Speaking of Rocks…
Welcome back to American Digital Ad Scripts
Today we’re going to continue one of our most popular discussions: “A bad ad is like throwing rocks at someone’s window.” We have a special angle this time, from someone who actually works with rocks for a living for a rockwork company in Canada, ironically enough.
If you still haven’t read our previous post from 2019, catch up on it here: http://americandadscripts.com/a-bad-ad-is-like-throwing-rocks-at-someones-window/
Our friend kindly mentioned that even though a poorly designed ad might have bad consequences if targeting the wrong people, “all press is good press.” It is a tactic of many companies to get their name out there in people’s minds no matter how well it’s taken. This tactic is often called “subliminal messaging.”
Although this practice is still frowned upon, which was our original point, it’s still practiced nonetheless by companies that rely less on your opinion but lack of choice. For example Coca Cola may have an ad on the most grubby corner store in your city. For a new company this might not be a good place to have an ad, but for a company like Coca Cola it doesn’t matter because they don’t expect you to go inside and buy one of their beverages. They want your subconscious mind to see the ad as you drive by because then you’re more likely to order a Coca Cola when asked what drink you want at a restaurant, especially if there’s only a few other options.
The aforementioned company which mainly provides masonry Ottawa service, has experimented with such a tactic before, choosing to pay a lot for ads on local buss stops. They found that this worked very well, even though people disliked the ads and wrote graffiti all over them. The amount of calls they got increased 3x, after just one month of having the buss stop ads in the city.
This worked for them, we believe, because people searching for masonry Ottawa service most likely recognized their brand when searching online for a local masonry Ottawa company. Their name is quite memorable – Stone Masonry Dads of Ottawa – so even though people may not recall where they heard it before, it stuck with them.
So therefore we need to correct our claim in the last post that bad ads aren’t always a bad thing for your business. We hope that clarifies some things!
Happy 2021 New Year
Happy New Year 2021 from American Digital Ad Scripts. We’re excited to give an announcement for 2021 and update you all on how 2020 treated us.
2020 was a rocky year but things didn’t stay bad for long. We’re one of the fortunate niches in business that get to help people even through pandemics, because all businesses need good advertisement.
For 2021 our announcement is that we’ll be focusing on special guests for future blog posts. We’re going to be trying this in 2021 but if it turns out people don’t like the content then we’ll stop.
Thanks for tuning in to our update. Once again happy New Year. We hope 2021 is amazing for you.
A Bad Ad Is Like Throwing Rocks at Someone’s Window
If you want to get someone’s attention and still have them like you, like your business and like the services you offer, then you don’t want to throw a rock at their window because, although this might get their attention, they’ll dislike you for it! Whether or not the rock does damage is beside the point. It’s just not courteous.
The proper way to get someone’s attention… wait, no, the best way to get someone’s attention and still have them like you is to give them a service for free. Even if you leave them a door-hanger, put flyers in their mailbox, leave them a voice mail, etc, they’ll find it hard to dislike you if all you want to do is give them a free service.
Many companies do this with great success. For example Audible has a free month trial. Other sports training centers offer the first lesson free. The gym I used to go to I only went to because the first two weeks were free. This is very far from throwing a rock at the window and I recommend keeping that in mind. Use the free strategy to grow your business!
Good luck! Check out our blog for more cool info on making American Digital Ad Scripts more literary.
Auto Detailing Saskatoon Changed My Perception Of Life!
As a professional advertisement manager I developed quite a perception of what life should mean for someone like me, but after getting my sports car detailed and professionally washed in Saskatoon, SK, Canada yesterday my perception completely changed. As you’d expect, this whole experience has been rendered into a metaphor for understanding what a good ad should be. Now, after driving in my freshly washed automobile from Saskatoon, I see now that things that are slick, sparkly and shiny are a very good thing and can make the eyes pop when they see them.
