August 18, 2025 • 35 mins
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.
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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!
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https://a.co/d/1clpm8a
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
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 starmovie list, bro.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
You were asking about this earlier.
I have a list of gold starmovies is what I call them of
just movies that I thinkeveryone should see in their
life, and I gave you a fewrecommendations from that
earlier.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
I think you're qualified uh more than anybody I
know to have a gold star listyou want to tell us why that
might be.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Um, I just love movies, I love storytelling, I
love writing, directing, makingthings magical, making a an
impact on people.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Carter is an award-winning screenwriter and
movie producer and he is makingsome really, really awesome
things happen in the movie space, like he's won some really cool
things and he's on his way toreleasing some feature films
that are going to be.
You're going to hear about them.
They're awesome, and we arelucky enough for almost 10 years
(01:03):
now to have him as our chief ofvideo at FrankenMaven.
He produces whimsical campaignsworthy of all of the memorable
things we talk about.
We talk about making your brandfamous.
Carter is behind most of thecampaigns here at FrankenMaven
that that's happened with, andso today it is a gift for you
all.
I promise that he's here andwe're going to break down what
(01:26):
makes ad campaigns memorable,and then we're going to share
some ridiculous just proof ofthat, of the campaigns where
people are literally calling usand our clients thanking us for
the ads we produced.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Yeah, us and our clients thanking us for the ads
we produced.
Yeah, ads that don't just notjust ads that people remember,
but that they like so much thatthey have to pick up the phone
and call the company and say whomade those.
You know, yeah, and you'll seethat here in a second.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
And so I know you might be like being like really
does that actually happen, guys?
This is happening like multipletimes per week and I'm going to
share just just like threepieces of proof.
In the last week that'shappened.
Okay, this is a campaign for aclient we're building ads for in
Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Check it out.
Speaker 4 (02:12):
Thank you for calling solid roofing.
This is Lilla.
How can I help you?
Yes, and are you the ones thathave the commercial with the
guys marking across the screen?
Yes, we are.
I like that commercial.
Speaker 5 (02:25):
Oh, thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 4 (02:28):
Okay, okay.
How many times do I say it?
It always makes me smile.
Oh, we appreciate that.
Thank you.
Yeah, I like that.
I'm going to put you in mycontact so when I need a roof
and I probably will in the nextcouple of years I'll give you a
call.
Oh well, we appreciate that.
We look forward to working withyou.
Do you come to Bartlesville andDewey?
(02:48):
Yes, ma'am, we do.
Okay, I want to make sure.
Okay, I'm going to put you inmy contacts and save that, but I
don't know who came up withthat commercial.
But I like it.
Well, thank you, we appreciatethat.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
You're welcome, all right.
Speaker 4 (03:02):
Have a good week you too.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Out of the blue.
This is like 10 o'clock on aTuesday.
This lady calls.
I like that commercial and I'mgoing to put you in my phone
book.
Okay, All right, that couldhappen to anybody once.
Okay, We've got like 20 ofthese just in recent memory.
Let's play another one.
Speaker 6 (03:20):
Thank you for calling Solid Roofing.
This is Lilla.
How can I help you?
Hey, lilla.
Jeff McGelligan, calling fromOwasso, I just have to share.
I was at Reesers.
I had everybody in my mindsinging the Solid Roof jingle
Solid Roof, solid Roof, solidRoof, solid Roof.
Oh nice, oh, it was great.
(03:40):
And somebody goes I love thatcommercial.
I said oh yeah great.
I said actually I was readingsomething where it won an award
and I'm like what I said?
oh yeah, it's so cool and I said, it's just really kind of
catchy and a guy behind me goesyeah, he goes.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
I can't get out of my bed, so this guy goes on for
literally five minutes on thiscall but what you learn is he
was in the line at some pharmacyor something and the ad comes
on TV and the whole line startsmimicking this commercial and
singing the jingle.
Yeah, coolest thing ever.
Right, but we're going to talkabout it.
Part of it is the jingle, partof it is some other things you
(04:21):
should be doing.
Here's some other fan mail.
That is the best commercial out.
I march to it every time I seeit.
Like that just was written in ontheir website.
So, believe it or not, this hasbeen happening at Frank and
Maven for years, and this is notabout us pounding our chest,
but it is about us sharingwhat's behind those campaigns.
(04:42):
And so we're going to share, Ithink, four different ads with
you.
All of these have hadindividual fan mail.
These are just the ones we hadin recent memory, but I mean,
this has been happening for adecade.
And so what makes that happen?
Let's go scientific for just aminute, because this actually is
a neurological thing.
(05:03):
There is some pinpointableingredients that we can attach
to when we want to make thishappen, and I want to say this
first A lot of people want tohave catchy ads.
A lot of people want to havefunny, humorous ads, but the
problem with that is, unlessyou're a really, really, really
big brand, often you can justhave a one-off ad that was like
(05:27):
Ooh, that was a good ad, and itdoesn't translate to business.
So what makes the difference injust having something that was
funny and then them actuallygoing?
You know what I like you somuch.
I'm going to attach you tolong-term memory.
I'm going to put you in myphone book, because the holy
grail of advertising is thatwhen people need what we do,
they think of us first.
Yeah.
And they tell their friendsabout you.
(05:48):
They tell their friends andthey go out of their way and all
the stuff we talk about in thispodcast.
That's why are your Google adsso expensive and they're getting
more expensive and why areFacebook leads so hard?
And lead generation in generalis just never, ever going to get
easier.
It is always going to getharder.
But when you were the one theygo ah, roofer, or ah, you know
(06:11):
elder law attorney or you know,Fiber internet company.
Any service yeah, any serviceprovider.
It's like I'm just going to gostraight to them and it is like
hundreds of times cheaper to bidon your own name or just show
up when somebody types your namethan it is to try to be on the
list of 50 of your competitors.
There are a couple of chemicalsthat are present in the brain
(06:32):
when people take randominformation and store it to
long-term involuntary recall.
Memory Like this is some nerdydoctor stuff, carter.
What are those two chemicals?
Adrenaline and oxytocin?
Those two things tend to happenadrenaline and oxytocin.
We're going to talk about howto create those things, but
those are emotional experiences.
(06:53):
One of the core values at Frankand Maven, like behind all of
our work, is if ads… If theydon't bring smiles, fists or
tears, they fall on deaf ears.
If your ads don't bring smiles,fists or tears, they fall on
deaf ears.
It's in our book.
We've known this somehowforever and it just keeps
proving itself over and over andover over the last 10 years.
So you want to invokeadrenaline, which is the pay
(07:17):
attention hormone.
It's usually triggered byexcitement, surprise, fear or
high energy moments.
It increases arousal.
Telling the brain this matters,remember it.
You have heard things like theweather report or the daily news
or the mundane things in yourlife when your mom calls you and
(07:39):
says the same things over andover.
You've heard those things amillion times in your life but
those aren't like things you tryto remember.
But if I told you there's beenan accident and someone you love
is hurt, for the rest of yourlife you will remember exactly
where you were, what you werewearing probably what I was
wearing, what was going on thatday, what you had for lunch for
(08:02):
the rest of your life becausethat was an important moment
right, absolutely, and even on asmaller scale.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
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 importantthing.
Carter's done that exactly fourtimes.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
I can remember them all, it's true, and so it's just
what breaks predictability andwhat breaks the mundane um and
then puts you in some sort offight or flight mode, always
gets remembered.
That's the, that's the negativeside, so that's the.
That's the fists and tears,maybe.
(08:39):
Uh, oxytocin is the trust andbond hormone.
This gets released, um, duringmoments of empathy, connection,
shared joy.
Uh, it makes people feel warmtowards the source, increasing
brand trust and recall.
This is, this is yourClydesdale ads.
This is your puppy ads.
This is your Sarah McLaughlinads, like it doesn't matter what
(09:01):
they're selling, because therewas so many emotions and
oxytocin firing right there.
