So as soon as you hear ad speak is what we'd, is what we'd call that when you hear that language that you're like ugh, local ad, you know, you know you hear them. When you're watching TV, you're like oh okay, I can hear it right now. Yeah.

Caleb Agee

Um, you will, naturally, as an ad writer, accidentally. That's what, that's the lazy ad writers crutch, you'll. You'll, naturally as an ad writer, accidentally. That's the lazy ad writer's crutch, we all can do it. You'll fall that way. This will force you to be conversational, to talk, to be clear.

Brandon Welch

You wrote lines like so I didn't know what the heck that is or what it can do for me. Somebody who started to write an ad about any given product would not say that right, yes, but that is real talk, right, yes, that is dialogue that only came out of your right brain. That's right? Hey, quick thing. We forgot to say this earlier. Okay.

Brandon Welch

The reason you end up writing predictable things. Yes, you know all about it, but you also start. We live in a left brain centric world. Yeah, thinking about logic and math and all the things that are known. Left brain thinking and this was um in 1981, roger sperry, uh famous like um I'm just kidding, oh yeah. Yeah, he's of the sperry for uh shoe fortune. No, um, their great, great cousin uh um actually won a nobel prize for discovering that we don't have one brain.

Brandon Welch

We actually have, uh two parts of our brain we have a left brain and a right brain and you've heard, probably, it said oh, that person's really creative, they're really right-brained. Well, for whatever reason, they are using more of their right brain. Although we both have left, you have to use both and you do use both, but left does our math, our things that are known and like sequential right.

Brandon Welch

The right brain processes reasoning, it finds patterns and it connects things that weren't previously known or connected. This is where you do your emotional processing, this is where a lot of your dreams happen. This is also where the melodies and patterns of hit songs come from right. This is where art comes from, because it's abstract and when we see something, the human experience is that when we see something that doesn't quite connect to our left brain, it literally restricts blood flow and sends power over to our right brain to start looking for connections Like what does that mean?

Brandon Welch

And so something that is not known, it's a connection that's not previously seen, it is jarring and it's a pattern disruptor, and so we have to go find a new pattern. And that fires these synapses in our brain that put things in their own category. They don't put them in the category of the known and forgettable, they put them in the unknown and stimulating. And so when you've, you're literally rewiring that process, you're just reverse engineering it to say I'm not going to talk about my product that I do know, I'm going to talk about my random thing that I don't know and I'm going to connect it to my product. And that, in and of itself, is the definition of creativity. And so if you're not a creative person, let's just say you're some person who has a complex about this and you think, oh, I will never be able to do that. Yes, you can. I've given this exercise to accountants, to the most analytical tight love you guys.

Brandon Welch

I'm talking about the people I love the most, guys. Yeah, I'm talking about, like, the people I love the most and um, and they, they produce beautiful ads like things that I'm like that is not only an ad, that's a campaign and not that could probably be a Superbowl ad Like yeah, um, it's not gonna happen every time, but it's going to force you to find things way faster than you would have being in your like. Back to Bergamot oil and premium vinyl windows.

Advertisment Example

Yeah.

Brandon Welch

Yeah, that ad may or may not make it to TV. We're going to show you a campaign that absolutely has you want to hear mine.

Caleb Agee

Yeah, bring it on.

Brandon Welch

Hot.

Caleb Agee

You got some Swiss Miss, I did, I got Swiss Swiss.

Brandon Welch

Miss, but that's not your first line. We took it from the back, yeah, so I flipped it over. I'm like, well, that would be a little bit on the nose. So I said empty delicious cocoa into a mug, add hot water or milk, stir, sip and savor.

Brandon Welch

Once upon a time, hot chocolate was much harder to make Until someone made it as simple as three steps. Now you can get cozy and comfortable with a cup of hot chocolate anytime you want, just kind of like. Once upon a time, estate plans were also much harder to make Until Ozark's Elder Law made it as easy as three steps. Schedule a free consultation, tell us exactly what you want to happen during life's most difficult moments and be cozy and comfortable knowing everything will go exactly how you want. Make your estate plan easier than ever by calling 868-8200 and having a free consultation and maybe even a cup of hot chocolate with the ladies in white at Ozark Cellar Law. Okay, if that were delivered with a interesting inflection and maybe I picture like doing some like kickback 90s style when hot cocoa was actually a new thing, like they were presenting ooh now in an easy to use patch yeah.