I used to think an ad shouldn’t be too flashy but I was wrong. There’s nothing like a flashy car. I used to get your average car wash and it did the job. People would vacuum my seats, wipe down the dashboard, pressure wash the exterior, but…. oh boy! It doesn’t quite compare to getting the paint touched up, getting a fresh coat of protective polish, getting my engine detailed, all my headlights slick and clean, my seats steam cleaned, etc. After getting professional car cleaning I see now what all the Need For Speed hype is all about. Now I know why people watch Fast and Furious and love seeing sexy, shimmering vehicles zooming down the busy streets of urban areas. Saskatoon isn’t quite the kind of city you’d see a Fast and Furious movie being filmed, but while I was there a girlfriend recommended Auto Detailing Saskatoon because after my road trip there my car really needed it. All I can say is that she was right!
I drive a two-door, convertible BMW from 2016 and it used to be the car of my dreams. Well, the dirty version of it used to be the car of my dreams but now that role is taken by my new car! Sorry if you’re confused but, yes, my new car is still the same car I used to drive but it only feels like a new car because IT’S SO CLEAN!
I remember I had a series of 8 thoughts when I first saw my car looking so perfectly detailed:
- Oh my goodness, what in the world am I looking at?
- Is this even my car?
- Wait, this must be someone else’s car.
- Yup, this car isn’t mine. There’s no way.
- Wait, could it be my car?
- Hey, that guy is waving at me. He’s pointing at the car.
- Oh my goodness, this really is my car!
- My whole perception of life has changed!
I must admit I paid a good amount of money to get my car detailed, and usually I wouldn’t even consider paying that much. But I don’t regret it! From now on I’m going to get my car cleaned by experts every time. It even seems to drive better, probably because of the engine detailing. Now I must apologize for spieling about this. It’s time to talk about this as a metaphor for advertisement.
Auto Detailing as a Metaphor for the Perfect Advertisement!
Just like how you’d expect to have a good ad pop out and catch your attention, so does a shiny, slick sports car zooming down the road. But did you ever think of what would happen if you polished up that ad even more, made it sparkle and shimmer with even more vibrancy? Well, the same things happens to the detailed car! That’s right, a good ad can be made even better by polishing it up just like you’d polish a vehicle, and the effects are analogous. So next time you’re trying to write the perfect ad don’t stop when you think it will pop for people who might be interested. Wait a second, take a second glance and polish that ad up even more. The effect will be tenfold for working that extra mile.
So thank you Auto Detailing Saskatoon for changing not only my perspective on life but for changing the way I look at advertisement. In all my years of working in this business, thinking I was so good at what I do that I can blog about it, I never would have thought my mind would have changed so dramatically over something so simple as a car wash. I don’t go to Saskatoon often but next time I do I know where I’ll be going to get what I need. Now I’m even thinking about buying a new car! Yup, it’s dangerous, but like I said my perception of life has changed. I love cars more than I’d ever thought!
I hope this metaphor can help with your next ad campaign and if not then I at least hope you enjoyed reading my story. Thanks for reading!
Update: October 2019
Greetings and apologies for the lack of posts lately. We’ve been super busy with many projects, but we plan to get back to active blogging soon. We have some exciting news we plan to share with our readers in upcoming weeks. So stay tuned! One post we’ll be posting soon is about the perfect ad, and we’ll be suing examples applicable in the real world. We hope to teach people who are new at advertising great tips to make their ads literary let alone effective. Thanks for your patience!
If you’re new here and would like to see what we’re all about, visit our blog.
Lying in Advertisements and on Packaging Should Never Be Legal
Today we’re facing weird times as a package of GMO onions can sell in the market with the words “organic” on them, all because advertisers and marketers find tricky ways to sneak through loopholes in the system. One way we often see such labels like “100% beef” when really it’s a lie is because the companies selling these things just have to claim that these tags are part of the name of their product. For example, you wouldn’t be surprised to see “grass fed beef” under a big brand name because, even if the cows have been fed nothing but carrots, marketers can call their product whatever they want as long as it’s done in a certain way. This tricks many consumers into thinking they’re eating what they’re not. Perhaps in the long-run this may have a positive placebo effect on their health, but we can’t deny the results would be better anyways if what they were actually eating was natural.
