How to Know For Sure Your Ads Are Working

Most business owners are looking for the wrong signals.

They watch for obvious wins… wait for clear feedback… and assume silence means nothing is happening.

But what if that’s exactly backwards?

In this episode, Brandon and Caleb challenge one of the biggest misconceptions in advertising, and share a perspective that might make you rethink what “working” actually looks like.

If you’ve ever felt unsure, impatient, or tempted to change things too early… this one will hit close to home.

Because the signals are there.

You just might not be seeing them the right way.

#MarketingStrategy #AdvertisingTips #AdCreative #DigitalMarketing #BrandBuilding #MarketingAdvice #SmallBusinessMarketing #AdFatigue #MarketingPodcast #BusinessGrowth

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Host: Brandon Welch
Executive Producer: Carter Breaux
Audio/Video Producer: Nate the Camera Guy

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Transcript

Brandon Welch 0:06

Welcome to the Maven Marketing Podcast. Today is Maven Monday. My name is Brandon Welch and I'm here with Caleb. How'd you get your hair that long, AG? How do you do that?

Caleb Agee 0:15

Uh time and seeds. Yeah, yeah. It's you got a water. And no harvest. Yeah. Yes. Yeah.

Brandon Welch 0:23

It is looking good. Well, thank you. Uh majestic flowing locks. It's yeah.

Caleb Agee 0:28

If you're just listening to the audio, you really don't know what we're talking about. But just pretend like I have a glorious mane a pair. He does. And that is not in an awkward phase between two things.

Brandon Welch 0:38

All right. Today we're going to talk about the most dangerous feedback in your marketing. Dangerous. Yes. It's not negativity, it's silence.

Caleb Agee 0:48

Hmm. Okay.

The U Curve Of Hit Ads

Brandon Welch 0:50

Uh there, for as long as there have been advertising uh salespeople, there have been uh anxious business owners on the other end asking, but how do I know if it's working? People are not telling me they hear my ads. And while that is a dangerous assumption to base all of your marketing feedback on, there is one sure way to know that it is working, and that is somebody calling and telling you how dad gum annoying your ad is. And if that's all you needed, if that's all if that's all you have time for today, that's basically the episode. That's basically it. But we're going to prove it because um I have I have uh worked with some really smart legendary business owners who this the second they get a somebody saying, Oh, I don't like that ad, they go, Oh, we better pull it. I'm like, no, that's the time it's actually actually working. Uh what you don't want is silence. You obviously want some good feedback and you obviously want some bad feedback. Or sorry, you may not think you want some bad feedback, but that bad feedback that gosh darn it, that ad is driving me nuts. You absolutely can start throwing your pizza party because that that is a winning ad.

Caleb Agee 1:55

Yeah. In the music industry, Sound Out, who uh I think Sony, some other major record labels, they use these guys to do research on what would make a hit song. And when they do research, they do you know some sort of focus groups or have people test listen. And what they're looking for is not a nice 5.0, or they're not even looking for a 10 out of 10, right? People rank it on a scale of you know one to ten, how much you like the song. What they look for is actually a 6.0 comprised mostly of tens and ones.

Brandon Welch 2:29

So they're looking for the they're looking for the polarizing song.

Caleb Agee 2:33

Yeah, and they actually call it a rever a U curve. So you know the bell curve is usually, think about intelligence, it's usually up in the middle, right? A U curve is down in the middle. They want a high number of low numbers and a high set of high numbers, and that that dynamic makes your song distinctive. On the left side, they call it the haters, right? The ones. Those are the people that are gonna provide the friction. They're gonna be the ones that light you up in your reviews, social media, they're gonna be calling your voicemail, telling you what they think. But the high tens, those are your buyers. Yeah, those are the ones that are gonna bring the money, and the combination of those two is what makes your makes a hit song, but it also makes a hit ad.

Brandon Welch 3:15

And it makes a hit everything. I I will say, unfortunately, it's what makes a hit politician.

SPEAKER_03 3:20

Mm-hmm.

Stop Writing Ads To Not Offend

Brandon Welch 3:22

Polarization. Polarization. And uh, we wish it were different, but if you look at the data, the data says that that is true. So um I'm reminded of David Ogglave. Uh, make your ads uh too valuable to throw away, valuable in either entertainment or some sort of passion. I'm also reminded of Roy Williams, uh, who says the risk of insult is the price of clarity. Uh Roy also says um most ads are not written to persuade, they're written to not offend. And so what happens very often is you get this piece of copy, and and usually the business owner themselves will will probably like it. They'll go, oh yeah, that's catchy. They'll go, yeah, that sounds good. That's different. And it's like, yeah, that's why I hired you. And this has happened to me a hundred times. Actually, yeah, it's happened a lot. Okay. Uh way more often we've gotten them over the gotten over the finish line because we, and this I'm talking to my media sales folks here, preface them with like, we're gonna bring you an ad that is not safe. Yes. We've done this long enough, we're like, you're going to get some negative feedback on this. So that's part of what this is for. I w I want I want you to walk away from this episode with some courage. The goal is not to offend. You're not gonna go slap people upside the head, and you don't want to be offensive for no reason, but you do want to rise above the noise level. Uh, but we've had people a lot of times, the business owner gets an ad and he's like, Yeah, that's new and different. And then what do they do? They send it to their friends and family like who are trying to be helpful.