We're going to remember thatbrand and that cause, right,
yeah?
Speaker 2 (09:09):
And a big point of this is that people won't always
remember the words you said.
They will always remember howyou made them feel.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Love that quote Maya Angelou right.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Check me on that I don't remember who said it, but
I remember how that quote mademe feel Nate's going to correct
it in the comments.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Oh, that's right.
I remember how that quote mademe feel.
So it turns out.
Storytelling that shows care,community, helping others we can
all think of probably somethingin the last 24 hours, some
heroic story that showed up inour feeds or something like that
that's oxytocin.
So, like that, right, there iswhat you want to be doing in
(09:48):
your ads.
There's another thing calledthe novelty encoding hypothesis,
and that's just.
The brain pays extra attentionto new and unpredictable things.
It's just we're wired to like.
It's the thing that keeps thenature, it's the thing that
keeps the monkey fromoverreacting to wrestling in the
bushes.
He knows what the wrestling inthe bush is.
If it's a lion that's going toeat him, he knows what that is.
(10:11):
Or if it's just a wombat orsomething Wombats and lions,
Scientific right.
We are like a million times anhour just assessing things all
around us and secretly, you know, picking our ears up when
something doesn't sound like itbelongs Right.
Roy says you can close youreyes, but you can never close
(10:35):
your ears.
Yeah, how else would you knowthat there's a burglar in your
house in the middle of the night?
Your brain is constantly on apattern.
Just you know, journey like aanalytical pattern finding thing
, and when there's somethingthat doesn't belong, that's what
gets it.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
So pattern finding thing, and when there's
something that doesn't belong,that's what gets it.
So this is another point ofthis.
My dad's an artist, he's apainter, and he always said that
the focal point of the paintingis the spot where the darkest
dark and the lightest light areside by side.
Wow, the point of highestcontrast is where your eye goes.
Wow.
So pattern disrupting, or highcontrast Divergence, has a huge
impact on people.
Or high contrast.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Divergence has a huge impact on people.
So there's another principle wecan use.
It's like new, surprising anddifferent, and we're going to
talk about, maybe, how to selectsome different words and we're
going to show you some ads wherewe'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 modeor somebody goes to create your
ad, there's a general templateof like do you need X, Y and Z?
(11:32):
Well, we provide X, Y and Z andwe've been in business for, you
know, 11 to 2 years and we haveX amount of combined experience
and yada, yada, yada.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
So remember yada, yada, yada.
When you've heard before you'renot on the right track because
you're wanting to do, in a lotof ways, the opposite of what
those are doing.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Yes, that's um, yeah, that is uh.
Ad speak is what that's called.
And so what you want to doinstead is you want to hold
dearly to smiles, fists andtears emotion.
Les Bennett and Peter Fieldsdid the largest study on
advertising campaigns in history.
It was like 12 or 13 years,studied billions of dollars
(12:19):
worth of advertising spend andthey came up with a couple of
things.
We've talked about this studybefore, but here's a couple of
key things.
The brands that grew the fastest, were able to charge the most,
had the highest customerretention, grew the fastest,
were able to charge the most,had the highest customer
retention and just gained themost market share Were equipped
with.
70% of their campaign was anemotional, emotional campaign,
(12:41):
emotional branding campaign.
30% was what they calledactivation, which is lead
generation.
By now it's a perfect time, but70% of the money and the
messaging was emotionalcampaigns.
So that's where smiles, fistsand tears comes in.
Somebody says would I reallywant to make somebody mad in my
ad?
Yes, it's okay to rufflefeathers.
Yes, we do it all the time, andwe have a lot of instances
(13:04):
where people are calling turnthat dang ad off.
Or I can't believe you saidthat it's like.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
That is how you know it's working, because you've
gotten you know fists and tearsFor every one of those we get.
We get 10 calls saying I lovethat ad so much I tell all my
friends about it.
Yes.
I hum it in the car, you knowit's just.
As it's way more common to getthat.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Yes, there will always be crazies, but what you
know for sure is, when you'rehearing that type of feedback,
good or bad, is that you areactually getting attention, and
most ads, as we know, do not getattention.
So fists, fists making peopleangry is like.
Usually.
The best way to do that is tomake them angry at something
(13:45):
that you're standing with themfor.
Yeah, you're both throwingrocks at something.
Yeah, so the big bad wolf ofhigh energy bills or the big bad
wolf?
Speaker 2 (13:51):
of Families fighting because you didn't have a will
or an estate plan ready.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Yes, exactly, and it could just be out-of-town
roofers that want to rip you off.
I'm just thinking of a couplethat we're going to talk about
in a second.
And then tears, that's thoseSarah McLachlan arms of an angel
, moments where the sad, youknow, starving animals need your
help and all of that, and theydo.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
I'm not trying to uh to undermine that but also
smiles and tears can go hand inhand.
You know there's a lot ofreally emotional moments when,
whenever you are making someonecry in a good way, hopefully.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Yeah, Heartfelt stories.
I think of the ad uh, where thegrandma has dementia and it's
the granddaughter that takes herin grandpa's old truck.
I think it's a Chevy ad.
It says let's make today a goodday.
It's either Chevy or.
Ford, I should have known.
I think it's Chevy, I'm mostpositive it's Chevy.
But this goes to you don't justwant to do that by itself, you
want to land it within yourproduct and that when you do
(14:49):
those two things, probably know,probably you know 20 seconds of
your 30 second ads are makingpeople feel something and then
you connect it to your brand atthe end.
That's what equals thatlong-term memory, uh, recall.
So anything you would add tothat.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
I think um ruffling feathers.
In one way or another, ifyou're not making someone mad,
you're probably not reachinganyone, you know, or if you're
not making someone cry or laugh.
Also, something youconsistently tell me is, if
you're writing an ad, if you'renot making yourself laugh, no
one else is going to laugh, andso that's the biggest thing, if
it's not affecting you before iteven goes on air, then it's not
(15:25):
going to affect anyone else.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Yeah, if we're not writing this way inside our four
walls and we're not high-fivingor laughing at each other like
we haven't tried hard enough.
And so I think it was Roy thatalso said most ads aren't
written to persuade, they'rewritten not to offend.
And very often and this is forlisteners if you're getting your
stuff produced by somebody elsethat's not insisting on being
(15:50):
in the room with all your peopleand learning about the heart of
your company, you're probablynot going to get good stuff any
other way.
We have to spend hours andhours and days and days of just
producing these campaigns withthe founders or with the person
in the room, understanding whothey are.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
One of the big things that we ask typically is what
was your pissed off moment whenyou decided?
Speaker 1 (16:10):
to start a company.
What was your adrenaline moment?
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Yeah, yeah, that's the moment that that's fists.
And you know, that's whatprobably sets you apart from
your competitors, and those arethe things you should be talking
about.
Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Here's what happens, though Sometimes, very often,
when you have an ad that you'relike, let's say, you and I are
really excited about it, and youtake it to the client and
they're like, yeah, wow, that'swhoa, you sure you want to say
that?
You sure you want to do that,or is that?
Doesn't that make us look dumbor something?
Um, and they take it back totheir safe community and very
well-meaning friends go.
Now, that's going to make youlook unprofessional or um, what.
(16:48):
That doesn't even say anythingabout what you do or you know,
or why they should choose you,or whatever.
You should talk about how youhave a quality product.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Yeah, it's like yes.
Speaker 5 (16:56):
You should talk about how friendly and knowledgeable
you are.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
I think that'd be better.
Yes, because it's safe.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
So we've learned very often to take ads to clients
and we're like, hey, we have anad that's safe and probably
won't, you know, move the needleall that much, but it's safe.
Or we have a campaign that'sgoing to be a little, take a
little courage from you, butit's the one that's going to
move mountains, yeah, and so wejust lay it out and it's their
(17:22):
choice really.
But Frank and me have beenclients.
Choose the courageous route.
We do, yeah, because we workwith courageous people.
