Maven Marketing with Brandon Welch

How to Make People Thank You for Your Advertisements

• Frank & Maven

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Most ads get ignored. Some get tolerated. But a rare few… actually get fan mail.

In this episode, Brandon and Carter break down the science (and art) of creating ads that don’t just grab attention but stick in people’s memories. 

From jingles that make strangers sing in the grocery line to characters so beloved they become local icons, this is a behind-the-scenes look at campaigns that spark real emotion—and real business results.

Inside this episode:

  • Why “smiles, fists, and tears” is the secret filter for every ad that works
  • The brain chemistry behind long-term recall (and how to trigger it)
  • How pattern disruption, novelty, and character-building make your brand unforgettable
  • Real stories of ads so sticky, customers call to say thank you

If your ads feel flat—or worse, invisible—this conversation will show you how to stop sounding like everyone else and start creating campaigns your community actually talks about.

Maven Marketing Mastermind → https://www.mavenmethodtraining.com

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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:
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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Maven Marketing Podcast. Today is Maven Monday. I'm your host, Brandon Welch, and I'm here with the one and only Carter. Tell us about your gold star movie list, bro.

Speaker 2:

You were asking about this earlier. I have a list of gold star movies is what I call them of just movies that I think everyone should see in their life, and I gave you a few recommendations from that earlier.

Speaker 1:

I think you're qualified uh more than anybody I know to have a gold star list you want to tell us why that might be.

Speaker 2:

Um, I just love movies, I love storytelling, I love writing, directing, making things magical, making a an impact on people.

Speaker 1:

Carter is an award-winning screenwriter and movie producer and he is making some really, really awesome things happen in the movie space, like he's won some really cool things and he's on his way to releasing some feature films that are going to be. You're going to hear about them. They're awesome, and we are lucky enough for almost 10 years now to have him as our chief of video at FrankenMaven. He produces whimsical campaigns worthy of all of the memorable things we talk about. We talk about making your brand famous. Carter is behind most of the campaigns here at FrankenMaven that that's happened with, and so today it is a gift for you all. I promise that he's here and we're going to break down what makes ad campaigns memorable, and then we're going to share some ridiculous just proof of that, of the campaigns where people are literally calling us and our clients thanking us for the ads we produced.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, us and our clients thanking us for the ads we produced. Yeah, ads that don't just not just ads that people remember, but that they like so much that they have to pick up the phone and call the company and say who made those. You know, yeah, and you'll see that here in a second.

Speaker 1:

And so I know you might be like being like really does that actually happen, guys? This is happening like multiple times per week and I'm going to share just just like three pieces of proof. In the last week that's happened. Okay, this is a campaign for a client we're building ads for in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Check it out.

Speaker 4:

Thank you for calling solid roofing. This is Lilla. How can I help you? Yes, and are you the ones that have the commercial with the guys marking across the screen? Yes, we are. I like that commercial.

Speaker 5:

Oh, thank you, Thank you.

Speaker 4:

Okay, okay. How many times do I say it? It always makes me smile. Oh, we appreciate that.

Speaker 4:

Thank you. Yeah, I like that. I'm going to put you in my contact so when I need a roof and I probably will in the next couple of years I'll give you a call. Oh well, we appreciate that. We look forward to working with you. Do you come to Bartlesville and Dewey? Yes, ma'am, we do. Okay, I want to make sure. Okay, I'm going to put you in my contacts and save that, but I don't know who came up with that commercial. But I like it. Well, thank you, we appreciate that.

Speaker 1:

You're welcome, all right.

Speaker 4:

Have a good week you too.

Speaker 1:

Out of the blue. This is like 10 o'clock on a Tuesday. This lady calls. I like that commercial and I'm going to put you in my phone book. Okay, All right, that could happen to anybody once. Okay, We've got like 20 of these just in recent memory. Let's play another one.