Caleb Agee 4:53

Yep.

Brandon Welch 4:53

And they go, Oh, it doesn't, it just doesn't sound professional. Oh, that just doesn't sound quite polished enough. And it's like, polished um is every uh drug company, pharmaceutical, uh, boring, uh forgettable, um, flaccid ad you've ever heard, uh, or not heard, actually, that you've not heard. Every ad that you've forgotten. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Um, average ads don't fail, they just disappear. It's not, it's not that they do negative damage to your business. They do negative damage to your budget and your ROI for sure. But we have taken down massive advertisers, like massive, like big, big, big category leaders spending six figures a month with a puny little ad budget and an ad that stands out. Yeah. Or a jingle, um, or something that is just a little bit abrasive. Uh, one of our first is a roofing company, and we got calls because they would forward them to the agency. We got calls for months, um, because we put this doorbell and we had some really kind of evasive, uh evocative, I should say, uh, sound effects in this ad.

SPEAKER_03 6:01

Yeah.

A Polarizing Campaign Case Study

Brandon Welch 6:01

And we got tons of hate mail on it. We also got, they also got tons of in public when they're out seeing people that they would show up to their door. They got tons of praise for it. Yeah. It's that U curve. So the U curve is what you're looking for. And in the middle, when it's average and it's not, it's not loud or noticeable enough for people to say something, something about it, either high or low, you're you're you're not getting as much as you could. I'm not gonna say it's gonna do a negative thing to your business, uh, but stop playing it safe. Um in a world that's noisy. Um, we say here a core value at Frank and Maven, Nate is if ads don't they don't bring smiles, fists, or tears, they fall on deaf ears. See, we all know it. We all live it, we all breathe it, and that's our filter. If it doesn't bring smiles, fists, or tears, it falls on deaf ears. So that's how you know, folks. That is how you know. Uh, I'm going to give you a a real life example. Now, this this is a case study. Um, this particular client is stealing market share left to right, left and right. They've got the it's a it's a legacy company. I mean, they've been around 50 plus years.

Caleb Agee 7:06

I think 60, yeah.

Brandon Welch 7:08

Yeah, it is 60 years. That was there's the last year where I was trying to be be a little bit anonymous. So it's a it's a 50 to 60 year uh legacy business. Um which the thing about 1560 legacy year businesses is that it's really hard for them to grow double digit, especially in a in a small or medium-sized market of which they're in. We happen to know uh because we've been working with them for the last four or five years and seen double digit growth and seen record-breaking years year over year, uh, driven not just by revenue but number of customers. Like we know this this particular client is just killing it. And yet, and and this conversation may even be a little harder uh had this not been happening, but uh and yet this morning we get a review. Never been to this store before, but every single day I've turned on my TV for the last two years and see an insert client's name commercial trying to capitalize on my emotions and a corrupted definition of love. This seems like a case of overmarketing, and I can only guess it will backfire on them in coming years. Uh so and we're like, yep, yes, it's backfiring totally. Yeah, they to the tune of literally millions of dollars. They this that they have experienced growth at at a at a later stage in their maturity cycle of a business. And so that's one where we like they just look at it and kind of laugh because it's like, okay, but that's not all that uncommon. Now we get an equal amount of, oh my gosh, I can't believe your ad made me cry. Like and that is that is a smile's fist or tears.

Caleb Agee 8:43

Sometimes smiles and tears, yeah, smiles and tears which is wild to think about. You can do the same with the same ad.

Brandon Welch 8:49

Emotion, passion, yeah, breaking through the noise barrier. And so if somebody's not laughing or somebody's not going, oh, or somebody's not going, wow, that's gonna piss some people off. Like if somebody's not doing that in the room where you audition the ad, you might need to look look at your copywriter and say, can we turn this up? Like, are we playing it too safe? Yeah. Um so that's a that's a real life case case study from a campaign that is obviously killing it.

Caleb Agee 9:20

Yeah, and the reason this works is because this pattern disruption that's happening in your brain, it uh causes a reticular activator to happen, right? When you when you do things that are jarring, that are a little bit different, that are not bland, boring, ignorable things, whether in a positive way, right? You make somebody happy, smiles, or tears, or you make them angry or sad, you you surprise their brain and they start to pay attention. They start to listen. Yes. And so we're not doing that just to get people's heckles up. We're not just we're not trying to just tick people off or anything like that, but we are trying to earn their attention. And we have to do that um by by making them happy or frustrated. And that's that sort of thing actually causes your your brain antenna to stand up in a way during any other commercial break. They've ignored every commercial so far, but yours sounds different because it's jarring, it's different, it's a little bit, you know, it's popping out of the out of the way. And we've talked about different ways you can do this inside of the message in other episodes. Um that can be entertainment, that can be like humor, that can be jokes, that can be smiles, fist tears. You know, that could be um catchiness like a jingle or wit or some sort of banter that's fun to listen to. You have strong dynamic characters. Um, there are lots of ways this works out, but when you built this up, it's actually scientifically proven that when you surprise Broca's area of the brain, that is right next to the long-term memory storage section of the city. How you start firing.