But that's what's coming foryou, like there's going to be
somebody that's going to bringyou a really good idea and you
or your wife or your employeesor your office manager is going
to be scared to run it.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
And you need to run it because if you're not making
somebody mad, they're going tosay it's too specific, it's
going to ruffle feathers, or ooh, that's going to make some of
our potential customersuncomfortable, or something like
that.
Yes, and the truth is that thatspecificity is going to do
wonders for you.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Yeah, if it isn't happy, sad or mad, it's an
invisible ad.
There you go, that's good.
So with that, avoid thepredictable.
You need to go and listen toall of your competitors' ads and
write down, and you probablyknow this.
But if you find yourself sayingsomething that just sounds like
the lowest price guarantee oryou've tried the rest, now come
(18:17):
try the best, like any of thatcliche, unsubstantiatable crap
that's out there that everybodywants to write because it's easy
and it's like ooh, that soundslike a good ad.
And, by the way, the samepeople 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 (18:31):
Yeah, because there's .
That sounds like an ad.
I know what an ad is and thatsounds like an ad?
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Yes, but David Ogilvie is famous for saying you
cannot bore people into buyingyour product.
You can only interest them.
And so even if you're evenactually, especially if what
you're selling is not all thatdifferent Like most of these
actually, every client we'regoing to talk about today
there's a competitor that doesexactly what they do and
probably, in most cases, just asgood.
(18:55):
We just tell the better story,we make them more memorable,
more likable, and that oxytocinand that adrenaline turns it
into trust.
And so it's just like they gowith what they know and they go
with what their chemical limbicsystem says.
This is the right person to gowith.
That's the magic of tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Marketing Combining words that people have never
heard next to one another is asuper powerful thing for being
remembered and for gettingengagement, for getting people
to lean in and you can't tuneout uncommon combinations of
words, seussification is a lotof times we say you know, yeah,
(19:33):
Making up your own terms, thingslike that, that really works.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
So do you want to see one of these ads in action?
Because I have someSeussification going on.
Let's play the ad from thatSolid Roofing campaign where
people have just been calling inleft and right, absolutely.
Speaker 7 (19:48):
Well, the weatherman said watch out for the
thunderstorms about.
It's going to be windy and itcould even hail, but you are
nice and cozy because you havesome trusted buddies.
Should the Oklahoma weatherprevail, solid roofs, solid
roofs, solid roofs, solid roofs.
(20:09):
When the raindrops are fallingand your ceiling is a-sopping,
just call your solid guys atSolid Roofs, solid Roofs.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
There, it is All right.
So there's a couple of thingsyou could pinpoint.
Everybody's going to go that'sa great jingle and there's
nobody that's happier to hearabout that being a fun jingle,
because I know the guy thatwrote it.
You could say the animation ison point and it is.
The cartoons are fun andwhimsical and the kids march
around the living room and allthat.
(20:39):
But let's look at some wordcombinations.
We didn't say roofing company,we've been here, think of us.
We didn't say look at ourfamily, come experience the
difference.
All those cliches we said whenthe raindrops are falling and
you're sealing as a sopping.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Yeah, when the weather's looking cruddy, just
know that you got a buddy, yep.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
And trust your solid guys at Solid Roofs, right?
That means all the things thateverybody 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 campaignwhere we're using unpredictable
(21:23):
word combinations and maybe alittle bit of oxytocin.
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (21:24):
Hi, I'm Margaret Franklin and I'm 79 years old
Now.
I've got an attic full of minkfurs and a big box of stock
certificates.
My family has no idea that whenmy time comes, oh heavens, I'm
going to blow their minds.
My estate plan coverseverything I've got and it makes
sure they won't be fightingover it once I'm gone.
Ozark's elder law got me allset up.
(21:44):
Your legacy is too important tobe left to chance.
Speaker 5 (21:48):
Schedule your free estate planning consultation in
Springfield, joplin, nixa, ozark, lebanon, marshfield or Branson
.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
That ad got dozens and dozens and dozens of
literally people calling andsaying I love that ad.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
One of the important things about this is that this
is elder law, which typically isend of life planning and things
like that.
Your legacy, your legacy, yourfamily, might be unprotected,
and a lot of the campaignsaround that topic are very
somber, very you know and thatmight seem they're stiff and
they're in suits.
Speaker 6 (22:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
And that might seem like a time for tears, but
that's what everyone else isdoing, and we were the pattern
disruptor in saying what if wemade this fun?
What if we made characters outof this?
What if we told everyone thiscan be a good thing for you and
your family?
And just we zigged, whileeveryone else zagged.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Yeah, you got to zig while they zag.
I love that.
I love the line you wroteYou're like I've got a big box
of stock certificates and sothat's interesting words, right?
We've never heard anybody talkabout it like that.
That's grandma saying I got abig box of stock certificates
and we put in things like minkfurs, a closet full of mink furs
.
And then, if you saw the ad,you're on YouTube and watching
(23:01):
this.
You see she's got big, fancysunglasses and jewelry, but
she's grandma, like everybodyelse knows her as grandma and
that's divergent.
So we did the unpredictable andthen, at the end, your legacy is
too important to leave tochance.
Now a lot of lawyers would comeon and say make sure you have a
(23:23):
solid estate plan.
They would just say it in afactual way and, by the way,
this is an especially toughthing to do.
And these attorneys, theselawyers I love them.
They're some of our favoritepeople, so we know them well.
But they are attorneys, right?
And sometimes when you're anattorney, you're just an
attorney and you can't.
It's hard to not do thepredictable thing, which is
partly why we chose.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
It's all about following the rules.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Which is partly why we chose these characters and we
did like a kind of a goldengirls type thing.
So, um, by the way, do youremember this ad, all the anger
it also got?
I do, yeah, yeah, we got a callfrom someone saying like once a
week for yeah, well, this, thiscampaign, there's, there's
another ad in this with a, withan older fella, and she would
call like I think it is soinsulting that you would put an
old man on your ad and he andyou're making jokes about him
and the actors are like we loveit.
This is a.
This is a great time.
It's the most fun thing we'vedone in a while.
(24:15):
And for every call that thatwoman 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 (24:27):
Which this leads to.
Really, our fourth point usingcharacters, not ad spokespeople.
Okay, when you are even withthe attorneys, even with,
definitely with the roofers youguys saw and we're going to
share a couple campaigns thatprove this further but we don't
look at the client and go, ooh,who are they?
(24:48):
And let's write something thatthey would say.
We say what's the mostinteresting version of them?
We take a few of theircharacteristics and jack them up
to 11 and make them acaricature.
And if you think of every TVcharacter or every movie
character or every memorableperson in a book that you've
ever known, or even some personaof a rock star or some musician
(25:10):
, they have some things thatstand out about them, a few key
things, and we know these aren'treal people, but they're more
interesting because we jackedthose 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 inreal life.
But it's interesting because wecram it in like five seconds,
right, joe the plumber, andyou've never thought about
(25:39):
acting in your life, and youhave a truck and you just go do
great work for people and you'relike, how am I going to be one
of these characters.
Well, if you write things theright way and you have some of
these catchphrases like you'receiling is a soppin' and you're
trusted solid guys, or theladies in white is what we call
these attorney ladies a skilledwriter, and specifically a
(26:00):
skilled writer like Carter, whocan write story arcs and develop
characters, because that's whatthey think they're doing.
Carter's job is not to write anad.
He's writing a mini movie ormini sitcom.
Right, I try to, yeah.
And so you're using characters,not ad spokespeople.
It's not the owner coming onjust to talk about a script.
(26:21):
You turn the owner or the actorinto an actual character and
that gives them life.
They have hooks, they havevisual cues, they have
consistent things about them,they have a certain look to them
and that creates what's calledthe picture superiority effect,
which just means we remembercaricatures more than we
(26:43):
remember mundane people.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
Yeah, that's what leads to people in this campaign
.
They call and they ask for theladies in white.
Yes, they Google search theladies in white.