Speaker 6:

Thank you for calling Solid Roofing. This is Lilla. How can I help you? Hey, lilla. Jeff McGelligan, calling from Owasso, I just have to share. I was at Reesers. I had everybody in my mind singing the Solid Roof jingle Solid Roof, solid Roof, solid Roof, solid Roof. Oh nice, oh, it was great. And somebody goes I love that commercial. I said oh yeah great. I said actually I was reading something where it won an award and I'm like what I said?

Speaker 6:

oh yeah, it's so cool and I said, it's just really kind of catchy and a guy behind me goes yeah, he goes.

Speaker 1:

I can't get out of my bed, so this guy goes on for literally five minutes on this call but what you learn is he was in the line at some pharmacy or something and the ad comes on TV and the whole line starts mimicking this commercial and singing the jingle. Yeah, coolest thing ever. Right, but we're going to talk about it. Part of it is the jingle, part of it is some other things you should be doing. Here's some other fan mail. That is the best commercial out. I march to it every time I see it.

Speaker 1:

Like that just was written in on their website. So, believe it or not, this has been happening at Frank and Maven for years, and this is not about us pounding our chest, but it is about us sharing what's behind those campaigns. And so we're going to share, I think, four different ads with you. All of these have had individual fan mail. These are just the ones we had in recent memory, but I mean, this has been happening for a decade. And so what makes that happen? Let's go scientific for just a minute, because this actually is a neurological thing. There is some pinpointable ingredients that we can attach to when we want to make this happen, and I want to say this first A lot of people want to have catchy ads.

Speaker 1:

A lot of people want to have funny, humorous ads, but the problem with that is, unless you're a really, really, really big brand, often you can just have a one-off ad that was like Ooh, that was a good ad, and it doesn't translate to business. So what makes the difference in just having something that was funny and then them actually going? You know what I like you so much. I'm going to attach you to long-term memory. I'm going to put you in my phone book, because the holy grail of advertising is that when people need what we do, they think of us first. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

And they tell their friends about you. They tell their friends and they go out of their way and all the stuff we talk about in this podcast. That's why are your Google ads so expensive and they're getting more expensive and why are Facebook leads so hard? And lead generation in general is just never, ever going to get easier. It is always going to get harder. But when you were the one they go ah, roofer, or ah, you know elder law attorney or you know, Fiber internet company.

Speaker 1:

Any service yeah, any service provider. It's like I'm just going to go straight to them and it is like hundreds of times cheaper to bid on your own name or just show up when somebody types your name than it is to try to be on the list of 50 of your competitors. There are a couple of chemicals that are present in the brain when people take random information and store it to long-term involuntary recall. Memory Like this is some nerdy doctor stuff, carter. What are those two chemicals? Adrenaline and oxytocin? Those two things tend to happen adrenaline and oxytocin. We're going to talk about how to create those things, but those are emotional experiences. One of the core values at Frank and Maven, like behind all of our work, is if ads… If they don't bring smiles, fists or tears, they fall on deaf ears.

Speaker 1:

If your ads don't bring smiles, fists or tears, they fall on deaf ears. It's in our book. We've known this somehow forever and it just keeps proving itself over and over and over over the last 10 years. So you want to invoke adrenaline, which is the pay attention hormone. It's usually triggered by excitement, surprise, fear or high energy moments. It increases arousal. Telling the brain this matters, remember it. You have heard things like the weather report or the daily news or the mundane things in your life when your mom calls you and says the same things over and over. You've heard those things a million times in your life but those aren't like things you try to remember. But if I told you there's been an accident and someone you love is hurt, for the rest of your life you will remember exactly where you were, what you were wearing probably what I was wearing, what was going on that day, what you had for lunch for the rest of your life because that was an important moment right, absolutely, and even on a smaller scale.

Speaker 2:

If I text you and I say I need to talk to you, oh yeah, that's all it takes to, everything else kind of fades away. And that's the most important thing. Carter's done that exactly four times.

