A chorus or two from one of my favorite R&B tunes: "I got the local ad blues"

Throughout my 30-year career, I've often marveled at the inanity of many local market ads, especially those done without the help of a professional agency.

Maybe it is because I am approaching my dotage, but I am finding it harder and harder to resist the temptation to respond to one of these local efforts by calling the advertiser’s number (or better yet, striding into their retail location) and bellowing at the top of my voice "what the hell are you doing!?!"

I am sure you all know of the type of advertiser I'm speaking about... the local plumbing service, the realtor, the low-tech, limited service credit union trying oh so desperately to hang on. I don't know what it is about these people….but they seem to have a death wish when it comes to running effective advertising.

Let's start with the most egregious mistake...the accidentally hilarious attempt at differentiation.

We've all seen it over the years... some hapless artisan or tradesperson... or the local insurance agency... decides he/she/it should run an ad. Maybe business is off, maybe they've decided Western civilization can progress no further without hearing their views on business, or maybe its just to impress family and friends. First thing they have to do is decide how to go about distinguishing their businesses from the competition. In a very curious form of reverse-think, their search for differentiation often produces positioning descriptions that are stupefying, standardized, homogenized and otherwise “safe”. And amazingly ineffective.

Example: in my local market there is an arborist known as "Mike's Professional Tree Service". Clever name... no doubt intended to separate Mike from all those unprofessional tree services. But wait, Mike's search for distinction does not stop there. His local radio ads proudly declaim him as a company that offers "prompt, courteous and professional service" . Hmm… I wonder just how many chronically late, discourteous and unprofessional arborist services are out there, and if so, why the hell they haven't gone out of business or been closed down by the local authorities. It's a marketing offense that makes me want to scream... loudly!

At the end of the day, I feel sorry for Mike and the tens of thousands of other small businesses that have fallen into the trap of "undifferentiated differentiation". I must wag an accusing finger at local radio sales reps... many of whom ought to be convicted of media malpractice for even suggesting that a company go on air with no marketing framework or thinking behind them. And I would characterize as unindicted co-conspirators the "creative copywriters" at many stations who grind out local spot after local spot, an amazingly large majority of which seem to follow the same theme and form... one that I call "the especially dreaded overheard conversation between two nitwits"

The "overheard conversation" is the oldest chestnut in the radio copywriter’s bag of tricks. I believe this is because these spots are so ridiculously easy to write... in fact they are mindless rhetorical exercises.

Example:

Wife: "Oh honey, I just opened our bank statement and I get so confused trying to read it"(memo to file... notify the National Organization for Women (NOW) that their gender is continually beaten down in this genre of radio spots)

Husband: Don't worry, dear, I've just switched our bank account to Inoffensive Bank and Trust. Their account statements are so clear that little Jimmy could understand them" (another memo to file: why hasn't NOW ever protested how, in these overheard conversation spots, the husband is arbitrarily making the big decision? Huh? Inquiring minds want to know. Especially since, were we all to be honest, in 99 9/10% of the cases these roles are reversed.)

I can't imagine why anyone would find the "overheard conversation" spots appealing. It would be one thing if our nitwit characters were murmuring vague obscenities to one another or plotting the overthrow of our government... then, maybe, people would listen. But I firmly believe the vast majority of listeners tune these thoughts out about one second into the script.

The tragedy is that it does not take a lot of intellectual candlepower to figure out a basic differentiation strategy for any company no matter how large or how small. It just requires some time and effort... something that seems curiously absent in so much of our local market advertising.

If I have offended any radio employees or local market advertisers, I'm not sorry.

Till next time…