Oh, yeah, not elder lawattorney.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Yes, yeah, and guess what the best part about that of
all is?
Our competitors can't take thataway from us.
They can take elder lawattorney.
Yes, yeah, and we.
And guess what the best partabout that of all is?
Our competitors can't take thataway from us.
They can take elder lawattorney.
Actually, in that particularcase, there's been like four
firms try to name their, theirfirm, like very, very, very
close to what that firm name is.
They're stealing their name.
Essentially, they cannot stealthe ladies in white because we
built them up and there are what?
(27:16):
25, 30 of these ads now.
It's a campaign that perpetuallygoes and if you look to the
comments on these ads on socialmedia, you would see people love
them.
They're like I love the ladiesin white.
And so what have we done?
Let's review real quick.
We have created smiles, fistsand tears with oxytocin and
adrenaline.
That sets these campaigns upfor long-term memory, even if
(27:42):
the person didn't ask toremember a legal ad or a roofing
ad.
Right yeah, We've avoidedpredictable phrases.
We've taken normal things andjust put different words around
them and said them in our way, away that nobody can steal from
us, and then we've usedcharacters instead of
spokespeople.
Would you like to see a couplemore ads where we're doing this?
I would like to.
(28:02):
Would you like to see thoseCarter Fire Up?
This is a totally differentcategory.
This is next high-speedinternet.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
This is radio.
Yeah, this is a YouTube ad thatwe turned in, or a radio ad
that we turned into YouTube.
Do we want to just play it asradio?
Speaker 1 (28:18):
Play it as the YouTube, but it's important to
know that because there's a lotof people going.
Well, how do I make characterson radio?
This is how you do it.
This is how you do that.
Speaker 5 (28:26):
Hey, what are you doing?
Why are you waiting around?
We got things to do games, toplay movies, to watch all that
junk.
You're trying to open theWikipedia 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-speedinternet way out in the boonies
where you call home.
Next, high-speed internet.
I'm going to say it again Next,high-speed internet.
(28:46):
The fastest path to lightningfast, never crash, save some
cash.
Fiber optic speed Go tomynextfibercom If your current
internet can't even.
Probably my favorite thingwe've done is that.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
And there's like a dozen of those right.
What do you have to say foryourself on that campaign,
carter?
Speaker 2 (29:06):
Yeah Well, first off, it's all about, you know it's
fiber internet, so it's allabout speed.
And so if you come on and say,and next, fiber internet, we
strive to create long-termcustomers by providing
excellence, you know youinstantly get tuned out, or they
go.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
you can get up to 300 megabits per second for only
$98 a month, and it's likeeverybody's doing that.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
When you say you want fast, you need speed.
You know the fastest path, thelightning fast, never crash.
Save some cash.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Fiber optic speed you know, Nobody could steal that
from us.
Yeah, but hey, if you are ahigh-speed internet company in
another market and you want touse this, we will license it to
you.
This is our work.
But and this client has alimited geography in Arkansas
love them, they allowed us tohave some fun and kudos to them.
They had the courage to let usdo this.
Big kudos to Courtney.
But nobody in your market couldsteal that from you.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
And another aspect is this ad obviously is a pattern
disruptor from the cadence of alot of other ads and it almost
overwhelms you with language.
People won't remember exactlywhat you say, but they will
remember that you made themlaugh in this case.
And every time that the adcomes on they hear hey, what are
you doing?
Why are you waiting around?
They tune in because they wantto hear what they missed last
(30:19):
time, almost like a song.
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
That's a sitcom.
I mean that is the fabric ofanything that is worth having
more episodes and built on yeah,it's rewatchable, rewatchable.
We watch Office and Seinfeld andFriends over and over and over
again because of the same thing,right.
And friends over and over andover again because of the same
thing, right.
(30:42):
So one last ad I will leave youwith is another corner of an
example.
This one is for a car dealer.
Think of every car dealer adyou've ever seen, because
they're all the exact same.
Yeah, let our family well,actually they're trying to.
Yeah, car dealers have longtried to make themselves human,
but they're like let our familyhelp yours, and we have to sell
560 Fords by Saturday, andnobody ever believes it.
(31:06):
So this is a company calledJames River Ford and James River
Chrysler, and they named itafter the James River.
And so we didn't say you cantrust us, because nobody
believes that.
We didn't say we're the easyplace to shop.
Nobody believes that either.
You're a car dealer and you arecursed by your category.
Yeah, Instead we made thischaracter.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
And part of this is in our city.
If you're not from SouthwestMissouri, there's a James River,
everything, oh yeah, there's somany things that have the James
River name and we're like wegot to figure out how to become
the thing, the company thatpeople think of when they hear
the James River, and that's abig part of what we were doing
here.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Yes, so actually with a remarkably low ad spend.
There are thousands of commentson 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 evenkidding, it's not just like a
one-off, there's like 50 peoplehave said that exact same thing
in one comment stream, and so wepersonified, we made a
character.
There's nothing about this,that's predictable, and let's
(32:10):
see if you get some smiles,fists and tears from that.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
And also, when you watch this, think about uncommon
words or word combinations andhow the humor comes from that
too words or word combinationsand how the humor comes from
that too.
Speaker 9 (32:23):
They've been naming highways after me.
They've been naming the riversafter me, and it's funny because
it's my last name I'm jamesriver.
I'm james and all along I'vejust been here james river, ford
and james river crass the dodge, jeep, ram.
I'm here to serve people.
Bring on down your pole andbring on down your net.
We got big old deals down herefor James River Ford and James
(32:50):
River Chrysler, dodge, jeep andRam.
Drop us a line and the dealsare bigger.
Come on down to James River,I'm telling y'all, come on down
right now, come on down, don'tdelay, not today.
Come on down to James River,I'm telling y'all come on down
right now, come on down, don'tdelay, not today.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
Come on down.
Okay, this is one of my bestfriends, but he's a goofball car
dealer, right yeah?
And instead of trying to makehim some slick suited up, we
care about your service and allthat stuff.
We were just like feeding themlines and just saying, hey,
(33:25):
pretend like you're this old man.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
yeah, river, let's have fun and pull down the
facade of the car dealership.
Oh, why don't you sit righthere and let me tell you, let's
get you taken care of and I'mgonna get you a great deal.
Yes, and if you just beauthentic, especially in this
market, it does a ton.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
Yeah, we let him be his real self, and so that's
what you want to do.
You want to do smiles, fists ortears, so you invoke oxytocin
or adrenaline.
You want to avoid thepredictable like it's the plague
, and you want to makecharacters.
And if you do that, whether ornot you have a catchy jingle or
awesome production, guys likethese guys, if you just do those
things, it doesn't matter whatyou produce, it's going to work
(34:07):
and it's going to catapult youto people thinking of you,
wanting to do business with you,trusting you, choosing you,
long before they ever went to asearch engine page and looked
for your competitors.
Yeah, and it makes everythingwork better.
That's what Tomorrow Marketingis about.
That is what Frank and Maven isabout.
That's what Tomorrow Marketingis about.
That is what Frank and Maven isabout.
That's what the Maven MarketingPodcast is about.
We want to see you guys win sobadly.
The money you're spending isalready good enough.
You are putting effort intoyour business and just by
(34:36):
tweaking a few of these things,we want to see the stuff you're
already doing just get so muchbetter, because when that
happens, your community getsbetter, your employees get
better, people have more fun and, my goodness, couldn't we use
more of that?
And business just becomes morerewarding and wholesome, and I'm
100% convinced small business,just like the ones we talked
about today, has a biggerpotential to change the world
than AI or any corporation evercould, and so that's why we're
(35:01):
here.
Thank you for being on theepisode this week.
Carter's a very busy man.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
Thank you for having me, it's been great.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
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 giveyou some feedback on your
campaign, maybe inject it with alittle more oxytocin.
Fire it over to mavenmonday atfrankenmavencom, and we'll be
back here every week answeringyour real life marketing
questions, because marketers whocannot teach you why are just a
(35:29):
fancy lie.