Speaker 1:

I can remember them all, it's true, and so it's just what breaks predictability and what breaks the mundane um and then puts you in some sort of fight or flight mode, always gets remembered. That's the, that's the negative side, so that's the. That's the fists and tears, maybe. Uh, oxytocin is the trust and bond hormone. This gets released, um, during moments of empathy, connection, shared joy. Uh, it makes people feel warm towards the source, increasing brand trust and recall. This is, this is your Clydesdale ads. This is your puppy ads. This is your Sarah McLaughlin ads, like it doesn't matter what they're selling, because there was so many emotions and oxytocin firing right there. We're going to remember that brand and that cause, right, yeah?

Speaker 2:

And a big point of this is that people won't always remember the words you said. They will always remember how you made them feel.

Speaker 1:

Love that quote Maya Angelou right.

Speaker 2:

Check me on that I don't remember who said it, but I remember how that quote made me feel Nate's going to correct it in the comments.

Speaker 1:

Oh, that's right. I remember how that quote made me feel. So it turns out. Storytelling that shows care, community, helping others we can all think of probably something in the last 24 hours, some heroic story that showed up in our feeds or something like that that's oxytocin. So, like that, right, there is what you want to be doing in your ads. There's another thing called the novelty encoding hypothesis, and that's just.

Speaker 1:

The brain pays extra attention to new and unpredictable things. It's just we're wired to like. It's the thing that keeps the nature, it's the thing that keeps the monkey from overreacting to wrestling in the bushes. He knows what the wrestling in the bush is. If it's a lion that's going to eat him, he knows what that is. Or if it's just a wombat or something Wombats and lions, Scientific right. We are like a million times an hour just assessing things all around us and secretly, you know, picking our ears up when something doesn't sound like it belongs Right. Roy says you can close your eyes, but you can never close your ears. Yeah, how else would you know that there's a burglar in your house in the middle of the night? Your brain is constantly on a pattern. Just you know, journey like a analytical pattern finding thing, and when there's something that doesn't belong, that's what gets it.

Speaker 2:

So pattern finding thing, and when there's something that doesn't belong, that's what gets it. So this is another point of this. My dad's an artist, he's a painter, and he always said that the focal point of the painting is the spot where the darkest dark and the lightest light are side by side. Wow, the point of highest contrast is where your eye goes. Wow. So pattern disrupting, or high contrast Divergence, has a huge impact on people. Or high contrast.

Speaker 1:

Divergence has a huge impact on people. So there's another principle we can use. It's like new, surprising and different, and we're going to talk about, maybe, how to select some different words and we're going to show you some ads where we've done that, but you basically, just plain and simple, do not be the thing that sounds like all the other things. When we go into ad writing mode or somebody goes to create your ad, there's a general template of like do you need X, Y and Z? Well, we provide X, Y and Z and we've been in business for, you know, 11 to 2 years and we have X amount of combined experience and yada, yada, yada.

Speaker 2:

So remember yada, yada, yada. When you've heard before you're not on the right track because you're wanting to do, in a lot of ways, the opposite of what those are doing.

Speaker 1:

Yes, that's um, yeah, that is uh. Ad speak is what that's called. And so what you want to do instead is you want to hold dearly to smiles, fists and tears emotion. Les Bennett and Peter Fields did the largest study on advertising campaigns in history. It was like 12 or 13 years, studied billions of dollars worth of advertising spend and they came up with a couple of things. We've talked about this study before, but here's a couple of key things.

Speaker 1:

The brands that grew the fastest, were able to charge the most, had the highest customer retention, grew the fastest, were able to charge the most, had the highest customer retention and just gained the most market share Were equipped with. 70% of their campaign was an emotional, emotional campaign, emotional branding campaign. 30% was what they called activation, which is lead generation. By now it's a perfect time, but 70% of the money and the messaging was emotional campaigns. So that's where smiles, fists and tears comes in. Somebody says would I really want to make somebody mad in my ad? Yes, it's okay to ruffle feathers. Yes, we do it all the time, and we have a lot of instances where people are calling turn that dang ad off. Or I can't believe you said that it's like.