Caleb Agee

Four by three screen ratio yeah.

Brandon Welch

Somebody would go. What is that?

Brandon Welch

Like you could pretty easily VHS with little squiggles on the screen, yeah, yeah. And people let's just face it, even though it's on the nose about the product. People would enjoy thinking about drinking hot chocolate a heck of a lot more than they would. Some stiff legal service, right, yeah. And so people will give you attention to that because it's new, it's different, it's not connected and we just it was what three lines I did the hot chocolate used to be harder to make. Now you can do it easy and just like estate plans used to be hard to make, right, so we use an analogy there. I think we spent collectively like two minutes an ad on this.

Caleb Agee

We did not polish these by any means, these wouldn't hit the final floor, but we're we're showing you in its rawest form how this can help you shortcut your way to a much, much more interesting ad that earns attention. Um and so, uh, we've had, we've had several campaigns where, um, we've taken this concept and then maybe it wasn't the ad itself that showed up. You know, going out to the to the customers to the world.

Caleb Agee

Um, but it triggered like, oh, we're onto something right there, and so we have a really good example of um a client.

Brandon Welch

We've got a campaign here of a few ads.

Caleb Agee

I'm not gonna tell you who it is. Um, we've got a campaign of a few ads, uh, that really have been powerful for um, for them, and they're and they're doing amazing. And this campaign's really triggered from a random entry and then kind of led into a campaign. You'll notice the random entry. I guess we could talk about this at the end.

Brandon Welch

We'll talk about it in a second. I won't give it all away. Roll the ad Nate. Slash Carter, Roll it.

Advertisment Example

Do you want to brighten up your kitchen with some under cabinet lighting?

Advertisment Example

Mr Electric can make it happen.

Advertisment Example

Want to protect your family from getting zapped on accident. Mr Electric can make it happen. Want to visit all seven continents in under a year.

Advertisment Example

Mr Electric can't make that happen, but we can install automatic lights and video doorbells so your house is safe when you're away, when you need lights, switches, plugs or anything wired call Mr Electric and say make it happen.

Introducing Random Entry Tactics

Brandon Welch

Mr Electric, mo, okay, so the thing that allowed this campaign to be interesting and him to be doing all the goofy stuff is I pulled this random entry tactic. To be honest with you, we were kind of down to the wire in creating this campaign. We didn't have a whole lot of scripts or anything and I was like we got to come up with something. So reach into the bag of tricks, grab out random entry, scroll through my text. And the last thing I was talking to my wife about was I saw this cruise that takes you to all seven continents.

Brandon Welch

And I was like that would be really cool and so I sent it to her and we were just talking about that, so I just wrote down literally what I texted. Her want to visit all seven continents in a year and I made that the top of the ad.

Brandon Welch

Now you'll notice this first ad. We call it Lights and Cameras. We got to that and that was the humor, because how in the heck do you make seven continents about a stupid local electrician that we love very much, right, yeah? So we kind of climaxed into that and we did the inverse. We said want to slash your electric bill? Mr Electric can make it happen. Want to protect your family from getting zapped on an accident? Mr Electric can make it happen. Want to visit all seven continents in under a year? We can't make that happen. But we can install automatic lights and cameras so your house is safe when you're away make that happen. But we can't install automatic lights and cameras so your house is safe when you're away. So it was a pattern disrupt, um, and if you're watching the youtube version of this, which might even help more, these are tv ads, although they would work as radio ads yeah we haven't doing all these zap stuff and just these random scenes that he goes into yeah and so.

Brandon Welch

But we built a whole campaign off of that and so we said we're gonna have one wacky line and the kind of the format is going to be.

Caleb Agee

That same rhythm. Yeah, it's kind of you feel it, yep, but then it's always a surprise.

Brandon Welch

So this one's called Sexy Spark Roll it.

Advertisment Example

Ready to replace that rackety old ceiling fan? Mr Electric can make it happen.

