Why Your TV Ads Are Getting Ignored

Most TV ads fail before the customer ever hears the message.

Not because the business is bad. Not because TV “doesn’t work.” But because modern audiences are distracted, multitasking, scrolling, cooking dinner, or barely paying attention at all.

In this episode, Brandon breaks down two simple tests that can completely change the effectiveness of your broadcast advertising and help your commercials cut through the noise in a world where attention is harder to earn than ever.

If you’re spending money on TV, video, or tomorrow marketing campaigns, this conversation will challenge the way you think about what people actually remember… and what they never notice in the first place.

#TVAdvertising #BroadcastAdvertising #SmallBusinessMarketing #MarketingStrategy #AdCreative #SmallBusinessGrowth #BusinessGrowth #MavenMonday #MavenMarketingPodcast #FrankAndMaven #MarketingAdvice #MarketingPodcast #Entrepreneurship #SmallBusiness #LocalAdvertising

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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 0:00

The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place. George Bernard Shaw originally said that, but us as advertisers need to listen a little harder because when it comes to broadcast advertising, there's a couple things that are really giving us the illusion that communication has taken place when really we've been lost in the noise. Today we're going to talk about those so you can get more out of your TV broadcast advertising. Welcome to the Maven Marketing Podcast. Today is Maven Monday, and it's just me and you today. Uh, but it's going to be a short episode and it's going to be a good episode because if you are using television advertising, you are probably losing a little bit of your efficiency to one of the two things we're talking about today. Uh, if this is your first time, we are so glad you're here. This is a place where we help business owners all across America eliminate waste in advertising. Advertising is confusing uh and ambiguous enough. So if we can eliminate uh the things that we know for sure are waste, uh we'll get um that sometimes very expensive uh investment back to us uh in a in a greater sum. So that is something we're really passionate about. But we do that um not just because we want to be advertising experts, we do that because we want your business to grow. We believe small business uh has a tremendous amount of power to change uh lives and the uh the health of our country and our and our well-being. And so um, and we are also just relentlessly on a pursuit to help uh the small business owners and the dreamers achieve that big dream. So that's that's where you are. That's the Maven Marketing Podcast. We're going on our third year. And uh if you have been here before, you know we talk a lot about the power of broadcast, uh, uh specifically local TV and radio. Uh in most cases, that is actually still the best way to become well known, liked, and trusted. Uh that is, you can reach the most amount of people. Um, if you're talking about, you know, homeowners and people who are still the biggest part of the spending economy, uh, you can reach the most amount of them, you can reach them consistently. And if you do it right, especially with the two tactics we're going to talk about today, uh, you can reach them very intrusively and in a way that they'll remember you more than in most cases, uh, you know, like a digital type of ad because they're very intrusive, they're long, and usually they're audio and visual bouncing off the wall. Uh the problem uh is that we uh live in a distracted society. And so uh Nielsen actually measures this, and they know that 40 to 60 percent of any TV audience is on some sort of second device. And so um, it's not that that makes the ad completely useless. It just means that the majority of people are not sitting here watching the ad word for word like we think they are when we're writing it and producing and editing it. So in your in your writing process and your campaigns, and before you ship the ad live for the station to run for you, uh there are a couple of things we need to do so that we are still appealing to the person who got up to get a snack or the person who's you know checking Facebook or whatever. Um, and then also a lot of ads aren't um necessarily played with full sound. So uh the tricks are just that. Uh the first is that you need to, before you finish this ad and call it ready, you need to say, okay, I'm gonna go in the other room and I'm gonna play this on the computer or the final you know production screen, and I'm gonna go, if I were, you know, cooking dinner or if I were off the couch for a minute, would would this ad still have the ability to be memorable and intrusive? And so some things you want to do to make sure that that's happening uh are do unpredictable word combinations, things that when you hear them, they didn't just get lost in the mix. Um so it could be saying things um like we have an estate planning attorney, and every other attorney would say, Hey, you know, call us when you need estate planning, and we say, Someday you're gonna leave it all to them, and they should get every penny. That's an example of an intrusive statement. Um we have a doctor that says, don't settle for less than perfect vision, or less than perfect vision is giving you less than perfect memories. Um and so that just sounds different. That sounds different than a doctor that says quality eye care for quality price, you know, something like that. Um jingles work really well. Um really uh disruptive sound effects or uh or music that stops, or sometimes white space and silence, um, things that are just altogether different than the noise around your category and the predictable way that everybody else says this in your category. Um so that's one way you can like beat that two rooms away test. Uh, but then also a quality claim, something that's a value statement. We believe you should never settle. Um the way we do it