Speaker 2:

That is how you know it's working, because you've gotten you know fists and tears For every one of those we get. We get 10 calls saying I love that ad so much I tell all my friends about it. Yes. I hum it in the car, you know it's just. As it's way more common to get that.

Speaker 1:

Yes, there will always be crazies, but what you know for sure is, when you're hearing that type of feedback, good or bad, is that you are actually getting attention, and most ads, as we know, do not get attention. So fists, fists making people angry is like. Usually. The best way to do that is to make them angry at something that you're standing with them for. Yeah, you're both throwing rocks at something. Yeah, so the big bad wolf of high energy bills or the big bad wolf?

Speaker 2:

of Families fighting because you didn't have a will or an estate plan ready.

Speaker 1:

Yes, exactly, and it could just be out-of-town roofers that want to rip you off. I'm just thinking of a couple that we're going to talk about in a second. And then tears, that's those Sarah McLachlan arms of an angel, moments where the sad, you know, starving animals need your help and all of that, and they do.

Speaker 2:

I'm not trying to uh to undermine that but also smiles and tears can go hand in hand. You know there's a lot of really emotional moments when, whenever you are making someone cry in a good way, hopefully.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, Heartfelt stories. I think of the ad uh, where the grandma has dementia and it's the granddaughter that takes her in grandpa's old truck. I think it's a Chevy ad. It says let's make today a good day. It's either Chevy or.

Speaker 1:

Ford, I should have known. I think it's Chevy, I'm most positive it's Chevy. But this goes to you don't just want to do that by itself, you want to land it within your product and that when you do those two things, probably know, probably you know 20 seconds of your 30 second ads are making people feel something and then you connect it to your brand at the end. That's what equals that long-term memory, uh, recall. So anything you would add to that.

Speaker 2:

I think um ruffling feathers. In one way or another, if you're not making someone mad, you're probably not reaching anyone, you know, or if you're not making someone cry or laugh. Also, something you consistently tell me is, if you're writing an ad, if you're not making yourself laugh, no one else is going to laugh, and so that's the biggest thing, if it's not affecting you before it even goes on air, then it's not going to affect anyone else.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, if we're not writing this way inside our four walls and we're not high-fiving or laughing at each other like we haven't tried hard enough. And so I think it was Roy that also said most ads aren't written to persuade, they're written not to offend. And very often and this is for listeners if you're getting your stuff produced by somebody else that's not insisting on being in the room with all your people and learning about the heart of your company, you're probably not going to get good stuff any other way. We have to spend hours and hours and days and days of just producing these campaigns with the founders or with the person in the room, understanding who they are.

Speaker 2:

One of the big things that we ask typically is what was your pissed off moment when you decided?

Speaker 1:

to start a company. What was your adrenaline moment?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, that's the moment that that's fists. And you know, that's what probably sets you apart from your competitors, and those are the things you should be talking about. Yes, absolutely.

Speaker 1:

Here's what happens, though Sometimes, very often, when you have an ad that you're like, let's say, you and I are really excited about it, and you take it to the client and they're like, yeah, wow, that's whoa, you sure you want to say that? You sure you want to do that, or is that? Doesn't that make us look dumb or something? Um, and they take it back to their safe community and very well-meaning friends go. Now, that's going to make you look unprofessional or um, what. That doesn't even say anything about what you do or you know, or why they should choose you, or whatever. You should talk about how you have a quality product.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's like yes.

Speaker 5:

You should talk about how friendly and knowledgeable you are.

Speaker 2:

I think that'd be better. Yes, because it's safe.