Advertisment Example

Want to hide all those cables so your TV floats like magic. Mr Electric can make it happen.

Advertisment Example

Want to put a special spark back in your marriage.

Advertisment Example

Mr Electric can make that happen. But we can install some romantic lights so you can make it happen. When you need lights, switches, plugs or anything wired, call Mr Electric and say make it happen, mr Electric.

Brandon Welch

Mo, I've been informed that we had to change it to special spark. I guess the TV stations didn't like sexy spark. But the original line was do you want to put a sexy spark back in your marriage? And that has random, crazy, weird things written all over it. People would go what in the world did they just?

Advertisment Example

say what?

Caleb Agee

did you just?

Brandon Welch

ask me, and it has had that effect. People are like oh, the special spark, right. So you saw the same pattern there. And this next line what does becoming a millionaire in 60 days or less have to do with a local electrician? Let's find out.

Advertisment Example

Do you want your living room lights to be comfy and cozy? Mr Electric can make it happen. Want to update those light fixtures and refresh your home? Mr Electric can make it happen. Want to become a millionaire in 60 days or less.

Advertisment Example

Mr Electric can't make that happen. But we can install some lights by your bed so you can read more books. When you need lights, switches, plugs or anything wired, call Mr Electric and say make it happen. Mr Electric Mo.

Brandon Welch

W']\e

Brandon Welch

weren't selling a millionaire thing. We were selling lights over your bed so you can read more books. Yeah, about becoming a millionaire perhaps? Yep, all right. Last one, just to drive the point home. About becoming a millionaire, perhaps? Yep, all right. Last one, just to drive the point home. Now. I want to highlight that before and I say this in the spirit of love this was a local electrician saying hi, I do electrical things and when you need electrical things, come out and call me and I'll come out and do electrical things for you. Yeah, and it's like unless I'm actually in the that moment thinking or actively shopping for an electrician yeah, you lost me.

Caleb Agee

You threw, you didn't even. I didn't even store that Right. I threw it out because it was, it was ignorable. I wasn't in the mode to receive that. It wasn't going to help me thrive or survive. Yeah, so I've. My brain views it as impractical to store. Yes, but impractical to store yes, but when you entertain me, I store that in the same storage part of my brain. But you've allowed yourself to be a part of it because you've surprised me and made your ads different and entertaining.

Brandon Welch

Smiles, fists, tears.

Brandon Welch

New surprising and different, right. So we're going to show you this last ad in just a second. But I want to say that this particular advertiser great company, great local team and all of that stuff and they have a very nice business, but they had come all this way probably advertising the last 10 years with ads. Like I just said, if you need an electrician, call us. We're electricians and they go to the home shows and they do all these things and the owner just recently was texting me going. I've never had people come up to me and say repeat my ads to me At the home show. At the home show and I think it's happening in the grocery stores now. And this campaign we're talking about has been live a few months. Yeah, not that long. It's worth noting. He had a decade worth of what I would call regular ads and it's not that his business didn't grow, but now it's like people are walking up and saying these catchphrases.

Brandon Welch

They're saying Make it happen, make it happen, and they're going ha-ha special spark in my marriage, ha-ha. They're saying these things to him out loud, out in public, unsolicited. Now, he probably heard, he's been in his ads. He's probably heard from his friends and family oh, I saw you on TV a bunch of times because he has a. You know, he's been advertising but he's never had strangers come up and repeat the ads. Yeah, and so what does that tell us? Even in a small sample set, he's entered long-term memory. Right, play this last ad and then we're going to kind of bring it back home. As to how you might do this.

Advertisment Example

Do you want to update your light fixtures and refresh your home? Mr Electric can make it happen. Do you need a charger installed for your new EV? Mr Electric can make it happen. Want us to train your dog to turn off the lights at bedtime?

Advertisment Example

Mr Electric can't make that happen, but we can install smart switches so you can control your lights from your phone. When you need lights, switches, plugs or anything wired, call mr electric and say make it happen.

Caleb Agee

So hopefully you were also able to see this ad yeah, go to youtube and watch it that one's my funny, my favorite, uh, visually, because um Audrey's pup is in this one.

Brandon Welch

We put a dog in it.

