March 3, 2025 • 36 mins
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Host: Brandon Welch
Co-Host: Caleb Agee
Executive Producer: Carter Breaux
Audio/Video Producer: Nate the Camera Guy
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Caleb Agee (00:00):
You are being advertised to right now.
We've got all of these ads, butthen, outside of that, we have
a lot of real things vying forour attention.
We've got kids, we've got aschedule, we've got work.
We've got all these things, andI think the attention span of
the average American is lessthan that of a goldfish.
Now we're jumping from thing tothing to thing.
Brandon Welch (00:16):
Don't advertise to goldfish.
You got to be even moreinteresting than that.
You got to advertise to humanbeings.
Human beings.
Welcome to the Maven MarketingPodcast.
Today is Maven Monday.
I'm your host, Brandon Welch,and I'm joined by Caleb Coffee
or tea Agee.
Caleb Agee (00:42):
Oh, always coffee every morning.
But fun fact about me I don'tlike drinking caffeine after
about 10 am, so in the afternoonit's gonna be a nice tea if
it's, if it's cool outside anice tea or an iced a nice, nice
tea herbal tea, herbal tea, youknow something?
Brandon Welch (00:55):
green tea has more caffeine, I think something
without caffeine.
Caleb Agee (00:58):
It'll be an herbal tea for sure.
Brandon Welch (01:00):
Cool, we'll send your white oolong wishes Winter
tea, summer coffee.
Pretty much Okay.
Yeah, and it's got nothing to dowith caffeine.
I claim it doesn't affect me.
I'm sure it does.
But hey, this is the placewhere we answer your real life
marketing questions so you cangrow your business, eliminate
(01:20):
waste in advertising and achievethe big dream.
Not necessarily in that order,but you never want to be doing
the waste in advertising andachieve the big dream.
Not necessarily in that order,but you never want to be doing
the waste in the advertisingwhich is what we're talking
about today.
Yes, so advertising in America,advertising everywhere, right?
Caleb Agee (01:37):
Advertising in the world On the moon.
Brandon Welch (01:38):
Yeah, is expensive.
Yes, and unfortunately, theresearch that we compiled doing
our book called the MavenMarketer, a bestseller and now
available in a hardcover andsoon on audiobook.
As soon as I get a freeafternoon to publish it, we'll
let you know.
Yeah, that has been our thingthat has been discovering why
(02:03):
ads don't work, and the researchthat we came in touch with is
that 8 out of 10 business ownersare not sure that their
advertising is working for them,yet they spend over a trillion
dollars a year on marketing.
Collectively, we want to helpyou do all of the things in
business that make your lifebetter, more peaceful, more on
(02:25):
mission, more impactful for yourcommunity, and advertising can
be a part of that happeningfaster.
Yeah, but we just insist thatyou do it.
If you're going to do it, don'tlet it be wasteful.
Yes, Make sure it brings yousomething back.
And so we asked the questiontoday why don't ads work?
And the title of the episodepromised to help you make them
(02:48):
better.
And so we're going to revealooh, drum roll please.
A tactic that we learned fromour friends at Wizard Academy, a
non-traditional business andcommunication school you should
definitely go to Totally not acult.
Go to totally not a cult.
Go to wizardacademyorg.
You go spend two or three daysthere.
You're going to walk away abetter, really a better
everything a better communicator, a better artist, a better
(03:09):
leader.
You're going to be connectedwith people all over the world,
and they don't pay us in any wayto say this.
We are just forever in debt towhat we have learned there, and
they're a big part of why we'reable to do this podcast with
such frequency and, I guess,depth.
So disclaimer and credit to ourfriends at Wizard Academy.
(03:30):
The core of our message todayis a tactic we learned there,
but let's talk about first whydon't ads work?
Caleb Agee (03:39):
Well, for one, there's a lot of them.
Right, you see more than 5,000ads a day, and they're coming at
you from every angle right.
You see them on the when you'repumping gas.
You see them definitely whenyou stay at your phone or even
when you're at work, you go tothe different websites you
needed to go to I can see onenow.
Yeah, can you see I can't reallyyeah, wow yep, I can't.
Brandon Welch (04:02):
It's the.
Uh, it's the.
It's the billboard that's justright above those air
conditioning units out there.
Caleb Agee (04:07):
So yeah, you are being advertised to right now,
yep, and and I think that's thethat's the key is, we've got all
of these ads, but then, outsideof that, we have a lot of real
things vying for our attention,right?
Sometimes Brandon wants myattention, sometimes I need his
attention.
Brandon Welch (04:22):
Sometimes Brandon wants my attention.
Sometimes I need his attention.
The one I want, and I want itnow.
Yeah, yeah.
Caleb Agee (04:24):
And.
But we've got, we've got kids,we've got a schedule, we've got
work, we've got all these things.
Health and status and Dividingus as humans?
Yes, and our attention?
And I think the attention spanof an of the average American is
that is less than that of agoldfish now yeah certainly
we're jumping from thing tothing to thing.
Yes, Of course.
(04:44):
What else does a goldfish haveto look at?
Brandon Welch (04:46):
Let's be honest, exactly yes.
So don't be a goldfish, that'sanother topic.
But don't advertise to goldfish.
You've got to be even moreinteresting than that.
You've got to advertise tohuman beings.
So we say ads are expensive,but attention is even more
expensive.
expensive, but attention is evenmore expensive because of all
(05:07):
those things that Caleb justtalked about.
There's a gajillion thingsdividing our attention and the
ad's expensive, but the worstthing that can happen is that
you pay for the ad and you don'tget the attention.
Yeah, what can we do about theattention factor?
Caleb Agee (05:24):
We have to earn it.
That's the thing I think.
You think you pay for an ad.
I love this division between anad like advertising.
That's where my dollars go.
But attention is something youearn from a human and
advertisement happens.
You earn that from a media, youpay for it and you earn it
there.
But the attention you earn froma human and pay for it and you
(05:44):
earn it there but the attentionyou earn from a human.
And the reason we loseattention most of the time is
because your ads are boring.
They're boring.
Brandon Welch (05:53):
They were predictable.
We said it yeah, there's nosuch thing as too many or too
few people, or too targeted ortoo untargeted.
There's only such thing as tooboring.
And we put that into a phrasejust predictability.
People will give you theirattention.
You earn it by offering themsomething more interesting.
(06:13):
Right, and we talked about theaverage American being exposed
to over 5,000 ads a day, plusall the things they have going
on in life.
And if you break it down to itsessence, you just have to be in
that moment.
Maybe in that 15 or 30 secondsof your ad.
You have to be more valuable toeither their status Donald
Miller says, help them thrive orsurvive, and I think it goes to
(06:34):
one of those categories.
We don't walk around asunengaged people.
We're constantly engaged.
We have to try very, very hardto not be engaged, but the
things that we engage with arethings that we perceive to give
us more of something that eithertakes away our pain or makes us
thrive and have status and funand joy and all of those things.
(06:57):
But most advertisers are notstarting there.
They are starting atpredictability things.
They are a plumbing companythat comes right on and starts
talking about plumbing.
How do we make a plumbing ad?
Yeah, that's the first questionyou ask.
I would say they don't even talkabout plumbing because that
might be of interest to at leasta small amount of people.
(07:17):
They start talking about theirplumbing company which is of
zero interest and they starttalking about them and their
years of experience and you knowtheir trucks and their yada,
yadas, yeah and um.
It's the same thing thathappens in a, in a boring joke
that we don't laugh at.
When it's predictable, we'relike okay, I know, this is, I
don't have any more time.
There's five other things overhere trying to take my time or a
(07:39):
boring person that you talk to.
Caleb Agee (07:42):
They'll tell you a lot about themselves instead of
when they start engaging withyou.
Uh, I think it's how to winfriends and influence people.
He talks about how he was.
He was told by some of hisfriends he was the best
conversationalist and he's likeI don't actually talk, I just
ask them questions.
Yes, and I mean I'm engagingand that's unpredictable
actually, because most peoplejust want to talk about me, want
(08:04):
to talk about I Number one, oh,my, me, my, yeah.
Advertisment Example (08:09):
I thought you'd pick it up.
Brandon Welch (08:10):
Rest in peace, toby Keith.
So that's almost a 100-year-oldbook.
He wrote that in the 30s, Ithink yeah crazy.
And keep in mind that was beforethere was the firehose of
digital media and all the thingswe have to deal with today, and
fire hose of digital media andall the things we have to deal
with today, and he, you know,they were observing us then and,
I'm sure, hundreds of yearsbefore that.
Um, but compare it.
(08:31):
If you, if you just think aboutthe last bad movie you saw, or
the last cheesy sitcom, or theone that just made you cringe,
like don't be that, because thereason it was cringe to you is
because it had no entertainmentvalue, had no surprise, it had
(08:52):
no surprise, it had no rhythm toit that made you want to stay
involved.
So it's also, by the way, thinkabout recipes, think about
bland food, think about thingsthat aren't interesting.
It's things we've, we canpredict, and our senses aren't
at divergence.
So that's really nerdy, all tosay.