Have a great week.
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 starmovie list, bro.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
You were asking about this earlier.
I have a list of gold starmovies is what I call them of
just movies that I thinkeveryone should see in their
life, and I gave you a fewrecommendations from that
earlier.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
I think you're qualified uh more than anybody I
know to have a gold star listyou want to tell us why that
might be.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Um, I just love movies, I love storytelling, I
love writing, directing, makingthings magical, making a an
impact on people.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Carter is an award-winning screenwriter and
movie producer and he is makingsome really, really awesome
things happen in the movie space, like he's won some really cool
things and he's on his way toreleasing some feature films
that are going to be.
You're going to hear about them.
They're awesome, and we arelucky enough for almost 10 years
(01:03):
now to have him as our chief ofvideo at FrankenMaven.
He produces whimsical campaignsworthy of all of the memorable
things we talk about.
We talk about making your brandfamous.
Carter is behind most of thecampaigns here at FrankenMaven
that that's happened with, andso today it is a gift for you
all.
I promise that he's here andwe're going to break down what
(01:26):
makes ad campaigns memorable,and then we're going to share
some ridiculous just proof ofthat, of the campaigns where
people are literally calling usand our clients thanking us for
the ads we produced.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Yeah, us and our clients thanking us for the ads
we produced.
Yeah, ads that don't just notjust ads that people remember,
but that they like so much thatthey have to pick up the phone
and call the company and say whomade those.
You know, yeah, and you'll seethat here in a second.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
And so I know you might be like being like really
does that actually happen, guys?
This is happening like multipletimes per week and I'm going to
share just just like threepieces of proof.
In the last week that'shappened.
Okay, this is a campaign for aclient we're building ads for in
Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Check it out.
Speaker 4 (02:12):
Thank you for calling solid roofing.
This is Lilla.
How can I help you?
Yes, and are you the ones thathave the commercial with the
guys marking across the screen?
Yes, we are.
I like that commercial.
Speaker 5 (02:25):
Oh, thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 4 (02:28):
Okay, okay.
How many times do I say it?
It always makes me smile.
Oh, we appreciate that.
Thank you.
Yeah, I like that.
I'm going to put you in mycontact so when I need a roof
and I probably will in the nextcouple of years I'll give you a
call.
Oh well, we appreciate that.
We look forward to working withyou.
Do you come to Bartlesville andDewey?
(02:48):
Yes, ma'am, we do.
Okay, I want to make sure.
Okay, I'm going to put you inmy contacts and save that, but I
don't know who came up withthat commercial.
But I like it.
Well, thank you, we appreciatethat.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
You're welcome, all right.
Speaker 4 (03:02):
Have a good week you too.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Out of the blue.
This is like 10 o'clock on aTuesday.
This lady calls.
I like that commercial and I'mgoing to put you in my phone
book.
Okay, All right, that couldhappen to anybody once.
Okay, We've got like 20 ofthese just in recent memory.
Let's play another one.
Speaker 6 (03:20):
Thank you for calling Solid Roofing.
This is Lilla.
How can I help you?
Hey, lilla.
Jeff McGelligan, calling fromOwasso, I just have to share.
I was at Reesers.
I had everybody in my mindsinging the Solid Roof jingle
Solid Roof, solid Roof, solidRoof, solid Roof.
Oh nice, oh, it was great.
(03:40):
And somebody goes I love thatcommercial.
I said oh yeah great.
I said actually I was readingsomething where it won an award
and I'm like what I said?
oh yeah, it's so cool and I said, it's just really kind of
catchy and a guy behind me goesyeah, he goes.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
I can't get out of my bed, so this guy goes on for
literally five minutes on thiscall but what you learn is he
was in the line at some pharmacyor something and the ad comes
on TV and the whole line startsmimicking this commercial and
singing the jingle.
Yeah, coolest thing ever.
Right, but we're going to talkabout it.
Part of it is the jingle, partof it is some other things you
(04:21):
should be doing.
Here's some other fan mail.
That is the best commercial out.
I march to it every time I seeit.
Like that just was written in ontheir website.
So, believe it or not, this hasbeen happening at Frank and
Maven for years, and this is notabout us pounding our chest,
but it is about us sharingwhat's behind those campaigns.
(04:42):
And so we're going to share, Ithink, four different ads with
you.
All of these have hadindividual fan mail.
These are just the ones we hadin recent memory, but I mean,
this has been happening for adecade.
And so what makes that happen?
Let's go scientific for just aminute, because this actually is
a neurological thing.
(05:03):
There is some pinpointableingredients that we can attach
to when we want to make thishappen, and I want to say this
first A lot of people want tohave catchy ads.
A lot of people want to havefunny, humorous ads, but the
problem with that is, unlessyou're a really, really, really
big brand, often you can justhave a one-off ad that was like
(05:27):
Ooh, that was a good ad, and itdoesn't translate to business.
So what makes the difference injust having something that was
funny and then them actuallygoing?
You know what I like you somuch.
I'm going to attach you tolong-term memory.
I'm going to put you in myphone book, because the holy
grail of advertising is thatwhen people need what we do,
they think of us first.
Yeah.
And they tell their friendsabout you.
(05:48):
They tell their friends andthey go out of their way and all
the stuff we talk about in thispodcast.
That's why are your Google adsso expensive and they're getting
more expensive and why areFacebook leads so hard?
And lead generation in generalis just never, ever going to get
easier.
It is always going to getharder.
But when you were the one theygo ah, roofer, or ah, you know
(06:11):
elder law attorney or you know,Fiber internet company.
Any service yeah, any serviceprovider.
It's like I'm just going to gostraight to them and it is like
hundreds of times cheaper to bidon your own name or just show
up when somebody types your namethan it is to try to be on the
list of 50 of your competitors.
There are a couple of chemicalsthat are present in the brain
(06:32):
when people take randominformation and store it to
long-term involuntary recall.
Memory Like this is some nerdydoctor stuff, carter.
What are those two chemicals?
Adrenaline and oxytocin?
Those two things tend to happenadrenaline and oxytocin.
We're going to talk about howto create those things, but
those are emotional experiences.
(06:53):
One of the core values at Frankand Maven, like behind all of
our work, is if ads… If theydon't bring smiles, fists or
tears, they fall on deaf ears.
If your ads don't bring smiles,fists or tears, they fall on
deaf ears.
It's in our book.
We've known this somehowforever and it just keeps
proving itself over and over andover over the last 10 years.
So you want to invokeadrenaline, which is the pay
(07:17):
attention hormone.
It's usually triggered byexcitement, surprise, fear or
high energy moments.
It increases arousal.
Telling the brain this matters,remember it.
You have heard things like theweather report or the daily news
or the mundane things in yourlife when your mom calls you and
(07:39):
says the same things over andover.
You've heard those things amillion times in your life but
those aren't like things you tryto remember.
But if I told you there's beenan accident and someone you love
is hurt, for the rest of yourlife you will remember exactly
where you were, what you werewearing probably what I was
wearing, what was going on thatday, what you had for lunch for
(08:02):
the rest of your life becausethat was an important moment
right, absolutely, and even on asmaller scale.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
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 importantthing.
Carter's done that exactly fourtimes.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
I can remember them all, it's true, and so it's just
what breaks predictability andwhat breaks the mundane um and
then puts you in some sort offight or flight mode, always
gets remembered.
That's the, that's the negativeside, so that's the.
That's the fists and tears,maybe.
(08:39):
Uh, oxytocin is the trust andbond hormone.
This gets released, um, duringmoments of empathy, connection,
shared joy.
Uh, it makes people feel warmtowards the source, increasing
brand trust and recall.
This is, this is yourClydesdale ads.
This is your puppy ads.
This is your Sarah McLaughlinads, like it doesn't matter what
(09:01):
they're selling, because therewas so many emotions and
oxytocin firing right there.
We're going to remember thatbrand and that cause, right,
yeah?