Now this kind of talk may sound weird coming from an American digital ad script writer, and it’s supposed to. So don’t get me wrong. I am all for capitalism and big business but we don’t have to lie to our customers in order to dominate the market. Besides, doing things the right way is more challenging and fun. It creates real competition. Using sneaky methods may be useful in the short run but in this modern age your machinations are bound to leak on the internet at some point and that’s why it’s best to stop lying in advertisements and product packaging before the laws change. Soon all the crazy extreme-left students in universities today will be controlling our country’s politics and and us old timers are just along for the trip. So, hey, do the right thing, pal! Even if you’re a marketer generating business for a client you can go about it in a responsible way so that clients know what they’re getting.
Thank you for visiting on this gloomy Monday and I hope you have a great week!
American Digital Ad Scripts Visits Victoria BC, Canada
The authors of this blog at American Digital Ad Scripts has a cool story to tell. Over the Holidays we went to Victoria BC as a team to visit some friends and family as well as make some business proposals. If you don’t know, and we don’t blame if you if you don’t, Victoria is a small city in British Columbia, a province on the West Coast of Canada.
Our team split apart for most of the trip as we each had different things to do. I was mainly there to visit my old best friend from high school. He’s kind of a funny tale. He went to the University of Victoria for six years taking history courses but now he’s a window cleaner. He was kind of busy with work while I was there, but I couldn’t complain because I was able to stay at his house and play on his PS4 while he was away. I hadn’t played video games in nearly a decade and so the new graphics on the PS4 blew my mind. It was also nice to take some time off stressful work without feeling bad about it, for I had been working my face off all year with minimal relaxation.
When my friend wasn’t out cleaning and washing windows across Victoria BC with his squeegee, we were hanging out back like we used to do in high school. We enjoyed Canadian beer, Canadian sports and all things Canadian. I learned a lot about the subtle differences in culture compared to American culture. For instance, traffic there is a lot more polite and even when you cut somebody off they wave hello at you. I never thought this could have been true until I saw it for myself. Another difference is in work ethic. I always thought I was strange for working so hard compared to my lazy, over-weight American neighbors. But while I was in Victoria BC, Canada, I realized I don’t work hard enough. There were so many nice, rich houses and fancy cars my neck was nearly breaking from all the turning it had to do. My friend is a perfect example of how hard people work there. He loves providing window cleaning Victoria BC services for the company he works for, not only because he loves and respects his employer but he cleans windows for a lot of rich people and often gets ridiculous tips and bonuses. I never would of thought a window cleaning company could hustle so hard, and I learned a lot and gained a lot of respect for Canadian work ethic. My friend even worked on Christmas Eve! He’s crazy!
If it wasn’t for his craziness, I wouldn’t have had this story to share with my friends when I came back home to USA. No one believed me when I said people in Victoria, even window washers, work harder than most people in USA, but they will when some of them come out with me this year in 2019. They want to see it for themselves. Only a tourist can truly see how Victoria is an academic, professional city as most of the people I talked to there said out loud that Victoria was for old farts and boring golfers. Maybe they were partly right, but also wrong in a lot of ways. I got nothing but love for Victoria BC and my window cleaning friend’s hard work habits.
So if you’re ever looking for a place to retreat yet also get inspiration and see what hard work really looks like, consider Victoria. For Christmas my friend and I went further north up Vancouver Island. The nature there is wonderful and I highly recommend it for tourists. Anyways, just wanted to share all that because many friends were wondering how my trip went. My team came back with stories of their own and they have nothing but good things to say about Victoria BC, too.
Thanks for reading!
What Has the Script of an Advertisement Done for Your Life?