Uh, if we want to kill wasteand advertising, we have to
first kill predictability, right?
(09:13):
Um?
So how do we do that?
Caleb Agee (09:16):
We have to, uh, we have to surprise them.
We're going to do a little bitof a workshop today, which I
think is a lot of a lot of fun,um, and you can do it.
You can do it with us.
You'd have to pause thatepisode.
We'll tell you when you, whenyou can.
But, um, yeah, you, we're goingto use what's called random
entry and we already talkedabout this with, uh, we got this
(09:38):
from the wizard of ads um crewand they, they helped us do this
and it is the most it's made.
Some of the most magneticcampaigns unusual way to
approach writing ads, but that'swhat makes it work and that's
the brilliant part of it.
It's also a little bit dauntingthe first time you try it, but
then the second time it's alittle bit easier.
And the third time and actuallyyou'll be surprised You'll be
(10:01):
like this is going to suck.
I'm just the, I'm just puttingit out there You'll be surprised
.
You'll be like this is going tosuck.
I'm just putting it out there,this is going to suck, and you
can say that that's fine.
But then you'll be surprised athow good the ad is that you end
up with and then, if you justput in the time to refine it,
you could really find somethingcool there, yes, so what's it
even mean?
Brandon Welch (10:21):
Most people, when they sit down to write ads,
they think oh, what is the adabout?
Oh, I must write about thatproduct or service and that in
and of that.
Second, which most advertisingsalespeople and business owners
and all the people involved inthe thing don't realize that
that's the fatal flaw.
That's actually where it failsis the moment they go ah time to
pay for money or for media.
(10:42):
I best write about the thingI'm, you know, from a client
that's giving me the money.
Yep, what you want to doinstead is, in any number of
ways and we're going to teach itthrough the random entry
tactic- yes, but in any numberof ways.
you want to drop people off inan unpredictable state we talked
about this with a Super Bowlads episode a few weeks ago.
But you're going to select theproduct or service that you want
(11:03):
to promote.
Pick one thing like, one valuethat you're going to sell like,
and figure out what you'rereally selling.
You're not selling.
You know heating and air.
You're selling a comfortablehome.
You're not selling a romanticrestaurant.
You're selling healthymarriages, right, but you're
going to pick that product orservice and you know that and
that's kind of where you'regoing to get back to, Then
you're going to get back to.
Then you're going to go over toa bookshelf.
(11:24):
You're going to flip open abook to a random page, pick a
random sentence and don't thinktoo much about it, just the
first thing your eyes go to andpick the sentence and it's going
to sound like nothing you'veever.
Well, it's about advertising.
So Kayla's flipping open herbook, but it's going to sound
like nothing at the top of yourpage.
And then you're going to set upa timer I recommend five
(11:47):
minutes, because it's going toforce you into creativity mode
and, out of logic,predictability mode and you're
going to pick that sentence andyou're going to start writing an
ad about your product orservice, but the rule is you
have to start with that sentence.
Now, what's that going to do toyou?
Caleb Agee (12:02):
It's going to force you to connect that thought back
to the thing you're selling.
And don't forget, like Brandonsaid, we're not talking about
what we're selling, the thing atface value.
We're talking about the thingbehind the thing, which is how
it changes my life, the human atthe other end, that you're
working very hard as an adwriter to earn their attention.
(12:26):
And if you fight for yourlistener, if you fight for your
reader, you will earn it.
If you are lazy and you fightfor yourself because you're just
trying to grow a businessthat's self-serving, you have to
truly believe that you want tohelp them and you have to
connect with that.
Brandon Welch (12:39):
So it's a way to hack you out of your own curse
of knowledge.
When you have that all of theawareness about all the things
you do, or all the things yourclient does, or whatever you
will automatically start talkingabout those and it's hard to
ignore them until you change thechallenge.
Caleb Agee (12:52):
Yeah, we, we have the hardest time writing ads for
ourselves, for Frank and MavenWebsite copy, whatever it is,
because it's really hard to readthe label from inside the
bottle.
We write hundreds of ads amonth for other people, but
somehow, when we get to ours,we're like, oh, how do we do
this?
This is a way to cheat, totrick yourself out of that
writer's block.
Essentially, um, it's a way.
(13:13):
It's not the way.
It's a way, um to to knockyourself into that.
Brandon Welch (13:17):
Yes, unless you, carter, the camera guy who is
filling in for Nate.
Yes, hey Carter, hey Carter.
John Muir said when we try topick out anything by itself, we
find it hitched to everythingelse in the universe, and that's
the same thing that's going tohappen here.
We're going to demonstrate thisfor you how to automatically be
(13:39):
interesting.
And so before this episode, wewere going to do it live.
We could have done it live, butthen we got interrupted.
But, like an hour ago, beforewe did this, we made somebody go
find us something random fromthe other room for us to start
(13:59):
this ad from.
We could have done a book, butit wouldn't have been fair,
because most of the books inhere are about advertising.
Caleb Agee (14:05):
I'm going to give you a sentence later that you
can do this on your own, Not you.
I'm talking about talking toyou, the listener.
I have a sentence for you.
Brandon Welch (14:14):
They brought back this Swiss Miss hot chocolate
pack.
I had to pick something on hereto start my ad with.
I flipped it over the back andit said empty delicious cocoa
into a mug.
Add hot water or milk sip, stirand savor.
Caleb Agee (14:31):
That's good.
Okay, what was yours?
I got a.
It's an Earl Grey Supreme tea.
Pretty sure this has caffeinein it, so I probably won't be
drinking it.
Brandon Welch (14:40):
He's out on it.
Yeah, earl Grey, he's out on it.
Caleb Agee (14:41):
Yeah, um, but uh it, you know, on the back it says
organic black tea, naturalBergamot oil, fair trade
certified.
So, um, kind of an interestingangle that we're going to.
We're going to take and we'regoing to work on writing some
ads connecting that to our toour product.
Brandon Welch (15:00):
So what's going to happen?
Stick with us, because you butwe're going to show this in real
time us doing this exercise.
Caleb and I are going to readeach other our ads and then
we're going to show you acampaign where we did take
something this wacky and crazyand we put it into something
(15:21):
that is making really good moneyright now, and it is making
this company we did this forirresistibly interesting.
So do you want to read your adfirst?
Caleb Agee (15:32):
Sure you ready, yes, okay, what did you pick?
We went with vinyl windows fromthe window source.
Brandon Welch (15:40):
So premium virgin vinyl yes, windows that we've
been talking about with one ofour clients was the product Yep.
Caleb Agee (15:48):
Yep, and so we're going to just start with natural
bergamot oil.
What is that?
Imagine, literally, you'resitting on your couch and you
hear someone say naturalbergamot oil.
You think, no way.
This is a window ad, right, allright.
I saw it on the back of myteabag this morning and I
thought I don't know what thisis or what the heck it can do
(16:08):
for me.
And then I thought, just like Idon't know about premium virgin
vinyl or what it could do forme.
That's when I asked Tyler atthe window source Tyler, what in
the heck is premium virginvinyl?
And then he told me that's howyou know.
Your window is strong enough tolast for decades.
It's pure, so it won't stain ordiscolor, and it's impermeable,
(16:28):
so it will keep in heat andcooling better than other
materials and other windows.
Maybe I'll ask tyler aboutnatural bergamot oil, but first
I think I'm going to get some ofthose premium vinyl windows and
you can too atwindowsourceatlantacom strong,
pure, energy efficientwindowsourceatlantacom.
Brandon Welch (16:44):
Okay, so he took I love that pivot.
Took bergamot oil, and how manylines was it before we were
able to turn that into somethingabout?
Let me count.
So he took I love that pivot.
Took bergamot oil, and how manylines was it before we were
able to turn that into something?
Caleb Agee (16:55):
about windows.
Let me count Probably three,four.
Fourth line is when it kind ofpivoted.
Brandon Welch (17:00):
So you're on yeah , you're hearing this ad.
There's just pictures radio ador maybe even a Facebook ad.
Natural bergamot tea oil ornatural bergamot oil.
Nobody's ever said that, everin the history of any
advertising much less Naturalbergamot tea oil or natural
bergamot oil.
Nobody's ever said that, everin the history of any
advertising, much less, you know, an ad about windows.
Yeah, and what was it that?
Caleb Agee (17:21):
you said I saw it on the back of my teabag this
morning Is that what you'resaying?
Brandon Welch (17:25):
That was true, yeah.
Caleb Agee (17:28):
And then what did you say?
Well, yeah, and I thought Idon't know what this is or what
the heck it can do for me.
Brandon Welch (17:35):
Kind of being honest, yeah, and then really
quickly the pivot after that waslike, just like I don't know
what premium version.
Caleb Agee (17:45):
I think the key another couple notes here is
this forces your ads to notsound like ads.
Another couple notes here isthis forces your ads to not
sound like ads.
So as soon as you hear ad speakis what we'd, is what we'd call
that when you hear thatlanguage that you're like ugh,
local ad, you know, you know youhear them.
When you're watching TV, you'relike oh okay, I can hear it
right now.
Yeah.