Speaker 2 (09:09):
And a big point of this is that people won't always
remember the words you said.
They will always remember howyou made them feel.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Love that quote Maya Angelou right.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Check me on that I don't remember who said it, but
I remember how that quote mademe feel Nate's going to correct
it in the comments.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Oh, that's right.
I remember how that quote mademe feel.
So it turns out.
Storytelling that shows care,community, helping others we can
all think of probably somethingin the last 24 hours, some
heroic story that showed up inour feeds or something like that
that's oxytocin.
So, like that, right, there iswhat you want to be doing in
(09:48):
your ads.
There's another thing calledthe novelty encoding hypothesis,
and that's just.
The brain pays extra attentionto new and unpredictable things.
It's just we're wired to like.
It's the thing that keeps thenature, it's the thing that
keeps the monkey fromoverreacting to wrestling in the
bushes.
He knows what the wrestling inthe bush is.
If it's a lion that's going toeat him, he knows what that is.
(10:11):
Or if it's just a wombat orsomething Wombats and lions,
Scientific right.
We are like a million times anhour just assessing things all
around us and secretly, you know, picking our ears up when
something doesn't sound like itbelongs Right.
Roy says you can close youreyes, but you can never close
(10:35):
your ears.
Yeah, how else would you knowthat there's a burglar in your
house in the middle of the night?
Your brain is constantly on apattern.
Just you know, journey like aanalytical pattern finding thing
, and when there's somethingthat doesn't belong, that's what
gets it.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
So pattern finding thing, and when there's
something that doesn't belong,that's what gets it.
So this is another point ofthis.
My dad's an artist, he's apainter, and he always said that
the focal point of the paintingis the spot where the darkest
dark and the lightest light areside by side.
Wow, the point of highestcontrast is where your eye goes.
Wow.
So pattern disrupting, or highcontrast Divergence, has a huge
impact on people.
Or high contrast.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Divergence has a huge impact on people.
So there's another principle wecan use.
It's like new, surprising anddifferent, and we're going to
talk about, maybe, how to selectsome different words and we're
going to show you some ads wherewe'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 modeor somebody goes to create your
ad, there's a general templateof like do you need X, Y and Z?
(11:32):
Well, we provide X, Y and Z andwe've been in business for, you
know, 11 to 2 years and we haveX amount of combined experience
and yada, yada, yada.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
So remember yada, yada, yada.
When you've heard before you'renot on the right track because
you're wanting to do, in a lotof ways, the opposite of what
those are doing.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Yes, that's um, yeah, that is uh.
Ad speak is what that's called.
And so what you want to doinstead is you want to hold
dearly to smiles, fists andtears emotion.
Les Bennett and Peter Fieldsdid the largest study on
advertising campaigns in history.
It was like 12 or 13 years,studied billions of dollars
(12:19):
worth of advertising spend andthey came up with a couple of
things.
We've talked about this studybefore, but here's a couple of
key things.
The brands that grew the fastest, were able to charge the most,
had the highest customerretention, grew the fastest,
were able to charge the most,had the highest customer
retention and just gained themost market share Were equipped
with.
70% of their campaign was anemotional, emotional campaign,
(12:41):
emotional branding campaign.
30% was what they calledactivation, which is lead
generation.
By now it's a perfect time, but70% of the money and the
messaging was emotionalcampaigns.
So that's where smiles, fistsand tears comes in.
Somebody says would I reallywant to make somebody mad in my
ad?
Yes, it's okay to rufflefeathers.
Yes, we do it all the time, andwe have a lot of instances
(13:04):
where people are calling turnthat dang ad off.
Or I can't believe you saidthat it's like.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
That is how you know it's working, because you've
gotten you know fists and tearsFor every one of those we get.
We get 10 calls saying I lovethat ad so much I tell all my
friends about it.
Yes.
I hum it in the car, you knowit's just.
As it's way more common to getthat.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Yes, there will always be crazies, but what you
know for sure is, when you'rehearing that type of feedback,
good or bad, is that you areactually getting attention, and
most ads, as we know, do not getattention.
So fists, fists making peopleangry is like.
Usually.
The best way to do that is tomake them angry at something
(13:45):
that you're standing with themfor.
Yeah, you're both throwingrocks at something.
Yeah, so the big bad wolf ofhigh energy bills or the big bad
wolf?
Speaker 2 (13:51):
of Families fighting because you didn't have a will
or an estate plan ready.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Yes, exactly, and it could just be out-of-town
roofers that want to rip you off.
I'm just thinking of a couplethat we're going to talk about
in a second.
And then tears, that's thoseSarah McLachlan arms of an angel
, moments where the sad, youknow, starving animals need your
help and all of that, and theydo.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
I'm not trying to uh to undermine that but also
smiles and tears can go hand inhand.
You know there's a lot ofreally emotional moments when,
whenever you are making someonecry in a good way, hopefully.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Yeah, Heartfelt stories.
I think of the ad uh, where thegrandma has dementia and it's
the granddaughter that takes herin grandpa's old truck.
I think it's a Chevy ad.
It says let's make today a goodday.
It's either Chevy or.
Ford, I should have known.
I think it's Chevy, I'm mostpositive it's Chevy.
But this goes to you don't justwant to do that by itself, you
want to land it within yourproduct and that when you do
(14:49):
those two things, probably know,probably you know 20 seconds of
your 30 second ads are makingpeople feel something and then
you connect it to your brand atthe end.
That's what equals thatlong-term memory, uh, recall.
So anything you would add tothat.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
I think um ruffling feathers.
In one way or another, ifyou're not making someone mad,
you're probably not reachinganyone, you know, or if you're
not making someone cry or laugh.
Also, something youconsistently tell me is, if
you're writing an ad, if you'renot making yourself laugh, no
one else is going to laugh, andso that's the biggest thing, if
it's not affecting you before iteven goes on air, then it's not
(15:25):
going to affect anyone else.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Yeah, if we're not writing this way inside our four
walls and we're not high-fivingor laughing at each other like
we haven't tried hard enough.
And so I think it was Roy thatalso said most ads aren't
written to persuade, they'rewritten not to offend.
And very often and this is forlisteners if you're getting your
stuff produced by somebody elsethat's not insisting on being
(15:50):
in the room with all your peopleand learning about the heart of
your company, you're probablynot going to get good stuff any
other way.
We have to spend hours andhours and days and days of just
producing these campaigns withthe founders or with the person
in the room, understanding whothey are.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
One of the big things that we ask typically is what
was your pissed off moment whenyou decided?
Speaker 1 (16:10):
to start a company.
What was your adrenaline moment?
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Yeah, yeah, that's the moment that that's fists.
And you know, that's whatprobably sets you apart from
your competitors, and those arethe things you should be talking
about.
Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Here's what happens, though Sometimes, very often,
when you have an ad that you'relike, let's say, you and I are
really excited about it, and youtake it to the client and
they're like, yeah, wow, that'swhoa, you sure you want to say
that?
You sure you want to do that,or is that?
Doesn't that make us look dumbor something?
Um, and they take it back totheir safe community and very
well-meaning friends go.
Now, that's going to make youlook unprofessional or um, what.
(16:48):
That doesn't even say anythingabout what you do or you know,
or why they should choose you,or whatever.
You should talk about how youhave a quality product.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Yeah, it's like yes.
Speaker 5 (16:56):
You should talk about how friendly and knowledgeable
you are.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
I think that'd be better.
Yes, because it's safe.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
So we've learned very often to take ads to clients
and we're like, hey, we have anad that's safe and probably
won't, you know, move the needleall that much, but it's safe.
Or we have a campaign that'sgoing to be a little, take a
little courage from you, butit's the one that's going to
move mountains, yeah, and so wejust lay it out and it's their
(17:22):
choice really.
But Frank and me have beenclients.
Choose the courageous route.
We do, yeah, because we workwith courageous people.