Speaker 1:

So we've learned very often to take ads to clients and we're like, hey, we have an ad that's safe and probably won't, you know, move the needle all that much, but it's safe. Or we have a campaign that's going to be a little, take a little courage from you, but it's the one that's going to move mountains, yeah, and so we just lay it out and it's their choice really. But Frank and me have been clients. Choose the courageous route. We do, yeah, because we work with courageous people. But that's what's coming for you, like there's going to be somebody that's going to bring you a really good idea and you or your wife or your employees or your office manager is going to be scared to run it.

Speaker 2:

And you need to run it because if you're not making somebody mad, they're going to say it's too specific, it's going to ruffle feathers, or ooh, that's going to make some of our potential customers uncomfortable, or something like that. Yes, and the truth is that that specificity is going to do wonders for you.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, if it isn't happy, sad or mad, it's an invisible ad. There you go, that's good. So with that, avoid the predictable. You need to go and listen to all of your competitors' ads and write down, and you probably know this. But if you find yourself saying something that just sounds like the lowest price guarantee or you've tried the rest, now come try the best, like any of that cliche, unsubstantiatable crap that's out there that everybody wants to write because it's easy and it's like ooh, that sounds like a good ad. And, by the way, the same people that told you not to run the other ad they'll be like, yeah, that's a good ad, that's a good ad?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, because there's. That sounds like an ad. I know what an ad is and that sounds like an ad?

Speaker 1:

Yes, but David Ogilvie is famous for saying you cannot bore people into buying your product. You can only interest them. And so even if you're even actually, especially if what you're selling is not all that different Like most of these actually, every client we're going to talk about today there's a competitor that does exactly what they do and probably, in most cases, just as good. We just tell the better story, we make them more memorable, more likable, and that oxytocin and that adrenaline turns it into trust. And so it's just like they go with what they know and they go with what their chemical limbic system says. This is the right person to go with. That's the magic of tomorrow.

Speaker 2:

Marketing Combining words that people have never heard next to one another is a super powerful thing for being remembered and for getting engagement, for getting people to lean in and you can't tune out uncommon combinations of words, seussification is a lot of times we say you know, yeah, Making up your own terms, things like that, that really works.

Speaker 1:

So do you want to see one of these ads in action? Because I have some Seussification going on. Let's play the ad from that Solid Roofing campaign where people have just been calling in left and right, absolutely.

Speaker 7:

Well, the weatherman said watch out for the thunderstorms about. It's going to be windy and it could even hail, but you are nice and cozy because you have some trusted buddies. Should the Oklahoma weather prevail, solid roofs, solid roofs, solid roofs, solid roofs. When the raindrops are falling and your ceiling is a-sopping, just call your solid guys at Solid Roofs, solid Roofs.

Speaker 1:

There, it is All right. So there's a couple of things you could pinpoint. Everybody's going to go that's a great jingle and there's nobody that's happier to hear about that being a fun jingle, because I know the guy that wrote it. You could say the animation is on point and it is. The cartoons are fun and whimsical and the kids march around the living room and all that. But let's look at some word combinations. We didn't say roofing company, we've been here, think of us. We didn't say look at our family, come experience the difference. All those cliches we said when the raindrops are falling and you're sealing as a sopping.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, when the weather's looking cruddy, just know that you got a buddy, yep.

Speaker 1:

And trust your solid guys at Solid Roofs, right? That means all the things that everybody else would say. We just picked different words, right? And so it just. It stuck out. It's like a purple cow, right? Let's fire up another one. Let's fire up another campaign where we're using unpredictable word combinations and maybe a little bit of oxytocin. Yeah.

Speaker 8:

Hi, I'm Margaret Franklin and I'm 79 years old Now. I've got an attic full of mink furs and a big box of stock certificates. My family has no idea that when my time comes, oh heavens, I'm going to blow their minds. My estate plan covers everything I've got and it makes sure they won't be fighting over it once I'm gone. Ozark's elder law got me all set up. Your legacy is too important to be left to chance.