Um, you will, naturally, as anad writer, accidentally.
(18:09):
That's what, that's the lazy adwriters crutch, you'll.
You'll, naturally as an adwriter, accidentally.
That's the lazy ad writer'scrutch, we all can do it.
You'll fall that way.
This will force you to beconversational, to talk, to be
clear.
Brandon Welch (18:18):
You wrote lines like so I didn't know what the
heck that is or what it can dofor me.
Somebody who started to writean ad about any given product
would not say that right, yes,but that is real talk, right,
yes, that is dialogue that onlycame out of your right brain.
That's right?
Hey, quick thing.
We forgot to say this earlier.
Okay.
The reason you end up writingpredictable things.
(18:38):
Yes, you know all about it, butyou also start.
We live in a left brain centricworld.
Yeah, thinking about logic andmath and all the things that are
known.
Left brain thinking and thiswas um in 1981, roger sperry, uh
famous like um I'm just kidding, oh yeah.
(18:58):
Yeah, he's of the sperry for uhshoe fortune.
No, um, their great, greatcousin uh um actually won a
nobel prize for discovering thatwe don't have one brain.
We actually have, uh two partsof our brain we have a left
brain and a right brain andyou've heard, probably, it said
oh, that person's reallycreative, they're really
right-brained.
Well, for whatever reason, theyare using more of their right
(19:20):
brain.
Although we both have left, youhave to use both and you do use
both, but left does our math,our things that are known and
like sequential right.
The right brain processesreasoning, it finds patterns and
it connects things that weren'tpreviously known or connected.
(19:40):
This is where you do youremotional processing, this is
where a lot of your dreamshappen.
This is also where the melodiesand patterns of hit songs come
from right.
This is where art comes from,because it's abstract and when
we see something, the humanexperience is that when we see
something that doesn't quiteconnect to our left brain, it
(20:02):
literally restricts blood flowand sends power over to our
right brain to start looking forconnections Like what does that
mean?
And so something that is notknown, it's a connection that's
not previously seen, it isjarring and it's a pattern
disruptor, and so we have to gofind a new pattern.
And that fires these synapsesin our brain that put things in
(20:24):
their own category.
They don't put them in thecategory of the known and
forgettable, they put them inthe unknown and stimulating.
And so when you've, you'reliterally rewiring that process,
you're just reverse engineeringit to say I'm not going to talk
about my product that I do know, I'm going to talk about my
random thing that I don't knowand I'm going to connect it to
my product.
And that, in and of itself, isthe definition of creativity.
(20:46):
And so if you're not a creativeperson, let's just say you're
some person who has a complexabout this and you think, oh, I
will never be able to do that.
Yes, you can.
I've given this exercise toaccountants, to the most
analytical tight love you guys.
(21:07):
I'm talking about the people Ilove the most, guys.
Yeah, I'm talking about, like,the people I love the most and
um, and they, they producebeautiful ads like things that
I'm like that is not only an ad,that's a campaign and not that
could probably be a Superbowl adLike yeah, um, it's not gonna
happen every time, but it'sgoing to force you to find
things way faster than you wouldhave being in your like.
Back to Bergamot oil andpremium vinyl windows.
Advertisment Example (21:32):
Yeah.
Brandon Welch (21:32):
Yeah, that ad may or may not make it to TV.
We're going to show you acampaign that absolutely has you
want to hear mine.
Caleb Agee (21:42):
Yeah, bring it on.
Brandon Welch (21:43):
Hot.
Caleb Agee (21:43):
You got some Swiss Miss, I did, I got Swiss Swiss.
Brandon Welch (21:47):
Miss, but that's not your first line.
We took it from the back, yeah,so I flipped it over.
I'm like, well, that would be alittle bit on the nose.
So I said empty delicious cocoainto a mug, add hot water or
milk, stir, sip and savor.
Once upon a time, hot chocolatewas much harder to make Until
(22:07):
someone made it as simple asthree steps.
Now you can get cozy andcomfortable with a cup of hot
chocolate anytime you want, justkind of like.
Once upon a time, estate planswere also much harder to make
Until Ozark's Elder Law made itas easy as three steps.
Schedule a free consultation,tell us exactly what you want to
happen during life's mostdifficult moments and be cozy
(22:28):
and comfortable knowingeverything will go exactly how
you want.
Make your estate plan easierthan ever by calling 868-8200
and having a free consultationand maybe even a cup of hot
chocolate with the ladies inwhite at Ozark Cellar Law.
Okay, if that were deliveredwith a interesting inflection
(22:50):
and maybe I picture like doingsome like kickback 90s style
when hot cocoa was actually anew thing, like they were
presenting ooh now in an easy touse patch yeah.
Caleb Agee (23:01):
Four by three screen ratio yeah.
Brandon Welch (23:03):
Somebody would go .
What is that?
Like you could pretty easily VHSwith little squiggles on the
screen, yeah, yeah.
And people let's just face it,even though it's on the nose
about the product.
People would enjoy thinkingabout drinking hot chocolate a
heck of a lot more than theywould.
Some stiff legal service, right, yeah.
And so people will give youattention to that because it's
(23:24):
new, it's different, it's notconnected and we just it was
what three lines I did the hotchocolate used to be harder to
make.
Now you can do it easy and justlike estate plans used to be
hard to make, right, so we usean analogy there.
I think we spent collectivelylike two minutes an ad on this.
Caleb Agee (23:42):
We did not polish these by any means, these
wouldn't hit the final floor,but we're we're showing you in
its rawest form how this canhelp you shortcut your way to a
much, much more interesting adthat earns attention.
Um and so, uh, we've had, we'vehad several campaigns where, um
(24:02):
, we've taken this concept andthen maybe it wasn't the ad
itself that showed up.
You know, going out to the tothe customers to the world.
Um, but it triggered like, oh,we're onto something right there
, and so we have a really goodexample of um a client.
Brandon Welch (24:21):
We've got a campaign here of a few ads.
Caleb Agee (24:22):
I'm not gonna tell you who it is.
Um, we've got a campaign of afew ads, uh, that really have
been powerful for um, for them,and they're and they're doing
amazing.
And this campaign's reallytriggered from a random entry
and then kind of led into acampaign.
You'll notice the random entry.
(24:42):
I guess we could talk aboutthis at the end.
Brandon Welch (24:46):
We'll talk about it in a second.
I won't give it all away.
Roll the ad Nate.
Slash Carter, Roll it.
Advertisment Example (24:51):
Do you want to brighten up your kitchen
with some under cabinetlighting?
Mr Electric can make it happen.
Want to protect your family fromgetting zapped on accident.
Mr Electric can make it happen.
Want to visit all sevencontinents in under a year.
Mr Electric can't make thathappen, but we can install
automatic lights and videodoorbells so your house is safe
(25:12):
when you're away, when you needlights, switches, plugs or
anything wired call Mr Electricand say make it happen.
Brandon Welch (25:24):
Mr Electric, mo, okay, so the thing that allowed
this campaign to be interestingand him to be doing all the
goofy stuff is I pulled thisrandom entry tactic.
To be honest with you, we werekind of down to the wire in
creating this campaign.
We didn't have a whole lot ofscripts or anything and I was
like we got to come up withsomething.
So reach into the bag of tricks, grab out random entry, scroll
through my text.
And the last thing I wastalking to my wife about was I
saw this cruise that takes youto all seven continents.
(25:47):
And I was like that would bereally cool and so I sent it to
her and we were just talkingabout that, so I just wrote down
literally what I texted.
Her want to visit all sevencontinents in a year and I made
that the top of the ad.
Now you'll notice this first ad.
We call it Lights and Cameras.
We got to that and that was thehumor, because how in the heck
do you make seven continentsabout a stupid local electrician
(26:08):
that we love very much, right,yeah?
So we kind of climaxed intothat and we did the inverse.
We said want to slash yourelectric bill?
Mr Electric can make it happen.
Want to protect your familyfrom getting zapped on an
accident?
Mr Electric can make it happen.
Want to visit all sevencontinents in under a year?
We can't make that happen.
But we can install automaticlights and cameras so your house
(26:28):
is safe when you're away makethat happen.
But we can't install automaticlights and cameras so your house
is safe when you're away.
So it was a pattern disrupt, um, and if you're watching the
youtube version of this, whichmight even help more, these are
tv ads, although they would workas radio ads yeah we haven't
doing all these zap stuff andjust these random scenes that he
goes into yeah and so.
But we built a whole campaignoff of that and so we said we're
(26:49):
gonna have one wacky line andthe kind of the format is going
to be.
Caleb Agee (26:53):
That same rhythm.
Yeah, it's kind of you feel it,yep, but then it's always a
surprise.
Brandon Welch (26:58):
So this one's called Sexy Spark Roll it.
Advertisment Example (27:02):
Ready to replace that rackety old ceiling
fan?
Mr Electric can make it happen.
Want to hide all those cables soyour TV floats like magic.
Mr Electric can make it happen.
Want to put a special spark backin your marriage.
Mr Electric can make that happen.
But we can install someromantic lights so you can make
(27:22):
it happen.