But that's what's coming foryou, like there's going to be
somebody that's going to bringyou a really good idea and you
or your wife or your employeesor your office manager is going
to be scared to run it.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
And you need to run it because if you're not making
somebody mad, they're going tosay it's too specific, it's
going to ruffle feathers, or ooh, that's going to make some of
our potential customersuncomfortable, or something like
that.
Yes, and the truth is that thatspecificity is going to do
wonders for you.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Yeah, if it isn't happy, sad or mad, it's an
invisible ad.
There you go, that's good.
So with that, avoid thepredictable.
You need to go and listen toall of your competitors' ads and
write down, and you probablyknow this.
But if you find yourself sayingsomething that just sounds like
the lowest price guarantee oryou've tried the rest, now come
(18:17):
try the best, like any of thatcliche, unsubstantiatable crap
that's out there that everybodywants to write because it's easy
and it's like ooh, that soundslike a good ad.
And, by the way, the samepeople 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 (18:31):
Yeah, because there's .
That sounds like an ad.
I know what an ad is and thatsounds like an ad?
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Yes, but David Ogilvie is famous for saying you
cannot bore people into buyingyour product.
You can only interest them.
And so even if you're evenactually, especially if what
you're selling is not all thatdifferent Like most of these
actually, every client we'regoing to talk about today
there's a competitor that doesexactly what they do and
probably, in most cases, just asgood.
(18:55):
We just tell the better story,we make them more memorable,
more likable, and that oxytocinand that adrenaline turns it
into trust.
And so it's just like they gowith what they know and they go
with what their chemical limbicsystem says.
This is the right person to gowith.
That's the magic of tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Marketing Combining words that people have never
heard next to one another is asuper powerful thing for being
remembered and for gettingengagement, for getting people
to lean in and you can't tuneout uncommon combinations of
words, seussification is a lotof times we say you know, yeah,
(19:33):
Making up your own terms, thingslike that, that really works.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
So do you want to see one of these ads in action?
Because I have someSeussification going on.
Let's play the ad from thatSolid Roofing campaign where
people have just been calling inleft and right, absolutely.
Speaker 7 (19:48):
Well, the weatherman said watch out for the
thunderstorms about.
It's going to be windy and itcould even hail, but you are
nice and cozy because you havesome trusted buddies.
Should the Oklahoma weatherprevail, solid roofs, solid
roofs, solid roofs, solid roofs.
(20:09):
When the raindrops are fallingand your ceiling is a-sopping,
just call your solid guys atSolid Roofs, solid Roofs.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
There, it is All right.
So there's a couple of thingsyou could pinpoint.
Everybody's going to go that'sa great jingle and there's
nobody that's happier to hearabout that being a fun jingle,
because I know the guy thatwrote it.
You could say the animation ison point and it is.
The cartoons are fun andwhimsical and the kids march
around the living room and allthat.
(20:39):
But let's look at some wordcombinations.
We didn't say roofing company,we've been here, think of us.
We didn't say look at ourfamily, come experience the
difference.
All those cliches we said whenthe raindrops are falling and
you're sealing as a sopping.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Yeah, when the weather's looking cruddy, just
know that you got a buddy, yep.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
And trust your solid guys at Solid Roofs, right?
That means all the things thateverybody 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 campaignwhere we're using unpredictable
(21:23):
word combinations and maybe alittle bit of oxytocin.
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (21:24):
Hi, I'm Margaret Franklin and I'm 79 years old
Now.
I've got an attic full of minkfurs and a big box of stock
certificates.
My family has no idea that whenmy time comes, oh heavens, I'm
going to blow their minds.
My estate plan coverseverything I've got and it makes
sure they won't be fightingover it once I'm gone.
Ozark's elder law got me allset up.
(21:44):
Your legacy is too important tobe left to chance.
Speaker 5 (21:48):
Schedule your free estate planning consultation in
Springfield, joplin, nixa, ozark, lebanon, marshfield or Branson
.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
That ad got dozens and dozens and dozens of
literally people calling andsaying I love that ad.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
One of the important things about this is that this
is elder law, which typically isend of life planning and things
like that.
Your legacy, your legacy, yourfamily, might be unprotected,
and a lot of the campaignsaround that topic are very
somber, very you know and thatmight seem they're stiff and
they're in suits.
Speaker 6 (22:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
And that might seem like a time for tears, but
that's what everyone else isdoing, and we were the pattern
disruptor in saying what if wemade this fun?
What if we made characters outof this?
What if we told everyone thiscan be a good thing for you and
your family?
And just we zigged, whileeveryone else zagged.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Yeah, you got to zig while they zag.
I love that.
I love the line you wroteYou're like I've got a big box
of stock certificates and sothat's interesting words, right?
We've never heard anybody talkabout it like that.
That's grandma saying I got abig box of stock certificates
and we put in things like minkfurs, a closet full of mink furs
.
And then, if you saw the ad,you're on YouTube and watching
(23:01):
this.
You see she's got big, fancysunglasses and jewelry, but
she's grandma, like everybodyelse knows her as grandma and
that's divergent.
So we did the unpredictable andthen, at the end, your legacy is
too important to leave tochance.
Now a lot of lawyers would comeon and say make sure you have a
(23:23):
solid estate plan.
They would just say it in afactual way and, by the way,
this is an especially toughthing to do.
And these attorneys, theselawyers I love them.
They're some of our favoritepeople, so we know them well.
But they are attorneys, right?
And sometimes when you're anattorney, you're just an
attorney and you can't.
It's hard to not do thepredictable thing, which is
partly why we chose.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
It's all about following the rules.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Which is partly why we chose these characters and we
did like a kind of a goldengirls type thing.
So, um, by the way, do youremember this ad, all the anger
it also got?
I do, yeah, yeah, we got a callfrom someone saying like once a
week for yeah, well, this, thiscampaign, there's, there's
another ad in this with a, withan older fella, and she would
call like I think it is soinsulting that you would put an
old man on your ad and he andyou're making jokes about him
and the actors are like we loveit.
This is a.
This is a great time.
It's the most fun thing we'vedone in a while.
(24:15):
And for every call that thatwoman 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 (24:27):
Which this leads to.
Really, our fourth point usingcharacters, not ad spokespeople.
Okay, when you are even withthe attorneys, even with,
definitely with the roofers youguys saw and we're going to
share a couple campaigns thatprove this further but we don't
look at the client and go, ooh,who are they?
(24:48):
And let's write something thatthey would say.
We say what's the mostinteresting version of them?
We take a few of theircharacteristics and jack them up
to 11 and make them acaricature.
And if you think of every TVcharacter or every movie
character or every memorableperson in a book that you've
ever known, or even some personaof a rock star or some musician
(25:10):
, they have some things thatstand out about them, a few key
things, and we know these aren'treal people, but they're more
interesting because we jackedthose 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 inreal life.
But it's interesting because wecram it in like five seconds,
right, joe the plumber, andyou've never thought about
(25:39):
acting in your life, and youhave a truck and you just go do
great work for people and you'relike, how am I going to be one
of these characters.
Well, if you write things theright way and you have some of
these catchphrases like you'receiling is a soppin' and you're
trusted solid guys, or theladies in white is what we call
these attorney ladies a skilledwriter, and specifically a
(26:00):
skilled writer like Carter, whocan write story arcs and develop
characters, because that's whatthey think they're doing.
Carter's job is not to write anad.
He's writing a mini movie ormini sitcom.
Right, I try to, yeah.
And so you're using characters,not ad spokespeople.
It's not the owner coming onjust to talk about a script.
(26:21):
You turn the owner or the actorinto an actual character and
that gives them life.
They have hooks, they havevisual cues, they have
consistent things about them,they have a certain look to them
and that creates what's calledthe picture superiority effect,
which just means we remembercaricatures more than we
(26:43):
remember mundane people.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
Yeah, that's what leads to people in this campaign
.
They call and they ask for theladies in white.
Yes, they Google search theladies in white.
Oh, yeah, not elder lawattorney.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Yes, yeah, and guess what the best part about that of
all is?