Caleb Agee

Yeah, I mean, that's another tactic, the dog's paw literally turns off the light If you don't want to do all this mumbo-jumbo about random entry.

Brandon Welch

Just put a dog or a kid in your ad and you're probably going to do it better.

Caleb Agee

You probably could.

Caleb Agee

I think we talked about that with the Super Bowl ads.

Brandon Welch

But he's like do you want to train your dog to turn the lights off at bedtime? We can't do that, but we can install smart switches so you can control your lights from your phone and it's just like it's just. It all comes together and it makes this whole campaign unpredictable, puts him in an entertainment setting instead of some information setting, which I don't know how to tell you this. Whoever has told you that? You just have to educate the public with your ads? That's chapter four educate the public, myth and the maybe marketer. It's just false. It doesn't work. Nobody's sitting around going gosh golly, if somebody would just educate me about electrical services.

Brandon Welch

Oh, thank God. Oh. Or I wonder if my local mechanic has an ASE certified staff.

Caleb Agee

And I'd really love to hear about that while I'm watching my favorite nighttime television. Yes, yeah.

Brandon Welch

And so if it's like recency, if we happen to need a mechanic that week, we might kind of sort of go I've seen them and you do enter some like familiarity factor, but not a recallable, likable factor. Yes, what are we doing? We're eliminating predictability by starting with unpredictability. We are wrapping our predictable service inside something that is entertaining and we are allowing ourselves to have a little bit of fun, which in turn allows our audience to have some fun.

Caleb Agee

Yeah, allowing ourselves to have a little bit of fun, which in turn, allows our audience to have some fun. Yeah, so we're going to challenge you to do this on your own or with your team. How the best way to do this is actually to do it in a group. Have two or three or 10 people. We do, we. We literally do this as a team randomly during our team staff meetings. You write down the most random sentence you can think of, and then you put on a little scrap of paper or something and then you pass it to the right or to the left, or three to the right, and then everybody gets actually completely more random because you can't influence your choice in the sentence, and then you have to connect that to the ad you're going to try to write.

Brandon Welch

We practiced this with our team a few days ago. Yeah, and the sentence I got was never in a bajillion years. Yes, I was like and how do you write an ad? I think we were selling garage doors or something like that with that ad.

Caleb Agee

If you need a starter sentence, I just found this.

Brandon Welch

Here's the sentence. Nate's going to put it up on the screen. Found this in the book.

Caleb Agee

Carter's going to put it up, all right. Palm trees were dancing against the blue sky. Wow, there you go. Just found in a book I picked up the Maven Marketer.

Brandon Welch

Sounds like a prolific author. I know All right guys. So an instant cure for predictable ads, for boring ads right.

Brandon Welch

Start somewhere that nobody else starts. You will get more attention than anybody else gets. Hopefully you can spin it into a repeatable campaign and build some stuff off it. Start somewhere that nobody else starts. You will get more attention than anybody else gets. Hopefully you can spin it into a repeatable campaign and build some stuff off it. That's where all those lines came from in these ads that we showed. They came from a place of living in the right brain where new, weird, wacky stuff comes out and then, when you wrap it around, just a little bit of knowledge and real life, you got magic. That's right.

Brandon Welch

Brain synapses fire carter wants to know. It's a great, it's a great. Thank you, carter. Carter wants to know, if you write a random entry ad, what's going to happen for you? Well, what you're going to do is you're going to put it in the comments of the youtube uh video, or send it to mavenmonday at frankandmavencom, and you are going to get an awesome surprise. What is?

Caleb Agee

the awesome surprise. Well, it's a surprise, we can't tell you. A pack of Swiss Miss and some tea oil, earl Grey with some bergamot and a copy of a book that you must read for advertising.

Brandon Welch

I know it's not the Maven Marketer. You may secretly get one of those too, but we're going to send you a copy of the Wizard of Ads book, which is from the Wizard Academy School. Those are very hard to come by, so we're going to send you one of their books and you'll get better at all this weird wacky stuff. Taking art, wrapping some science around it and using it to grow a business. That's what we're all about, and with that we will be back here every week answering your real-life marketing questions. Because marketers who cannot teach you why are just a fancy lie.

Brandon Welch

Have a great week.