When you need lights, switches,plugs or anything wired, call
Mr Electric and say make ithappen, mr Electric.
Brandon Welch (27:30):
Mo, I've been informed that we had to change
it to special spark.
I guess the TV stations didn'tlike sexy spark.
But the original line was doyou want to put a sexy spark
back in your marriage?
And that has random, crazy,weird things written all over it
.
People would go what in theworld did they just?
Advertisment Example (27:50):
say what?
Caleb Agee (27:51):
did you just?
Brandon Welch (27:51):
ask me, and it has had that effect.
People are like oh, the specialspark, right.
So you saw the same patternthere.
And this next line what doesbecoming a millionaire in 60
days or less have to do with alocal electrician?
Let's find out.
Advertisment Example (28:09):
Do you want your living room lights to
be comfy and cozy?
Mr Electric can make it happen.
Want to update those lightfixtures and refresh your home?
Mr Electric can make it happen.
Want to become a millionaire in60 days or less.
Mr Electric can't make thathappen.
But we can install some lightsby your bed so you can read more
(28:29):
books.
When you need lights, switches,plugs or anything wired, call
Mr Electric and say make ithappen.
Mr Electric Mo.
Brandon Welch (28:39):
W']\e weren't selling a millionaire
thing.
We were selling lights overyour bed so you can read more
books.
Yeah, about becoming amillionaire perhaps?
Yep, all right.
Last one, just to drive thepoint home.
About becoming a millionaire,perhaps?
Yep, all right.
Last one, just to drive thepoint home.
Now.
I want to highlight that beforeand I say this in the spirit of
love this was a localelectrician saying hi, I do
(29:01):
electrical things and when youneed electrical things, come out
and call me and I'll come outand do electrical things for you
.
Yeah, and it's like unless I'mactually in the that moment
thinking or actively shoppingfor an electrician yeah, you
lost me.
Caleb Agee (29:16):
You threw, you didn't even.
I didn't even store that Right.
I threw it out because it was,it was ignorable.
I wasn't in the mode to receivethat.
It wasn't going to help methrive or survive.
Yeah, so I've.
My brain views it asimpractical to store.
Yes, but impractical to storeyes, but when you entertain me,
I store that in the same storagepart of my brain.
(29:36):
But you've allowed yourself tobe a part of it because you've
surprised me and made your adsdifferent and entertaining.
Brandon Welch (29:44):
Smiles, fists, tears.
New surprising and different,right.
So we're going to show you thislast ad in just a second.
But I want to say that thisparticular advertiser great
company, great local team andall of that stuff and they have
a very nice business, but theyhad come all this way probably
advertising the last 10 yearswith ads.
(30:09):
Like I just said, if you needan electrician, call us.
We're electricians and they goto the home shows and they do
all these things and the ownerjust recently was texting me
going.
I've never had people come upto me and say repeat my ads to
me At the home show.
At the home show and I thinkit's happening in the grocery
stores now.
And this campaign we're talkingabout has been live a few
(30:31):
months.
Yeah, not that long.
It's worth noting.
He had a decade worth of what Iwould call regular ads and it's
not that his business didn'tgrow, but now it's like people
are walking up and saying thesecatchphrases.
They're saying Make it happen,make it happen, and they're
going ha-ha special spark in mymarriage, ha-ha.
They're saying these things tohim out loud, out in public,
unsolicited.
Now, he probably heard, he'sbeen in his ads.
(30:53):
He's probably heard from hisfriends and family oh, I saw you
on TV a bunch of times becausehe has a.
You know, he's been advertisingbut he's never had strangers
come up and repeat the ads.
Yeah, and so what does thattell us?
Even in a small sample set,he's entered long-term memory.
Right, play this last ad andthen we're going to kind of
bring it back home.
As to how you might do this.
Advertisment Example (31:14):
Do you want to update your light
fixtures and refresh your home?
Mr Electric can make it happen.
Do you need a charger installedfor your new EV?
Mr Electric can make it happen.
Want us to train your dog toturn off the lights at bedtime?
Mr Electric can't make thathappen, but we can install smart
switches so you can controlyour lights from your phone.
When you need lights, switches,plugs or anything wired, call
(31:37):
mr electric and say make ithappen.
Caleb Agee (31:45):
So hopefully you were also able to see this ad
yeah, go to youtube and watch itthat one's my funny, my
favorite, uh, visually, becauseum Audrey's pup is in this one.
Brandon Welch (31:54):
We put a dog in it.
Caleb Agee (31:55):
Yeah, I mean, that's another tactic, the dog's paw
literally turns off the light Ifyou don't want to do all this
mumbo-jumbo about random entry.
Brandon Welch (32:02):
Just put a dog or a kid in your ad and you're
probably going to do it better.
Caleb Agee (32:04):
You probably could.
I think we talked about thatwith the Super Bowl ads.
Brandon Welch (32:08):
But he's like do you want to train your dog to
turn the lights off at bedtime?
We can't do that, but we caninstall smart switches so you
can control your lights fromyour phone and it's just like
it's just.
It all comes together and itmakes this whole campaign
unpredictable, puts him in anentertainment setting instead of
some information setting, whichI don't know how to tell you
(32:28):
this.
Whoever has told you that?
You just have to educate thepublic with your ads?
That's chapter four educate thepublic, myth and the maybe
marketer.
It's just false.
It doesn't work.
Nobody's sitting around goinggosh golly, if somebody would
just educate me about electricalservices.
Oh, thank God.
Oh.
Or I wonder if my localmechanic has an ASE certified
(32:50):
staff.
Caleb Agee (32:52):
And I'd really love to hear about that while I'm
watching my favorite nighttimetelevision.
Yes, yeah.
Brandon Welch (32:59):
And so if it's like recency, if we happen to
need a mechanic that week, wemight kind of sort of go I've
seen them and you do enter somelike familiarity factor, but not
a recallable, likable factor.
Yes, what are we doing?
We're eliminatingpredictability by starting with
unpredictability.
We are wrapping our predictableservice inside something that
(33:25):
is entertaining and we areallowing ourselves to have a
little bit of fun, which in turnallows our audience to have
some fun.
Caleb Agee (33:31):
Yeah, allowing ourselves to have a little bit
of fun, which in turn, allowsour audience to have some fun.
Yeah, so we're going tochallenge you to do this on your
own or with your team.
How the best way to do this isactually to do it in a group.
Have two or three or 10 people.
We do, we.
We literally do this as a teamrandomly during our team staff
meetings.
You write down the most randomsentence you can think of, and
(33:55):
then you put on a little scrapof paper or something and then
you pass it to the right or tothe left, or three to the right,
and then everybody getsactually completely more random
because you can't influence yourchoice in the sentence, and
then you have to connect that tothe ad you're going to try to
write.
Brandon Welch (34:09):
We practiced this with our team a few days ago.
Yeah, and the sentence I gotwas never in a bajillion years.
Yes, I was like and how do youwrite an ad?
I think we were selling garagedoors or something like that
with that ad.
Caleb Agee (34:23):
If you need a starter sentence, I just found
this.
Brandon Welch (34:24):
Here's the sentence.
Nate's going to put it up onthe screen.
Found this in the book.
Caleb Agee (34:27):
Carter's going to put it up, all right.
Palm trees were dancing againstthe blue sky.
Wow, there you go.
Just found in a book I pickedup the Maven Marketer.
Brandon Welch (34:38):
Sounds like a prolific author.
I know All right guys.
So an instant cure forpredictable ads, for boring ads
right.
Start somewhere that nobody elsestarts.
You will get more attentionthan anybody else gets.
Hopefully you can spin it intoa repeatable campaign and build
some stuff off it.
Start somewhere that nobodyelse starts.
(34:58):
You will get more attentionthan anybody else gets.
Hopefully you can spin it intoa repeatable campaign and build
some stuff off it.
That's where all those linescame from in these ads that we
showed.
They came from a place ofliving in the right brain where
new, weird, wacky stuff comesout and then, when you wrap it
around, just a little bit ofknowledge and real life, you got
magic.
That's right.
Brain synapses fire carter wantsto know.
(35:18):
It's a great, it's a great.
Thank you, carter.
Carter wants to know, if youwrite a random entry ad, what's
going to happen for you?
Well, what you're going to dois you're going to put it in the
comments of the youtube uhvideo, or send it to mavenmonday
at frankandmavencom, and youare going to get an awesome
(35:43):
surprise.
What is?
Caleb Agee (35:45):
the awesome surprise .
Well, it's a surprise, we can'ttell you.
A pack of Swiss Miss and sometea oil, earl Grey with some
bergamot and a copy of a bookthat you must read for
advertising.
Brandon Welch (35:57):
I know it's not the Maven Marketer.
You may secretly get one ofthose too, but we're going to
send you a copy of the Wizard ofAds book, which is from the
Wizard Academy School.
Those are very hard to come by,so we're going to send you one
of their books and you'll getbetter at all this weird wacky
stuff.
Taking art, wrapping somescience around it and using it
(36:18):
to grow a business.
That's what we're all about,and with that we will be back
here every week answering yourreal-life marketing questions.