Our competitors can't take thataway from us.
They can take elder lawattorney.
Yes, yeah, and we.
And guess what the best partabout that of all is?
Our competitors can't take thataway from us.
They can take elder lawattorney.
Actually, in that particularcase, there's been like four
firms try to name their, theirfirm, like very, very, very
close to what that firm name is.
They're stealing their name.
Essentially, they cannot stealthe ladies in white because we
built them up and there are what?
(27:16):
25, 30 of these ads now.
It's a campaign that perpetuallygoes and if you look to the
comments on these ads on socialmedia, you would see people love
them.
They're like I love the ladiesin white.
And so what have we done?
Let's review real quick.
We have created smiles, fistsand tears with oxytocin and
adrenaline.
That sets these campaigns upfor long-term memory, even if
(27:42):
the person didn't ask toremember a legal ad or a roofing
ad.
Right yeah, We've avoidedpredictable phrases.
We've taken normal things andjust put different words around
them and said them in our way, away that nobody can steal from
us, and then we've usedcharacters instead of
spokespeople.
Would you like to see a couplemore ads where we're doing this?
I would like to.
(28:02):
Would you like to see thoseCarter Fire Up?
This is a totally differentcategory.
This is next high-speedinternet.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
This is radio.
Yeah, this is a YouTube ad thatwe turned in, or a radio ad
that we turned into YouTube.
Do we want to just play it asradio?
Speaker 1 (28:18):
Play it as the YouTube, but it's important to
know that because there's a lotof people going.
Well, how do I make characterson radio?
This is how you do it.
This is how you do that.
Speaker 5 (28:26):
Hey, what are you doing?
Why are you waiting around?
We got things to do games, toplay movies, to watch all that
junk.
You're trying to open theWikipedia 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-speedinternet way out in the boonies
where you call home.
Next, high-speed internet.
I'm going to say it again Next,high-speed internet.
(28:46):
The fastest path to lightningfast, never crash, save some
cash.
Fiber optic speed Go tomynextfibercom If your current
internet can't even.
Probably my favorite thingwe've done is that.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
And there's like a dozen of those right.
What do you have to say foryourself on that campaign,
carter?
Speaker 2 (29:06):
Yeah Well, first off, it's all about, you know it's
fiber internet, so it's allabout speed.
And so if you come on and say,and next, fiber internet, we
strive to create long-termcustomers by providing
excellence, you know youinstantly get tuned out, or they
go.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
you can get up to 300 megabits per second for only
$98 a month, and it's likeeverybody's doing that.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
When you say you want fast, you need speed.
You know the fastest path, thelightning fast, never crash.
Save some cash.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Fiber optic speed you know, Nobody could steal that
from us.
Yeah, but hey, if you are ahigh-speed internet company in
another market and you want touse this, we will license it to
you.
This is our work.
But and this client has alimited geography in Arkansas
love them, they allowed us tohave some fun and kudos to them.
They had the courage to let usdo this.
Big kudos to Courtney.
But nobody in your market couldsteal that from you.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
And another aspect is this ad obviously is a pattern
disruptor from the cadence of alot of other ads and it almost
overwhelms you with language.
People won't remember exactlywhat you say, but they will
remember that you made themlaugh in this case.
And every time that the adcomes on they hear hey, what are
you doing?
Why are you waiting around?
They tune in because they wantto hear what they missed last
(30:19):
time, almost like a song.
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
That's a sitcom.
I mean that is the fabric ofanything that is worth having
more episodes and built on yeah,it's rewatchable, rewatchable.
We watch Office and Seinfeld andFriends over and over and over
again because of the same thing,right.
And friends over and over andover again because of the same
thing, right.
(30:42):
So one last ad I will leave youwith is another corner of an
example.
This one is for a car dealer.
Think of every car dealer adyou've ever seen, because
they're all the exact same.
Yeah, let our family well,actually they're trying to.
Yeah, car dealers have longtried to make themselves human,
but they're like let our familyhelp yours, and we have to sell
560 Fords by Saturday, andnobody ever believes it.
(31:06):
So this is a company calledJames River Ford and James River
Chrysler, and they named itafter the James River.
And so we didn't say you cantrust us, because nobody
believes that.
We didn't say we're the easyplace to shop.
Nobody believes that either.
You're a car dealer and you arecursed by your category.
Yeah, Instead we made thischaracter.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
And part of this is in our city.
If you're not from SouthwestMissouri, there's a James River,
everything, oh yeah, there's somany things that have the James
River name and we're like wegot to figure out how to become
the thing, the company thatpeople think of when they hear
the James River, and that's abig part of what we were doing
here.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Yes, so actually with a remarkably low ad spend.
There are thousands of commentson 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 evenkidding, it's not just like a
one-off, there's like 50 peoplehave said that exact same thing
in one comment stream, and so wepersonified, we made a
character.
There's nothing about this,that's predictable, and let's
(32:10):
see if you get some smiles,fists and tears from that.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
And also, when you watch this, think about uncommon
words or word combinations andhow the humor comes from that
too words or word combinationsand how the humor comes from
that too.
Speaker 9 (32:23):
They've been naming highways after me.
They've been naming the riversafter me, and it's funny because
it's my last name I'm jamesriver.
I'm james and all along I'vejust been here james river, ford
and james river crass the dodge, jeep, ram.
I'm here to serve people.
Bring on down your pole andbring on down your net.
We got big old deals down herefor James River Ford and James
(32:50):
River Chrysler, dodge, jeep andRam.
Drop us a line and the dealsare bigger.
Come on down to James River,I'm telling y'all, come on down
right now, come on down, don'tdelay, not today.
Come on down to James River,I'm telling y'all come on down
right now, come on down, don'tdelay, not today.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
Come on down.
Okay, this is one of my bestfriends, but he's a goofball car
dealer, right yeah?
And instead of trying to makehim some slick suited up, we
care about your service and allthat stuff.
We were just like feeding themlines and just saying, hey,
(33:25):
pretend like you're this old man.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
yeah, river, let's have fun and pull down the
facade of the car dealership.
Oh, why don't you sit righthere and let me tell you, let's
get you taken care of and I'mgonna get you a great deal.
Yes, and if you just beauthentic, especially in this
market, it does a ton.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
Yeah, we let him be his real self, and so that's
what you want to do.
You want to do smiles, fists ortears, so you invoke oxytocin
or adrenaline.
You want to avoid thepredictable like it's the plague
, and you want to makecharacters.
And if you do that, whether ornot you have a catchy jingle or
awesome production, guys likethese guys, if you just do those
things, it doesn't matter whatyou produce, it's going to work
(34:07):
and it's going to catapult youto people thinking of you,
wanting to do business with you,trusting you, choosing you,
long before they ever went to asearch engine page and looked
for your competitors.
Yeah, and it makes everythingwork better.
That's what Tomorrow Marketingis about.
That is what Frank and Maven isabout.
That's what Tomorrow Marketingis about.
That is what Frank and Maven isabout.
That's what the Maven MarketingPodcast is about.
We want to see you guys win sobadly.
The money you're spending isalready good enough.
You are putting effort intoyour business and just by
(34:36):
tweaking a few of these things,we want to see the stuff you're
already doing just get so muchbetter, because when that
happens, your community getsbetter, your employees get
better, people have more fun and, my goodness, couldn't we use
more of that?
And business just becomes morerewarding and wholesome, and I'm
100% convinced small business,just like the ones we talked
about today, has a biggerpotential to change the world
than AI or any corporation evercould, and so that's why we're
(35:01):
here.
Thank you for being on theepisode this week.
Carter's a very busy man.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
Thank you for having me, it's been great.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
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 giveyou some feedback on your
campaign, maybe inject it with alittle more oxytocin.
Fire it over to mavenmonday atfrankenmavencom, and we'll be
back here every week answeringyour real life marketing
questions, because marketers whocannot teach you why are just a
(35:29):
fancy lie.
Have a great week.
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