Maybe you were walking down the road one day and saw a soda pop ad in the corner of your eye. Without knowing it two days later you were asked what kind of pop you wanted and you chose the one nestled in your subconscious mind. Advertisements across America are an influence not to be reckoned with. If you want to get an idea of what advertisements have subconsciously been doing to your life, keep reading.
Here at American Digital Ad Scripts, we love talking about how a beautiful ad written elegantly can be a solution to a massive problem and a positive thing for this world. But we also know how advertisements used for selfish gain can cause much negative disturbance in our thinking and choice making. This is why we made this blog, to bring people into the understanding of why ads are being misused but also why they are still a good thing we should not get rid of.
To understand this further, let’s draw three realistic scenarios to the mind and examine them.
Scenario #1.
You just got pulled over for drinking and driving. Now you’re sitting in a drunk tank with bored cops on graveyard shift listening to the radio outside the prison bars. Without being able to help it, you’re listening to a song you dislike because it doesn’t match your style. Then you hear a song you love. After hearing your favorite song come on, you get excited. Then an ad plays saying that the rights to play your favorite song on this radio station was sponsored by a local grocery store. This grocery store just happens to be a little further out of the way from the one you usually go to but have been disappointed with price-wise lately. In the ad you hear about a month-long sale on all products. What are the chanced you’ll be going there when you need to go grocery shopping next?
Scenario #2.
You just stepped out of the shower and you don’t like the new shampoo your aunt gave you for Christmas. The TV is on in the living room as you walk through the kitchen toward your bedroom with your towels on. On the TV, as it briefly passes your sight, you see an ad presenting a kind of shampoo you used to always use before it ran out. When you run out of that other shampoo you don’t like, which one do you think you’ll buy next? The advertised one you used to always use or will you risk experimenting with another one you might not like?
Scenario #3.
You just got dropped off at work by your spouse and you notice your company has a new banner above its doorway that wasn’t there before. This ad on the canopy looks impressive to you, and you’re almost proud to know you work here because of it. For years without really articulating it to yourself you’ve always been afraid to show people where you work because it looked like a shabby place. Now with this impressive banner ad the place looks more professional. When you drive past it in two weeks, you point out to your friend that that’s where you work, whereas three weeks ago you would not have done that.
These are the subtle ways in which advertisements affect your life. Knowing what they do to us gives us power over them. I never look at an ad without realizing it’s trying to trick me, persuade me or change my behavior. Don’t let it do so if you don’t want it to.
Want to know more about the dark side of ads? Watch this!
Is an Online Advertisement Literature?
This falls into the biggest question of all: Is writing online literature? It’s no wonder why this question can be asked, because the classical definition of what literature means is quite clear.
Literature is written works, or published books and writings. This has nothing to say about “typed” material or books only “published” online. Despite this ambiguity, the pros at American Ad Scripts, specialists in writing elegant ads that can be compared artistically to poetry and prose, would like to argue that, yes, an online advertisement is literature. In ways, an advertisement can have just as big as an impact on mankind as a best selling book or a five star movie script. Ads, however, impact us in our subconscious more so than blatant writing analyzed in our frontal lobes.
However, with this claim out of the way, let us not forget that there is a finer definition of literature that ads do not fall into. No one in 200 years from now is going to show a 21st-C advertisement to their literature class and say, “Now this is a true piece of art we can all learn from.” Literature in it’s elitist sense is a work of elegant writing that deserves to be passed down through generations. Since ads are considered derogatory, they do not receive the kind of praise that prose and poetry do. Though we may argue that ads are good for mankind and should not be derogatory, we still understand that ads are not as capable at telling stories as book are. A book can be riddled with hidden meaning that may never get deciphered completely whereas a short ad you skim across may only be able to make some fine points about life.
To conclude with a satisfactory answer, yes, online ads, or online writings in general, are literature, but not in the elitist sense, and for a good reason.