Because marketers who cannotteach you why are just a fancy
lie.
Have a great week.
You are being advertised to right now.
We've got all of these ads, butthen, outside of that, we have
a lot of real things vying forour attention.
We've got kids, we've got aschedule, we've got work.
We've got all these things, andI think the attention span of
the average American is lessthan that of a goldfish.
Now we're jumping from thing tothing to thing.
Brandon Welch (00:16):
Don't advertise to goldfish.
You got to be even moreinteresting than that.
You got to advertise to humanbeings.
Human beings.
Welcome to the Maven MarketingPodcast.
Today is Maven Monday.
I'm your host, Brandon Welch,and I'm joined by Caleb Coffee
or tea Agee.
Caleb Agee (00:42):
Oh, always coffee every morning.
But fun fact about me I don'tlike drinking caffeine after
about 10 am, so in the afternoonit's gonna be a nice tea if
it's, if it's cool outside anice tea or an iced a nice, nice
tea herbal tea, herbal tea, youknow something?
Brandon Welch (00:55):
green tea has more caffeine, I think something
without caffeine.
Caleb Agee (00:58):
It'll be an herbal tea for sure.
Brandon Welch (01:00):
Cool, we'll send your white oolong wishes Winter
tea, summer coffee.
Pretty much Okay.
Yeah, and it's got nothing to dowith caffeine.
I claim it doesn't affect me.
I'm sure it does.
But hey, this is the placewhere we answer your real life
marketing questions so you cangrow your business, eliminate
(01:20):
waste in advertising and achievethe big dream.
Not necessarily in that order,but you never want to be doing
the waste in advertising andachieve the big dream.
Not necessarily in that order,but you never want to be doing
the waste in the advertisingwhich is what we're talking
about today.
Yes, so advertising in America,advertising everywhere, right?
Caleb Agee (01:37):
Advertising in the world On the moon.
Brandon Welch (01:38):
Yeah, is expensive.
Yes, and unfortunately, theresearch that we compiled doing
our book called the MavenMarketer, a bestseller and now
available in a hardcover andsoon on audiobook.
As soon as I get a freeafternoon to publish it, we'll
let you know.
Yeah, that has been our thingthat has been discovering why
(02:03):
ads don't work, and the researchthat we came in touch with is
that 8 out of 10 business ownersare not sure that their
advertising is working for them,yet they spend over a trillion
dollars a year on marketing.
Collectively, we want to helpyou do all of the things in
business that make your lifebetter, more peaceful, more on
(02:25):
mission, more impactful for yourcommunity, and advertising can
be a part of that happeningfaster.
Yeah, but we just insist thatyou do it.
If you're going to do it, don'tlet it be wasteful.
Yes, Make sure it brings yousomething back.
And so we asked the questiontoday why don't ads work?
And the title of the episodepromised to help you make them
(02:48):
better.
And so we're going to revealooh, drum roll please.
A tactic that we learned fromour friends at Wizard Academy, a
non-traditional business andcommunication school you should
definitely go to Totally not acult.
Go to totally not a cult.
Go to wizardacademyorg.
You go spend two or three daysthere.
You're going to walk away abetter, really a better
everything a better communicator, a better artist, a better
(03:09):
leader.
You're going to be connectedwith people all over the world,
and they don't pay us in any wayto say this.
We are just forever in debt towhat we have learned there, and
they're a big part of why we'reable to do this podcast with
such frequency and, I guess,depth.
So disclaimer and credit to ourfriends at Wizard Academy.
(03:30):
The core of our message todayis a tactic we learned there,
but let's talk about first whydon't ads work?
Caleb Agee (03:39):
Well, for one, there's a lot of them.
Right, you see more than 5,000ads a day, and they're coming at
you from every angle right.
You see them on the when you'repumping gas.
You see them definitely whenyou stay at your phone or even
when you're at work, you go tothe different websites you
needed to go to I can see onenow.
Yeah, can you see I can't reallyyeah, wow yep, I can't.
Brandon Welch (04:02):
It's the.
Uh, it's the.
It's the billboard that's justright above those air
conditioning units out there.
Caleb Agee (04:07):
So yeah, you are being advertised to right now,
yep, and and I think that's thethat's the key is, we've got all
of these ads, but then, outsideof that, we have a lot of real
things vying for our attention,right?
Sometimes Brandon wants myattention, sometimes I need his
attention.
Brandon Welch (04:22):
Sometimes Brandon wants my attention.
Sometimes I need his attention.
The one I want, and I want itnow.
Yeah, yeah.
Caleb Agee (04:24):
And.
But we've got, we've got kids,we've got a schedule, we've got
work, we've got all these things.
Health and status and Dividingus as humans?
Yes, and our attention?
And I think the attention spanof an of the average American is
that is less than that of agoldfish now yeah certainly
we're jumping from thing tothing to thing.
Yes, Of course.
(04:44):
What else does a goldfish haveto look at?
Brandon Welch (04:46):
Let's be honest, exactly yes.
So don't be a goldfish, that'sanother topic.
But don't advertise to goldfish.
You've got to be even moreinteresting than that.
You've got to advertise tohuman beings.
So we say ads are expensive,but attention is even more
expensive.
expensive, but attention is evenmore expensive because of all
(05:07):
those things that Caleb justtalked about.
There's a gajillion thingsdividing our attention and the
ad's expensive, but the worstthing that can happen is that
you pay for the ad and you don'tget the attention.
Yeah, what can we do about theattention factor?
Caleb Agee (05:24):
We have to earn it.
That's the thing I think.
You think you pay for an ad.
I love this division between anad like advertising.
That's where my dollars go.
But attention is something youearn from a human and
advertisement happens.
You earn that from a media, youpay for it and you earn it
there.
But the attention you earn froma human and pay for it and you
(05:44):
earn it there but the attentionyou earn from a human.
And the reason we loseattention most of the time is
because your ads are boring.
They're boring.
Brandon Welch (05:53):
They were predictable.
We said it yeah, there's nosuch thing as too many or too
few people, or too targeted ortoo untargeted.
There's only such thing as tooboring.
And we put that into a phrasejust predictability.
People will give you theirattention.
You earn it by offering themsomething more interesting.
(06:13):
Right, and we talked about theaverage American being exposed
to over 5,000 ads a day, plusall the things they have going
on in life.
And if you break it down to itsessence, you just have to be in
that moment.
Maybe in that 15 or 30 secondsof your ad.
You have to be more valuable toeither their status Donald
Miller says, help them thrive orsurvive, and I think it goes to
(06:34):
one of those categories.
We don't walk around asunengaged people.
We're constantly engaged.
We have to try very, very hardto not be engaged, but the
things that we engage with arethings that we perceive to give
us more of something that eithertakes away our pain or makes us
thrive and have status and funand joy and all of those things.
(06:57):
But most advertisers are notstarting there.
They are starting atpredictability things.
They are a plumbing companythat comes right on and starts
talking about plumbing.
How do we make a plumbing ad?
Yeah, that's the first questionyou ask.
I would say they don't even talkabout plumbing because that
might be of interest to at leasta small amount of people.
(07:17):
They start talking about theirplumbing company which is of
zero interest and they starttalking about them and their
years of experience and you knowtheir trucks and their yada,
yadas, yeah and um.
It's the same thing thathappens in a, in a boring joke
that we don't laugh at.
When it's predictable, we'relike okay, I know, this is, I
don't have any more time.
There's five other things overhere trying to take my time or a
(07:39):
boring person that you talk to.
Caleb Agee (07:42):
They'll tell you a lot about themselves instead of
when they start engaging withyou.
Uh, I think it's how to winfriends and influence people.
He talks about how he was.
He was told by some of hisfriends he was the best
conversationalist and he's likeI don't actually talk, I just
ask them questions.
Yes, and I mean I'm engagingand that's unpredictable
actually, because most peoplejust want to talk about me, want
(08:04):
to talk about I Number one, oh,my, me, my, yeah.
Advertisment Example (08:09):
I thought you'd pick it up.
Brandon Welch (08:10):
Rest in peace, toby Keith.
So that's almost a 100-year-oldbook.
He wrote that in the 30s, Ithink yeah crazy.
And keep in mind that was beforethere was the firehose of
digital media and all the thingswe have to deal with today, and
fire hose of digital media andall the things we have to deal
with today, and he, you know,they were observing us then and,
I'm sure, hundreds of yearsbefore that.
Um, but compare it.
(08:31):
If you, if you just think aboutthe last bad movie you saw, or
the last cheesy sitcom, or theone that just made you cringe,
like don't be that, because thereason it was cringe to you is
because it had no entertainmentvalue, had no surprise, it had
(08:52):
no surprise, it had no rhythm toit that made you want to stay
involved.
So it's also, by the way, thinkabout recipes, think about
bland food, think about thingsthat aren't interesting.
It's things we've, we canpredict, and our senses aren't
at divergence.
So that's really nerdy, all tosay.
Uh, if we want to kill wasteand advertising, we have to
first kill predictability, right?
(09:13):
Um?
So how do we do that?