around here is this um uh some sort of consistent music hook. Uh we have uh one outdoor company that says their location a certain way. He stretches the word out before he says, you know, he says, just off South Campbell. Um, those are things that stand out and people hear them, uh, but you're doing them consistently every way. So stand for something, uh, say it differently than everybody else says it, and then make sure it's really clear in the audio. You want to take music down a notch. Um, if we were listening to this on headphones and you know, really in really full volume and paying attention to it, you would might you might go, oh, that voice is a little loud. But when you mix for television, uh you want to make sure that it the the voice cuts through two rooms away. So tell your sound guys to cut out that low mid range that's getting in the in the way of the vocals and the clarity of the words by by EQing uh you know the low frequencies out. So you just want to make sure that audio is super clear and the words you're saying are different, memorable, uh, and then some sort of consistent hook. So that's the two rooms away test. Is this bouncing off the walls in a way that they still got some sort of value if they weren't engaged with it 100%? The second is the muted screen test. Um think restaurants, think um waiting rooms, think um places uh or maybe times of day where the TV is turned down, but somebody is still kind of like looking at it because it's the most interesting thing in the room. Um on social and digital, we actually, you know, we we promote um captions being on screen. Uh that's not always gonna be in play for every TV ad, but you can do supporting graphics and the things that are sort of the high points of your ad. If it's an offer of promotion, obviously you want that very clear. Like get this offer, get it by uh doing this, and get it by this date, or you're not gonna get it. Like, so um when do I need to act? Um, what do I get and how do I get it? Those are those are things you want to put in there. Um, but also sometimes it's your it's your value statements, it's things you wouldn't think to accentuate with graphics, uh, but you want that to be the thing. Maybe every other day of the week they did hear the ad, uh, but this time for some reason they're just seeing it. And so the the things that are your um not just your slogans, but your value statements and your belief statements. We believe you should never settle for less than perfect vision. Uh, we believe you should be lifelong friends with your roofer. I'm just saying some things that pop off of our ads. Those are things you want accentuated and complemented and paired with a graphic on the screen. And so maybe if you were looking at this a hundred percent, you'd be you'd be going, wow, that's a lot of words on the screen. Or why did they have to put the words on the screen? But you need to account for there's people half listening and half watching a lot of the time. So say if I watch this without the audio one at all, would I understand what's going on? And could I get some sort of visual stimulus that helps me act or remember this company? Um, I think also faces being in your ads is really important. You'd be surprised how many ads just have, you know, the B roll and then maybe a phone number at the bottom of the screen, but there's not a whole lot uh of clarity about what the ad was about and why it was valuable. Uh I think it was David Oggloby that said, make your ads too valuable to throw away. So maybe you're putting tips on the screen. Maybe you're saying, uh if if I just caught a three or four second glance at it, uh, I would walk away and go, Well, huh, that was somewhat interesting. And it's not that people are gonna, these aren't cinematic events, they're not gonna maybe remember it forever, but it's it is making sure that that point in time where that 30 or 60 second ad displayed, there was tangible takeaways for both the listener only and the watcher only. Uh, and so those are just two quick tests you can run before you put the ad to production. Uh, maybe that'll uh prompt you to do something a little extra or take something a little, you know, more distracting away from the audio perspective of the ad. And uh hey, in a world where everything is more expensive, we need everything to work just a little bit better. So those are two tricks you can use. Take those to your production guys, um, and take those to your writers and just make sure you're standing out in both audio and visual. And that's what I have for you guys today. If you uh put that in play over the next year, hey, what if you got five to five or ten percent better return on your broadcast advertising? Wouldn't that be good? So um Caleb and I are usually here sharing real life marketing advice uh that we see inside an agency that is growing businesses by multiple millions per year. Uh, we have the privilege and the honor of working with some really cool small business owners who are just making wonderful things happen. And uh, we would love to have you in that tribe. So subscribe, um, share this if you know somebody, maybe send this to your TV reps. Maybe say, hey, make sure we're doing this to my my ads, uh, maybe the people that are selling you your advertising. Um and then if you want to take that a little further, if you'd like some hands-on, like one-on-one feedback from our team on your ads, join the Maven Marketing Mastermind. Uh, you can get that at Mavenmethodtraining.com. And uh, we'd love to have you in our inner group where we actually break down ads and help you make them better. Uh, we'll break down your media buys, uh, anything you're facing with you know, lead generation or branding, or just making things um grow um, you know, your company or your mission a little faster. Uh, we do that every other week, and you can join that in the Maven Marketing Mastermind at Mavenmethod Training.com. So thank you so much for being here. Like, subscribe forward. 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.