Speaker 5:

Schedule your free estate planning consultation in Springfield, joplin, nixa, ozark, lebanon, marshfield or Branson.

Speaker 1:

That ad got dozens and dozens and dozens of literally people calling and saying I love that ad.

Speaker 2:

One of the important things about this is that this is elder law, which typically is end of life planning and things like that. Your legacy, your legacy, your family, might be unprotected, and a lot of the campaigns around that topic are very somber, very you know and that might seem they're stiff and they're in suits.

Speaker 6:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And that might seem like a time for tears, but that's what everyone else is doing, and we were the pattern disruptor in saying what if we made this fun? What if we made characters out of this? What if we told everyone this can be a good thing for you and your family? And just we zigged, while everyone else zagged.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you got to zig while they zag. I love that. I love the line you wrote You're like I've got a big box of stock certificates and so that's interesting words, right? We've never heard anybody talk about it like that. That's grandma saying I got a big box of stock certificates and we put in things like mink furs, a closet full of mink furs. And then, if you saw the ad, you're on YouTube and watching this. You see she's got big, fancy sunglasses and jewelry, but she's grandma, like everybody else knows her as grandma and that's divergent.

Speaker 1:

So we did the unpredictable and then, at the end, your legacy is too important to leave to chance. Now a lot of lawyers would come on and say make sure you have a solid estate plan. They would just say it in a factual way and, by the way, this is an especially tough thing to do. And these attorneys, these lawyers I love them. They're some of our favorite people, so we know them well. But they are attorneys, right? And sometimes when you're an attorney, you're just an attorney and you can't. It's hard to not do the predictable thing, which is partly why we chose.

Speaker 2:

It's all about following the rules.

Speaker 1:

Exactly.

Speaker 2:

Which is partly why we chose these characters and we did like a kind of a golden girls type thing. So, um, by the way, do you remember this ad, all the anger it also got? I do, yeah, yeah, we got a call from someone saying like once a week for yeah, well, this, this campaign, there's, there's another ad in this with a, with an older fella, and she would call like I think it is so insulting that you would put an old man on your ad and he and you're making jokes about him and the actors are like we love it. This is a. This is a great time. It's the most fun thing we've done in a while. And for every call that that woman made, we had dozens of people saying I love that. You just like humanize. You're not, you know, patronizing these old folks, you're having fun with them.

Speaker 1:

Which this leads to. Really, our fourth point using characters, not ad spokespeople. Okay, when you are even with the attorneys, even with, definitely with the roofers you guys saw and we're going to share a couple campaigns that prove this further but we don't look at the client and go, ooh, who are they? And let's write something that they would say. We say what's the most interesting version of them? We take a few of their characteristics and jack them up to 11 and make them a caricature.

Speaker 1:

And if you think of every TV character or every movie character or every memorable person in a book that you've ever known, or even some persona of a rock star or some musician, they have some things that stand out about them, a few key things, and we know these aren't real people, but they're more interesting because we jacked those things up. So we had grandma. We jacked up things about her, the mink furs and the big box of stock certificates. She wouldn't have said that in real life. But it's interesting because we cram it in like five seconds, right, joe the plumber, and you've never thought about acting in your life, and you have a truck and you just go do great work for people and you're like, how am I going to be one of these characters.

Speaker 1:

Well, if you write things the right way and you have some of these catchphrases like you're ceiling is a soppin' and you're trusted solid guys, or the ladies in white is what we call these attorney ladies a skilled writer, and specifically a skilled writer like Carter, who can write story arcs and develop characters, because that's what they think they're doing. Carter's job is not to write an ad. He's writing a mini movie or mini sitcom. Right, I try to, yeah. And so you're using characters, not ad spokespeople. It's not the owner coming on just to talk about a script. You turn the owner or the actor into an actual character and that gives them life. They have hooks, they have visual cues, they have consistent things about them, they have a certain look to them and that creates what's called the picture superiority effect, which just means we remember caricatures more than we remember mundane people.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's what leads to people in this campaign. They call and they ask for the ladies in white. Yes, they Google search the ladies in white. Oh, yeah, not elder law attorney.