Caleb Agee (09:16):
We have to, uh, we have to surprise them.
We're going to do a little bitof a workshop today, which I
think is a lot of a lot of fun,um, and you can do it.
You can do it with us.
You'd have to pause thatepisode.
We'll tell you when you, whenyou can.
But, um, yeah, you, we're goingto use what's called random
entry and we already talkedabout this with, uh, we got this
(09:38):
from the wizard of ads um crewand they, they helped us do this
and it is the most it's made.
Some of the most magneticcampaigns unusual way to
approach writing ads, but that'swhat makes it work and that's
the brilliant part of it.
It's also a little bit dauntingthe first time you try it, but
then the second time it's alittle bit easier.
And the third time and actuallyyou'll be surprised You'll be
(10:01):
like this is going to suck.
I'm just the, I'm just puttingit out there You'll be surprised
.
You'll be like this is going tosuck.
I'm just putting it out there,this is going to suck, and you
can say that that's fine.
But then you'll be surprised athow good the ad is that you end
up with and then, if you justput in the time to refine it,
you could really find somethingcool there, yes, so what's it
even mean?
Brandon Welch (10:21):
Most people, when they sit down to write ads,
they think oh, what is the adabout?
Oh, I must write about thatproduct or service and that in
and of that.
Second, which most advertisingsalespeople and business owners
and all the people involved inthe thing don't realize that
that's the fatal flaw.
That's actually where it failsis the moment they go ah time to
pay for money or for media.
(10:42):
I best write about the thingI'm, you know, from a client
that's giving me the money.
Yep, what you want to doinstead is, in any number of
ways and we're going to teach itthrough the random entry
tactic- yes, but in any numberof ways.
you want to drop people off inan unpredictable state we talked
about this with a Super Bowlads episode a few weeks ago.
But you're going to select theproduct or service that you want
(11:03):
to promote.
Pick one thing like, one valuethat you're going to sell like,
and figure out what you'rereally selling.
You're not selling.
You know heating and air.
You're selling a comfortablehome.
You're not selling a romanticrestaurant.
You're selling healthymarriages, right, but you're
going to pick that product orservice and you know that and
that's kind of where you'regoing to get back to, Then
you're going to get back to.
Then you're going to go over toa bookshelf.
(11:24):
You're going to flip open abook to a random page, pick a
random sentence and don't thinktoo much about it, just the
first thing your eyes go to andpick the sentence and it's going
to sound like nothing you'veever.
Well, it's about advertising.
So Kayla's flipping open herbook, but it's going to sound
like nothing at the top of yourpage.
And then you're going to set upa timer I recommend five
(11:47):
minutes, because it's going toforce you into creativity mode
and, out of logic,predictability mode and you're
going to pick that sentence andyou're going to start writing an
ad about your product orservice, but the rule is you
have to start with that sentence.
Now, what's that going to do toyou?
Caleb Agee (12:02):
It's going to force you to connect that thought back
to the thing you're selling.
And don't forget, like Brandonsaid, we're not talking about
what we're selling, the thing atface value.
We're talking about the thingbehind the thing, which is how
it changes my life, the human atthe other end, that you're
working very hard as an adwriter to earn their attention.
(12:26):
And if you fight for yourlistener, if you fight for your
reader, you will earn it.
If you are lazy and you fightfor yourself because you're just
trying to grow a businessthat's self-serving, you have to
truly believe that you want tohelp them and you have to
connect with that.
Brandon Welch (12:39):
So it's a way to hack you out of your own curse
of knowledge.
When you have that all of theawareness about all the things
you do, or all the things yourclient does, or whatever you
will automatically start talkingabout those and it's hard to
ignore them until you change thechallenge.
Caleb Agee (12:52):
Yeah, we, we have the hardest time writing ads for
ourselves, for Frank and MavenWebsite copy, whatever it is,
because it's really hard to readthe label from inside the
bottle.
We write hundreds of ads amonth for other people, but
somehow, when we get to ours,we're like, oh, how do we do
this?
This is a way to cheat, totrick yourself out of that
writer's block.
Essentially, um, it's a way.
(13:13):
It's not the way.
It's a way, um to to knockyourself into that.
Brandon Welch (13:17):
Yes, unless you, carter, the camera guy who is
filling in for Nate.
Yes, hey Carter, hey Carter.
John Muir said when we try topick out anything by itself, we
find it hitched to everythingelse in the universe, and that's
the same thing that's going tohappen here.
We're going to demonstrate thisfor you how to automatically be
(13:39):
interesting.
And so before this episode, wewere going to do it live.
We could have done it live, butthen we got interrupted.
But, like an hour ago, beforewe did this, we made somebody go
find us something random fromthe other room for us to start
(13:59):
this ad from.
We could have done a book, butit wouldn't have been fair,
because most of the books inhere are about advertising.
Caleb Agee (14:05):
I'm going to give you a sentence later that you
can do this on your own, Not you.
I'm talking about talking toyou, the listener.
I have a sentence for you.
Brandon Welch (14:14):
They brought back this Swiss Miss hot chocolate
pack.
I had to pick something on hereto start my ad with.
I flipped it over the back andit said empty delicious cocoa
into a mug.
Add hot water or milk sip, stirand savor.
Caleb Agee (14:31):
That's good.
Okay, what was yours?
I got a.
It's an Earl Grey Supreme tea.
Pretty sure this has caffeinein it, so I probably won't be
drinking it.
Brandon Welch (14:40):
He's out on it.
Yeah, earl Grey, he's out on it.
Caleb Agee (14:41):
Yeah, um, but uh it, you know, on the back it says
organic black tea, naturalBergamot oil, fair trade
certified.
So, um, kind of an interestingangle that we're going to.
We're going to take and we'regoing to work on writing some
ads connecting that to our toour product.
Brandon Welch (15:00):
So what's going to happen?
Stick with us, because you butwe're going to show this in real
time us doing this exercise.
Caleb and I are going to readeach other our ads and then
we're going to show you acampaign where we did take
something this wacky and crazyand we put it into something
(15:21):
that is making really good moneyright now, and it is making
this company we did this forirresistibly interesting.
So do you want to read your adfirst?
Caleb Agee (15:32):
Sure you ready, yes, okay, what did you pick?
We went with vinyl windows fromthe window source.
Brandon Welch (15:40):
So premium virgin vinyl yes, windows that we've
been talking about with one ofour clients was the product Yep.
Caleb Agee (15:48):
Yep, and so we're going to just start with natural
bergamot oil.
What is that?
Imagine, literally, you'resitting on your couch and you
hear someone say naturalbergamot oil.
You think, no way.
This is a window ad, right, allright.
I saw it on the back of myteabag this morning and I
thought I don't know what thisis or what the heck it can do
(16:08):
for me.
And then I thought, just like Idon't know about premium virgin
vinyl or what it could do forme.
That's when I asked Tyler atthe window source Tyler, what in
the heck is premium virginvinyl?
And then he told me that's howyou know.
Your window is strong enough tolast for decades.
It's pure, so it won't stain ordiscolor, and it's impermeable,
(16:28):
so it will keep in heat andcooling better than other
materials and other windows.
Maybe I'll ask tyler aboutnatural bergamot oil, but first
I think I'm going to get some ofthose premium vinyl windows and
you can too atwindowsourceatlantacom strong,
pure, energy efficientwindowsourceatlantacom.
Brandon Welch (16:44):
Okay, so he took I love that pivot.
Took bergamot oil, and how manylines was it before we were
able to turn that into somethingabout?
Let me count.
So he took I love that pivot.
Took bergamot oil, and how manylines was it before we were
able to turn that into something?
Caleb Agee (16:55):
about windows.
Let me count Probably three,four.
Fourth line is when it kind ofpivoted.
Brandon Welch (17:00):
So you're on yeah , you're hearing this ad.
There's just pictures radio ador maybe even a Facebook ad.
Natural bergamot tea oil ornatural bergamot oil.
Nobody's ever said that, everin the history of any
advertising much less Naturalbergamot tea oil or natural
bergamot oil.
Nobody's ever said that, everin the history of any
advertising, much less, you know, an ad about windows.
Yeah, and what was it that?
Caleb Agee (17:21):
you said I saw it on the back of my teabag this
morning Is that what you'resaying?
Brandon Welch (17:25):
That was true, yeah.
Caleb Agee (17:28):
And then what did you say?
Well, yeah, and I thought Idon't know what this is or what
the heck it can do for me.
Brandon Welch (17:35):
Kind of being honest, yeah, and then really
quickly the pivot after that waslike, just like I don't know
what premium version.
Caleb Agee (17:45):
I think the key another couple notes here is
this forces your ads to notsound like ads.
Another couple notes here isthis forces your ads to not
sound like ads.
So as soon as you hear ad speakis what we'd, is what we'd call
that when you hear thatlanguage that you're like ugh,
local ad, you know, you know youhear them.
When you're watching TV, you'relike oh okay, I can hear it
right now.
Yeah.
Um, you will, naturally, as anad writer, accidentally.
(18:09):
That's what, that's the lazy adwriters crutch, you'll.