Brandon Welch 10:56

Yeah, the brain doesn't encode information. Uh, we are we're all familiar with the quote people will forget what you say, but they'll never forget how you made them how you made them feel. Yeah. Uh I think was that my Angelo? Angelo. Yeah. They'll forget what you say, but they'll never forget how they make you feel. That is not just a uh a witty observation. That is neurologically based um in in and it's physiological. It's it is it is the way that the brain pays attention, and um somebody told me one time the thing that bonds um stimulus to long-term memory is a chemical called adrenaline. Yeah. When adrenaline's released, that is the bonding agent to long-term memory. And don't we all want our companies to be immediately recalled, immediately felt good about, immediately uh popped into the working mind uh when somebody thinks of our category. And so when you were just speaking in generalities and you're speaking in cliche claims and cliche, you know, uh slogans and taglines, that's not new, surprising, and different. That's not emotional, that's not passionate. You need to be pressing buttons, and sometimes that's gonna be a button of joy for somebody, and for the other person, it's gonna be a button of irritation because guess what? They were mad anyway, they were mad at the world, and you were just the one that got them out of their madness, and they want to get back to their madness, and so they, you know, fired off at you uh for being somebody who disrupted their thing. But they weren't gonna be a customer anyway.

Caleb Agee 12:29

Yep, and that's okay.

Brandon Welch 12:30

They want to be mad, smile at them, say, I'm so sorry you feel that way. We'll pass it on to our ad people, send them to us, yes, and we'll have a great conversation with them. We'll say, gosh golly, we'll we'll take that into consideration. Yes. What is it exactly that you don't like about the ad? Like validate them for sure. I'm not saying laugh at them.

Caleb Agee 12:47

Yeah.

Brandon Welch 12:48

But um polarization is the proof that you've exceeded the bar of average, and you definitely, definitely, definitely do not want to be average in advertising.

Caleb Agee 12:58

Just for clarity, negative feedback we're talking about is on your creative, not on your service. Obviously, if you're getting negative feedback, negative Google reviews because you haven't you haven't reached their bar of exceptionalism in a service way, you need to up your systems. You need to look at your internal how you serve these people, make that better. But when they are frustrated with the creative, that's a time to throw a pizza party. You you got lovers and haters, and that's okay.

Roofing Jingle Example And Wrap Up

Brandon Welch 13:30

Yep. If it's if Belinda was rude on the phone, you've got to have a conversation with Belinda. This is not a smiles-fist tears moment. If Ed was smelly and rude on the job site, you gotta have a conversation with Ed. But otherwise, do not do not make your poor hardworking ad people produce you a less wonderful ad. Let the thing roll, let it have some jaggedness to it, uh, exceed that bar of average, and uh good things are in store for you. We have millions and millions of dollars worth of growth to prove it. And one last example these guys get equal amounts of hate and love on their jingle every day.

Caleb Agee 14:13

In fact, we actually made an ad about about people hating it uh just for fun, because uh it's the owner starting, he's sitting at a desk and he's like, Hey, uh we get lots of feedback on the thing, and it's like and he's like, they love it. Yeah. He hangs up the phone. Yes.

Brandon Welch 14:32

We poke fun at it, we get so much feedback. Yep, that's here it is for you. Check this out.

SPEAKER_01 14:36

Thank you for calling solid roofing. This is Lila. How can I help you? Uh yes, and uh, are you the ones that have the commercial with the the guys marching across the screen? Yes, we are. I like that commercial. Oh, thank you, thank you. Okay, okay, how many times I see it? Always makes me smile.

Brandon Welch 14:55

Always makes me smile, right? And she laughed because she gets that call every day. She really, really does. So, guys, go make some noise, go make some people mad, go make some people happy. Uh, this is the foundation of advertising that I promise you want working for you. And uh, if you're not hearing that, go challenge your ad writers to push it over the edge. Or if they're not gonna do it, give us a call. Send us your boring ads. We'll crank them up.

Caleb Agee 15:22

Spice it up a little bit. Yeah. Be great.

Brandon Welch 15:24

We'll wrap some jalapeno jelly bacon around it. Yes. All right. That's what we have for you guys today. Thank you for listening. Uh, like and subscribe. We could use some of your love. Uh, we're entering year three. We're about to do some wild things on the podcast, and we need your help ramping up. So if you're a Maven marketing podcast listener, we appreciate you. We love you. We're going to be back here every Monday answering your real life marketing questions because marketers who can't teach you why are just a fancy lie. Talk to you guys soon.