FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:
Mick Torbay: I’m Mick Torbay from Wizard of Ads Toronto, and this series is about how easy it is to make marketing mistakes, showing you how your competitors are making them, allowing you to take unfair advantage. They screw up, you win. You with me? In video three I discussed a very common mistake your competitors are making right now. They’re talking about things only the business owner cares about. Things like who are you? What do you sell? How long have you been in business? Whether or not you’re family owned? All those things matter to the business owner, not a bit to the consumer. And here’s a little hint. Even big companies screw this up. SC Johnson, a family company. Well, isn’t that quaint? They’re family owned. Just like my local convenience store. I mean, yes, they’re an $11 billion family company with 13,000 employees who are presumably all not named Johnson, but still, family outfit. Got It.
Mick Torbay: Does the fact that SC Johnson is still owned by the Johnson family make you more or less likely to buy Windex? Really? You feel better about a billionaire shareholder of a giant corporation named Johnson more than a random shareholder of a giant corporation named whatever? I’ve got an idea. Stop telling everyone about your Johnson and talk about something I care about. Who are you? Don’t care. What do you sell? Big deal. I got problems of my own. How long have you been in business? Not only does nobody care about that, but it’s also easily provable.
Mick Torbay: Have you ever bought a product from a company called Amazon, Netflix, heard of a Swiffer, Xbox? Because there were certainly plenty of ways to buy things retail or watch movies at home or sweep your floor or play video games before these came along and these ones have been around less than 20 years. They’re being chosen anyway. You don’t care how long a company’s been in business, but you think all the other people do. Good luck with that. Every time your competitor informs people how long they’ve been in business or whether or not they’re a family business, shout hooray because they’re wasting their advertising dollars on things that won’t make them money. This is a good thing. I want your competitors to do that. Let them throw their money away on stuff that doesn’t work.
Mick Torbay: So we’ve established what the consumer is not asking, who are you and what do you sell? How long have you been in business? Are you family owned? So what’s the question consumers are really asking? Pay attention because I charge a lot of money for this. Why is buying from you good for me? If you can answer this question in your advertising, you’re going to have results.
Mick Torbay: And if you can answer this question while providing entertainment to the consumer, they might actually bother to remember it. Why is buying from you good for me? Every ad has to answer this question. So stop thinking about how to get them to care about your problems and start thinking about what they care about naturally. This is the key to effective marketing and almost nobody does it. Your competitor is certainly not doing this right. It’s the one question they’re asking and your competitor is not bothering to answer it. But you will. And that’s how you’ll win.
Mick Torbay: I’m Mick Torbay from Wizard of Ads Toronto making the world a better place, one commercial at a time.