You'll, naturally as an adwriter, accidentally.
That's the lazy ad writer'scrutch, we all can do it.
You'll fall that way.
This will force you to beconversational, to talk, to be
clear.
Brandon Welch (18:18):
You wrote lines like so I didn't know what the
heck that is or what it can dofor me.
Somebody who started to writean ad about any given product
would not say that right, yes,but that is real talk, right,
yes, that is dialogue that onlycame out of your right brain.
That's right?
Hey, quick thing.
We forgot to say this earlier.
Okay.
The reason you end up writingpredictable things.
(18:38):
Yes, you know all about it, butyou also start.
We live in a left brain centricworld.
Yeah, thinking about logic andmath and all the things that are
known.
Left brain thinking and thiswas um in 1981, roger sperry, uh
famous like um I'm just kidding, oh yeah.
(18:58):
Yeah, he's of the sperry for uhshoe fortune.
No, um, their great, greatcousin uh um actually won a
nobel prize for discovering thatwe don't have one brain.
We actually have, uh two partsof our brain we have a left
brain and a right brain andyou've heard, probably, it said
oh, that person's reallycreative, they're really
right-brained.
Well, for whatever reason, theyare using more of their right
(19:20):
brain.
Although we both have left, youhave to use both and you do use
both, but left does our math,our things that are known and
like sequential right.
The right brain processesreasoning, it finds patterns and
it connects things that weren'tpreviously known or connected.
(19:40):
This is where you do youremotional processing, this is
where a lot of your dreamshappen.
This is also where the melodiesand patterns of hit songs come
from right.
This is where art comes from,because it's abstract and when
we see something, the humanexperience is that when we see
something that doesn't quiteconnect to our left brain, it
(20:02):
literally restricts blood flowand sends power over to our
right brain to start looking forconnections Like what does that
mean?
And so something that is notknown, it's a connection that's
not previously seen, it isjarring and it's a pattern
disruptor, and so we have to gofind a new pattern.
And that fires these synapsesin our brain that put things in
(20:24):
their own category.
They don't put them in thecategory of the known and
forgettable, they put them inthe unknown and stimulating.
And so when you've, you'reliterally rewiring that process,
you're just reverse engineeringit to say I'm not going to talk
about my product that I do know, I'm going to talk about my
random thing that I don't knowand I'm going to connect it to
my product.
And that, in and of itself, isthe definition of creativity.
(20:46):
And so if you're not a creativeperson, let's just say you're
some person who has a complexabout this and you think, oh, I
will never be able to do that.
Yes, you can.
I've given this exercise toaccountants, to the most
analytical tight love you guys.
(21:07):
I'm talking about the people Ilove the most, guys.
Yeah, I'm talking about, like,the people I love the most and
um, and they, they producebeautiful ads like things that
I'm like that is not only an ad,that's a campaign and not that
could probably be a Superbowl adLike yeah, um, it's not gonna
happen every time, but it'sgoing to force you to find
things way faster than you wouldhave being in your like.
Back to Bergamot oil andpremium vinyl windows.
Advertisment Example (21:32):
Yeah.
Brandon Welch (21:32):
Yeah, that ad may or may not make it to TV.
We're going to show you acampaign that absolutely has you
want to hear mine.
Caleb Agee (21:42):
Yeah, bring it on.
Brandon Welch (21:43):
Hot.
Caleb Agee (21:43):
You got some Swiss Miss, I did, I got Swiss Swiss.
Brandon Welch (21:47):
Miss, but that's not your first line.
We took it from the back, yeah,so I flipped it over.
I'm like, well, that would be alittle bit on the nose.
So I said empty delicious cocoainto a mug, add hot water or
milk, stir, sip and savor.
Once upon a time, hot chocolatewas much harder to make Until
(22:07):
someone made it as simple asthree steps.
Now you can get cozy andcomfortable with a cup of hot
chocolate anytime you want, justkind of like.
Once upon a time, estate planswere also much harder to make
Until Ozark's Elder Law made itas easy as three steps.
Schedule a free consultation,tell us exactly what you want to
happen during life's mostdifficult moments and be cozy
(22:28):
and comfortable knowingeverything will go exactly how
you want.
Make your estate plan easierthan ever by calling 868-8200
and having a free consultationand maybe even a cup of hot
chocolate with the ladies inwhite at Ozark Cellar Law.
Okay, if that were deliveredwith a interesting inflection
(22:50):
and maybe I picture like doingsome like kickback 90s style
when hot cocoa was actually anew thing, like they were
presenting ooh now in an easy touse patch yeah.
Caleb Agee (23:01):
Four by three screen ratio yeah.
Brandon Welch (23:03):
Somebody would go .
What is that?
Like you could pretty easily VHSwith little squiggles on the
screen, yeah, yeah.
And people let's just face it,even though it's on the nose
about the product.
People would enjoy thinkingabout drinking hot chocolate a
heck of a lot more than theywould.
Some stiff legal service, right, yeah.
And so people will give youattention to that because it's
(23:24):
new, it's different, it's notconnected and we just it was
what three lines I did the hotchocolate used to be harder to
make.
Now you can do it easy and justlike estate plans used to be
hard to make, right, so we usean analogy there.
I think we spent collectivelylike two minutes an ad on this.
Caleb Agee (23:42):
We did not polish these by any means, these
wouldn't hit the final floor,but we're we're showing you in
its rawest form how this canhelp you shortcut your way to a
much, much more interesting adthat earns attention.
Um and so, uh, we've had, we'vehad several campaigns where, um
(24:02):
, we've taken this concept andthen maybe it wasn't the ad
itself that showed up.
You know, going out to the tothe customers to the world.
Um, but it triggered like, oh,we're onto something right there
, and so we have a really goodexample of um a client.
Brandon Welch (24:21):
We've got a campaign here of a few ads.
Caleb Agee (24:22):
I'm not gonna tell you who it is.
Um, we've got a campaign of afew ads, uh, that really have
been powerful for um, for them,and they're and they're doing
amazing.
And this campaign's reallytriggered from a random entry
and then kind of led into acampaign.
You'll notice the random entry.
(24:42):
I guess we could talk aboutthis at the end.
Brandon Welch (24:46):
We'll talk about it in a second.
I won't give it all away.
Roll the ad Nate.
Slash Carter, Roll it.
Advertisment Example (24:51):
Do you want to brighten up your kitchen
with some under cabinetlighting?
Mr Electric can make it happen.
Want to protect your family fromgetting zapped on accident.
Mr Electric can make it happen.
Want to visit all sevencontinents in under a year.
Mr Electric can't make thathappen, but we can install
automatic lights and videodoorbells so your house is safe
(25:12):
when you're away, when you needlights, switches, plugs or
anything wired call Mr Electricand say make it happen.
Brandon Welch (25:24):
Mr Electric, mo, okay, so the thing that allowed
this campaign to be interestingand him to be doing all the
goofy stuff is I pulled thisrandom entry tactic.
To be honest with you, we werekind of down to the wire in
creating this campaign.
We didn't have a whole lot ofscripts or anything and I was
like we got to come up withsomething.
So reach into the bag of tricks, grab out random entry, scroll
through my text.
And the last thing I wastalking to my wife about was I
saw this cruise that takes youto all seven continents.
(25:47):
And I was like that would bereally cool and so I sent it to
her and we were just talkingabout that, so I just wrote down
literally what I texted.
Her want to visit all sevencontinents in a year and I made
that the top of the ad.
Now you'll notice this first ad.
We call it Lights and Cameras.
We got to that and that was thehumor, because how in the heck
do you make seven continentsabout a stupid local electrician
(26:08):
that we love very much, right,yeah?
So we kind of climaxed intothat and we did the inverse.
We said want to slash yourelectric bill?
Mr Electric can make it happen.
Want to protect your familyfrom getting zapped on an
accident?
Mr Electric can make it happen.
Want to visit all sevencontinents in under a year?
We can't make that happen.
But we can install automaticlights and cameras so your house
(26:28):
is safe when you're away makethat happen.
But we can't install automaticlights and cameras so your house
is safe when you're away.
So it was a pattern disrupt, um, and if you're watching the
youtube version of this, whichmight even help more, these are
tv ads, although they would workas radio ads yeah we haven't
doing all these zap stuff andjust these random scenes that he
goes into yeah and so.
But we built a whole campaignoff of that and so we said we're
(26:49):
gonna have one wacky line andthe kind of the format is going
to be.
Caleb Agee (26:53):
That same rhythm.
Yeah, it's kind of you feel it,yep, but then it's always a
surprise.
Brandon Welch (26:58):
So this one's called Sexy Spark Roll it.
Advertisment Example (27:02):
Ready to replace that rackety old ceiling
fan?
Mr Electric can make it happen.
Want to hide all those cables soyour TV floats like magic.
Mr Electric can make it happen.
Want to put a special spark backin your marriage.
Mr Electric can make that happen.
But we can install someromantic lights so you can make
(27:22):
it happen.
When you need lights, switches,plugs or anything wired, call
Mr Electric and say make ithappen, mr Electric.