Speaker 1:

Yes, yeah, and guess what the best part about that of all is? Our competitors can't take that away from us. They can take elder law attorney. Yes, yeah, and we. And guess what the best part about that of all is? Our competitors can't take that away from us. They can take elder law attorney. Actually, in that particular case, there's been like four firms try to name their, their firm, like very, very, very close to what that firm name is. They're stealing their name. Essentially, they cannot steal the ladies in white because we built them up and there are what? 25, 30 of these ads now.

Speaker 1:

It's a campaign that perpetually goes and if you look to the comments on these ads on social media, you would see people love them. They're like I love the ladies in white. And so what have we done? Let's review real quick. We have created smiles, fists and tears with oxytocin and adrenaline. That sets these campaigns up for long-term memory, even if the person didn't ask to remember a legal ad or a roofing ad. Right yeah, We've avoided predictable phrases. We've taken normal things and just put different words around them and said them in our way, a way that nobody can steal from us, and then we've used characters instead of spokespeople. Would you like to see a couple more ads where we're doing this? I would like to. Would you like to see those Carter Fire Up? This is a totally different category. This is next high-speed internet.

Speaker 2:

This is radio. Yeah, this is a YouTube ad that we turned in, or a radio ad that we turned into YouTube. Do we want to just play it as radio?

Speaker 1:

Play it as the YouTube, but it's important to know that because there's a lot of people going. Well, how do I make characters on radio? This is how you do it. This is how you do that.

Speaker 5:

Hey, what are you doing? Why are you waiting around? We got things to do games, to play movies, to watch all that junk. You're trying to open the Wikipedia page for Guns and Roses and you want to look at it. Now You're in the jungle, baby, but it doesn't matter where you live. Even you can get high-speed internet way out in the boonies where you call home. Next, high-speed internet. I'm going to say it again Next, high-speed internet. The fastest path to lightning fast, never crash, save some cash. Fiber optic speed Go to mynextfibercom If your current internet can't even. Probably my favorite thing we've done is that.

Speaker 1:

And there's like a dozen of those right. What do you have to say for yourself on that campaign, carter?

Speaker 2:

Yeah Well, first off, it's all about, you know it's fiber internet, so it's all about speed. And so if you come on and say, and next, fiber internet, we strive to create long-term customers by providing excellence, you know you instantly get tuned out, or they go.

Speaker 1:

you can get up to 300 megabits per second for only $98 a month, and it's like everybody's doing that.

Speaker 2:

When you say you want fast, you need speed. You know the fastest path, the lightning fast, never crash. Save some cash.

Speaker 1:

Fiber optic speed you know, Nobody could steal that from us. Yeah, but hey, if you are a high-speed internet company in another market and you want to use this, we will license it to you. This is our work. But and this client has a limited geography in Arkansas love them, they allowed us to have some fun and kudos to them. They had the courage to let us do this. Big kudos to Courtney. But nobody in your market could steal that from you.

Speaker 2:

And another aspect is this ad obviously is a pattern disruptor from the cadence of a lot of other ads and it almost overwhelms you with language. People won't remember exactly what you say, but they will remember that you made them laugh in this case. And every time that the ad comes on they hear hey, what are you doing? Why are you waiting around? They tune in because they want to hear what they missed last time, almost like a song. Yeah, you know.

Speaker 1:

That's a sitcom. I mean that is the fabric of anything that is worth having more episodes and built on yeah, it's rewatchable, rewatchable.

