FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

Mick Torbay.: Hey there. I’m Michael Torbay from Wizard of Ads Toronto. The Wizard of Ads partners are a world-wide group of marketing consultants bringing large agency thinking to small and medium-sized businesses.
Having great ideas is only half the battle. You have to be able to take advantage when your competitor messes up and that’s what this video series is all about. And here’s a common mistake your competitors are making right now. It’s time for mistake number three. You’re answering questions that no one is asking. I’ll start with the big one.
If you think of most advertising. It doesn’t matter whether you’re talking about radio or TV or digital ads or direct mailers, here’s what the message of the ad is saying. You’ll know that I don’t care what the category is and that’s because everybody makes this mistake. The message of the ad is; this is who we are and this is what we sell.
Whether the ad is from a car dealer or a furnace installer or a wholesale distributor of pre-fabricated aluminum windows, the message is basically, this is who we are and this is what we sell. You hear 100 different versions of this and each business tries to say it a different, but it’s always the same. This is who we are and this is what we sell, which is, of course, answering two questions that no one is asking. Who are you and what do you sell?
I assure you on the life of my 90-year Hungarian grandmother, no one is asking those two questions. Who are you and what do you sell? So if no one is asking those questions, why do we constantly answer them? Well, it comes down to what the business owner cares about. He cares about himself and he cares about the things he sells so he uses his advertising to try and make you care about those things too. Only, that’s not how advertising works. I can’t make a consumer care about stuff that a consumer wouldn’t naturally care about anyway.
Yes, you heard me correctly. A good ad doesn’t make me care about stuff I don’t care about. A good ad connects the client’s brand to something I already care about anyway. That’s the whole difference. If you get that, then your ad will deliver huge results. If you still think an ad can force someone to give a rip about who you are and what you sell, then congratulations, you’re just like everyone else and that’s fine up until someone, anyone, answers the questions that consumers are actually asking because they’re asking a question, only no one is answering it. They’re too busy telling people who they are and what they sell.
Now, our clients don’t focus their ad strategy on who they are or what they sell. They focus their ad strategy on the consumer’s experience, the consumer’s challenges. As long as you’re talking about you, you’re a boring person. If you want my attention, talk about me, answer my questions. If you don’t know the questions your customer is asking, then you need to figure that out before you spend another penny on advertising. And by the way, my partners and I know the specific question consumers are asking and I’m happy to tell you what that is in video number seven. I’m Mick Torbay from Wizard of Ads Toronto, making the world a better place, one commercial at a time.