Brandon Welch (27:30):
Mo, I've been informed that we had to change
it to special spark.
I guess the TV stations didn'tlike sexy spark.
But the original line was doyou want to put a sexy spark
back in your marriage?
And that has random, crazy,weird things written all over it
.
People would go what in theworld did they just?
Advertisment Example (27:50):
say what?
Caleb Agee (27:51):
did you just?
Brandon Welch (27:51):
ask me, and it has had that effect.
People are like oh, the specialspark, right.
So you saw the same patternthere.
And this next line what doesbecoming a millionaire in 60
days or less have to do with alocal electrician?
Let's find out.
Advertisment Example (28:09):
Do you want your living room lights to
be comfy and cozy?
Mr Electric can make it happen.
Want to update those lightfixtures and refresh your home?
Mr Electric can make it happen.
Want to become a millionaire in60 days or less.
Mr Electric can't make thathappen.
But we can install some lightsby your bed so you can read more
(28:29):
books.
When you need lights, switches,plugs or anything wired, call
Mr Electric and say make ithappen.
Mr Electric Mo.
Brandon Welch (28:39):
W']\e weren't selling a millionaire
thing.
We were selling lights overyour bed so you can read more
books.
Yeah, about becoming amillionaire perhaps?
Yep, all right.
Last one, just to drive thepoint home.
About becoming a millionaire,perhaps?
Yep, all right.
Last one, just to drive thepoint home.
Now.
I want to highlight that beforeand I say this in the spirit of
love this was a localelectrician saying hi, I do
(29:01):
electrical things and when youneed electrical things, come out
and call me and I'll come outand do electrical things for you
.
Yeah, and it's like unless I'mactually in the that moment
thinking or actively shoppingfor an electrician yeah, you
lost me.
Caleb Agee (29:16):
You threw, you didn't even.
I didn't even store that Right.
I threw it out because it was,it was ignorable.
I wasn't in the mode to receivethat.
It wasn't going to help methrive or survive.
Yeah, so I've.
My brain views it asimpractical to store.
Yes, but impractical to storeyes, but when you entertain me,
I store that in the same storagepart of my brain.
(29:36):
But you've allowed yourself tobe a part of it because you've
surprised me and made your adsdifferent and entertaining.
Brandon Welch (29:44):
Smiles, fists, tears.
New surprising and different,right.
So we're going to show you thislast ad in just a second.
But I want to say that thisparticular advertiser great
company, great local team andall of that stuff and they have
a very nice business, but theyhad come all this way probably
advertising the last 10 yearswith ads.
(30:09):
Like I just said, if you needan electrician, call us.
We're electricians and they goto the home shows and they do
all these things and the ownerjust recently was texting me
going.
I've never had people come upto me and say repeat my ads to
me At the home show.
At the home show and I thinkit's happening in the grocery
stores now.
And this campaign we're talkingabout has been live a few
(30:31):
months.
Yeah, not that long.
It's worth noting.
He had a decade worth of what Iwould call regular ads and it's
not that his business didn'tgrow, but now it's like people
are walking up and saying thesecatchphrases.
They're saying Make it happen,make it happen, and they're
going ha-ha special spark in mymarriage, ha-ha.
They're saying these things tohim out loud, out in public,
unsolicited.
Now, he probably heard, he'sbeen in his ads.
(30:53):
He's probably heard from hisfriends and family oh, I saw you
on TV a bunch of times becausehe has a.
You know, he's been advertisingbut he's never had strangers
come up and repeat the ads.
Yeah, and so what does thattell us?
Even in a small sample set,he's entered long-term memory.
Right, play this last ad andthen we're going to kind of
bring it back home.
As to how you might do this.
Advertisment Example (31:14):
Do you want to update your light
fixtures and refresh your home?
Mr Electric can make it happen.
Do you need a charger installedfor your new EV?
Mr Electric can make it happen.
Want us to train your dog toturn off the lights at bedtime?
Mr Electric can't make thathappen, but we can install smart
switches so you can controlyour lights from your phone.
When you need lights, switches,plugs or anything wired, call
(31:37):
mr electric and say make ithappen.
Caleb Agee (31:45):
So hopefully you were also able to see this ad
yeah, go to youtube and watch itthat one's my funny, my
favorite, uh, visually, becauseum Audrey's pup is in this one.
Brandon Welch (31:54):
We put a dog in it.
Caleb Agee (31:55):
Yeah, I mean, that's another tactic, the dog's paw
literally turns off the light Ifyou don't want to do all this
mumbo-jumbo about random entry.
Brandon Welch (32:02):
Just put a dog or a kid in your ad and you're
probably going to do it better.
Caleb Agee (32:04):
You probably could.
I think we talked about thatwith the Super Bowl ads.
Brandon Welch (32:08):
But he's like do you want to train your dog to
turn the lights off at bedtime?
We can't do that, but we caninstall smart switches so you
can control your lights fromyour phone and it's just like
it's just.
It all comes together and itmakes this whole campaign
unpredictable, puts him in anentertainment setting instead of
some information setting, whichI don't know how to tell you
(32:28):
this.
Whoever has told you that?
You just have to educate thepublic with your ads?
That's chapter four educate thepublic, myth and the maybe
marketer.
It's just false.
It doesn't work.
Nobody's sitting around goinggosh golly, if somebody would
just educate me about electricalservices.
Oh, thank God.
Oh.
Or I wonder if my localmechanic has an ASE certified
(32:50):
staff.
Caleb Agee (32:52):
And I'd really love to hear about that while I'm
watching my favorite nighttimetelevision.
Yes, yeah.
Brandon Welch (32:59):
And so if it's like recency, if we happen to
need a mechanic that week, wemight kind of sort of go I've
seen them and you do enter somelike familiarity factor, but not
a recallable, likable factor.
Yes, what are we doing?
We're eliminatingpredictability by starting with
unpredictability.
We are wrapping our predictableservice inside something that
(33:25):
is entertaining and we areallowing ourselves to have a
little bit of fun, which in turnallows our audience to have
some fun.
Caleb Agee (33:31):
Yeah, allowing ourselves to have a little bit
of fun, which in turn, allowsour audience to have some fun.
Yeah, so we're going tochallenge you to do this on your
own or with your team.
How the best way to do this isactually to do it in a group.
Have two or three or 10 people.
We do, we.
We literally do this as a teamrandomly during our team staff
meetings.
You write down the most randomsentence you can think of, and
(33:55):
then you put on a little scrapof paper or something and then
you pass it to the right or tothe left, or three to the right,
and then everybody getsactually completely more random
because you can't influence yourchoice in the sentence, and
then you have to connect that tothe ad you're going to try to
write.
Brandon Welch (34:09):
We practiced this with our team a few days ago.
Yeah, and the sentence I gotwas never in a bajillion years.
Yes, I was like and how do youwrite an ad?
I think we were selling garagedoors or something like that
with that ad.
Caleb Agee (34:23):
If you need a starter sentence, I just found
this.
Brandon Welch (34:24):
Here's the sentence.
Nate's going to put it up onthe screen.
Found this in the book.
Caleb Agee (34:27):
Carter's going to put it up, all right.
Palm trees were dancing againstthe blue sky.
Wow, there you go.
Just found in a book I pickedup the Maven Marketer.
Brandon Welch (34:38):
Sounds like a prolific author.
I know All right guys.
So an instant cure forpredictable ads, for boring ads
right.
Start somewhere that nobody elsestarts.
You will get more attentionthan anybody else gets.
Hopefully you can spin it intoa repeatable campaign and build
some stuff off it.
Start somewhere that nobodyelse starts.
(34:58):
You will get more attentionthan anybody else gets.
Hopefully you can spin it intoa repeatable campaign and build
some stuff off it.
That's where all those linescame from in these ads that we
showed.
They came from a place ofliving in the right brain where
new, weird, wacky stuff comesout and then, when you wrap it
around, just a little bit ofknowledge and real life, you got
magic.
That's right.
Brain synapses fire carter wantsto know.
(35:18):
It's a great, it's a great.
Thank you, carter.
Carter wants to know, if youwrite a random entry ad, what's
going to happen for you?
Well, what you're going to dois you're going to put it in the
comments of the youtube uhvideo, or send it to mavenmonday
at frankandmavencom, and youare going to get an awesome
(35:43):
surprise.
What is?
Caleb Agee (35:45):
the awesome surprise .
Well, it's a surprise, we can'ttell you.
A pack of Swiss Miss and sometea oil, earl Grey with some
bergamot and a copy of a bookthat you must read for
advertising.
Brandon Welch (35:57):
I know it's not the Maven Marketer.
You may secretly get one ofthose too, but we're going to
send you a copy of the Wizard ofAds book, which is from the
Wizard Academy School.
Those are very hard to come by,so we're going to send you one
of their books and you'll getbetter at all this weird wacky
stuff.
Taking art, wrapping somescience around it and using it
(36:18):
to grow a business.
That's what we're all about,and with that we will be back
here every week answering yourreal-life marketing questions.
Because marketers who cannotteach you why are just a fancy
lie.
Have a great week.
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