Speaker 1:

We watch Office and Seinfeld and Friends over and over and over again because of the same thing, right. And friends over and over and over again because of the same thing, right. So one last ad I will leave you with is another corner of an example. This one is for a car dealer. Think of every car dealer ad you've ever seen, because they're all the exact same. Yeah, let our family well, actually they're trying to. Yeah, car dealers have long tried to make themselves human, but they're like let our family help yours, and we have to sell 560 Fords by Saturday, and nobody ever believes it. So this is a company called James River Ford and James River Chrysler, and they named it after the James River. And so we didn't say you can trust us, because nobody believes that. We didn't say we're the easy place to shop. Nobody believes that either.

Speaker 1:

You're a car dealer and you are cursed by your category. Yeah, Instead we made this character.

Speaker 2:

And part of this is in our city. If you're not from Southwest Missouri, there's a James River, everything, oh yeah, there's so many things that have the James River name and we're like we got to figure out how to become the thing, the company that people think of when they hear the James River, and that's a big part of what we were doing here.

Speaker 1:

Yes, so actually with a remarkably low ad spend. There are thousands of comments on this ad and people just they're like I hate car dealers, but I want to shop here. I mean there's, I'm not even kidding, it's not just like a one-off, there's like 50 people have said that exact same thing in one comment stream, and so we personified, we made a character. There's nothing about this, that's predictable, and let's see if you get some smiles, fists and tears from that.

Speaker 2:

And also, when you watch this, think about uncommon words or word combinations and how the humor comes from that too words or word combinations and how the humor comes from that too.

Speaker 9:

They've been naming highways after me. They've been naming the rivers after me, and it's funny because it's my last name I'm james river. I'm james and all along I've just been here james river, ford and james river crass the dodge, jeep, ram. I'm here to serve people. Bring on down your pole and bring on down your net. We got big old deals down here for James River Ford and James River Chrysler, dodge, jeep and Ram. Drop us a line and the deals are bigger. Come on down to James River, I'm telling y'all, come on down right now, come on down, don't delay, not today. Come on down to James River, I'm telling y'all come on down right now, come on down, don't delay, not today.

Speaker 1:

Come on down. Okay, this is one of my best friends, but he's a goofball car dealer, right yeah? And instead of trying to make him some slick suited up, we care about your service and all that stuff. We were just like feeding them lines and just saying, hey, pretend like you're this old man.

Speaker 2:

yeah, river, let's have fun and pull down the facade of the car dealership. Oh, why don't you sit right here and let me tell you, let's get you taken care of and I'm gonna get you a great deal. Yes, and if you just be authentic, especially in this market, it does a ton.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we let him be his real self, and so that's what you want to do. You want to do smiles, fists or tears, so you invoke oxytocin or adrenaline. You want to avoid the predictable like it's the plague, and you want to make characters. And if you do that, whether or not you have a catchy jingle or awesome production, guys like these guys, if you just do those things, it doesn't matter what you produce, it's going to work and it's going to catapult you to people thinking of you, wanting to do business with you, trusting you, choosing you, long before they ever went to a search engine page and looked for your competitors. Yeah, and it makes everything work better. That's what Tomorrow Marketing is about. That is what Frank and Maven is about. That's what Tomorrow Marketing is about. That is what Frank and Maven is about. That's what the Maven Marketing Podcast is about.

Speaker 1:

We want to see you guys win so badly. The money you're spending is already good enough. You are putting effort into your business and just by tweaking a few of these things, we want to see the stuff you're already doing just get so much better, because when that happens, your community gets better, your employees get better, people have more fun and, my goodness, couldn't we use more of that? And business just becomes more rewarding and wholesome, and I'm 100% convinced small business, just like the ones we talked about today, has a bigger potential to change the world than AI or any corporation ever could, and so that's why we're here. Thank you for being on the episode this week. Carter's a very busy man.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for having me, it's been great.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you will see more of him. You have seen him in the past, we will see more of him in the future. And hey, if you want us to give you some feedback on your campaign, maybe inject it with a little more oxytocin. Fire it over to mavenmonday at frankenmavencom, and we'll be back here every week answering your real life marketing questions, because marketers who cannot teach you why are just a fancy lie. Have a great week.