Watch the video above or read below.

Matthew Burns:
Okay, we’re back with another sticky sales story. And this one is a little weird and unique because it is definitely an advertising thing. It’s not a traditional advertising thing, and it’s not an ad we saw on television. Stephen Semple, a year and a half ago, had done a trip through North Carolina and had come home all hopped up because it was like, I can’t believe I saw something I didn’t really think of before. That was really interesting.

And then we went back to North Carolina onboarding a new client, a roofing client out really close to the outer banks, and we were on the same stretch of highway. And he said, oh, look at this sign. Look at the sign. And it wasn’t billboards. So Steve, tell us what we were looking at because it’s weird.

Stephen Semple:
It is weird. And so first and foremost, I’ve got to say, I really admire this business. So it’s an automotive car dealer in the Carolinas, because when somebody does something that I’m like, oh my God, that is brilliant, what they did. Especially to the degree where they took a form of advertising up until that moment, I would’ve said, don’t ever bother. If it makes you feel good, do it. If it’s contributing to society, do it. But recognize you are not going to get any advertising value from it. And they actually figured out how to get advertising value from it. So hats off. I was blown away. And here’s what they did. So we’ve all seen those little sponsor signs where you sponsor kind of a mile or two miles, adopt the highway.

And there’s some certain section of the highway that you’ve done the adopt the highway for. And every once in a while I’ll get clients call me, go, oh, should we do that? If it’s your way of giving back to society, do it. But there’s no advertising value to it until we are in the Carolinas. And the weird thing is they’ve done this on two roads because what surprised me the first time I saw it, it was on a different highway.

Matthew Burns:
Oh, that’s right.

Stephen Semple:
So they’ve done this on two highways. So in the Carolinas there’s these long stretches of highway that basically either go from Charlotte or Raleigh to the coast, and they’re basically these long stretches of highway. And what these guys did is they sponsored every sign.

Matthew Burns:
Oh and we’re talking 10 hundreds of miles. The stupid amounts of territory.

Stephen Semple:
Yeah, yeah. You’re driving for like a hundred miles and it’s sign after sign after sign after sign after sign after sign. And you know how we talk about dominating in media? They dominated it so much. They were like, you couldn’t avoid it.

Matthew Burns:
You can’t. It became comical almost like, oh my gosh, another one. And we were looking to see when are they going to stop? What’s the mile marker that’s too far out?

Stephen Semple:
Big repetition. And we always tell about dominating the media. And I wish I had taken a picture of this because a year ago when I was on a different highway and saw that, I was driving back from his speaking engagement back to Charlotte, and I pulled off the highway and I happened to pull off the highway where one of their dealerships was.

Matthew Burns:
Oh, that’s cool.

Stephen Semple:
And there’s this one area where there was about six or seven billboards. They had all of them.

Matthew Burns:
Oh, very cool.

Stephen Semple:
So this whole idea of dominating media, they totally dialed into. It was really remarkable. And especially remarkable when you consider those little sponsorship signs. You’re not able to put any message other than it’s you. But just that boom, boom, boom, that’s it. Boom. Just drove it home. It’s nobody’s business. So yeah, it was just the name I actually want. Yeah, it was just the name and then one brand.

Matthew Burns:
And every once in a while I did notice they changed the brand, but the names stayed the same.

Stephen Semple:
And I think changing the brand also managed to catch your eye again. It did allow them to vary the message slightly. It’s funny, I thought about this when I was down before, and then when I was down this time, I said to, you got to reach out to this company and I’ve got to track down the owner and I’ve got to try to interview them over on the Empire Builders Podcast because I want to hear from them what made them think of this idea and how did they execute it. And it worked for them because I have never seen this done before with the roadside sponsorship program. So it’s a completely unique, brilliant idea.

Matthew Burns:
It’s amazing. It uses all of the traditional rules that we would set up for ourselves, just not a media that we would’ve chosen ever. Do you know what I mean? It’s kind of neat.

Stephen Semple:
Yes, it is neat. As I said at the beginning of this, if I had had a telephone call from somebody saying, Hey, I want to do this thing, I would’ve said, don’t bother. Now, it would be like, well, wait a minute. Because again, you don’t need 200 miles worth. Can we get 10 miles? If so, that would work.

Matthew Burns:
But you can’t do one. You can’t do two even, because you’re not getting the repetition that you need. I mean, those signs are ignorable for the most part.

Stephen Semple:
And I can’t do 10 scattered. It’s got to be 10 in a row. It’s probably the right number. But now there’s a way to make that work. Where before I would’ve been like, Nope, nope. So they taught me something, which I really, really respect.

Matthew Burns:
They’re not advertising signs. The best part is it’s not like you have options. It’s not like you can make it your brand colors. There’s nothing else you can do. No. It’s a white sign with black letters that shows up every once in a while with just your name on it. That’s it.

Stephen Semple:
Yes.

Matthew Burns:
So your name gets recognized. Now over the course of now these guys, hundreds of miles. Well, hundreds.

Stephen Semple:
That’s the crazy part about just how far they did it for. But hat’s off. Hat’s off.

Matthew Burns:
And I think it’s a great idea to interview them. I can’t wait to hear that interview. I want to know if that was the owner’s idea, if that was a marketing company that helped them figure that out. I’d love to know where that idea came from. I’m just trying to think of if anywhere else in the United States, if you could go and actually get that many miles in a row, I wonder how many random people have said, okay, I’ll adopt a couple of miles a highway, and then how could you then own that? Because it’d be weird.

Stephen Semple:
Well, I’m going to give you my guess on how they got that much. My guess is going to be this, and this is the other part where I’m going to give them massive credit because here’s my guess, making stuff up. But I bet you they put that program in place, the state, put that program in place. Let’s do an adopt a highway. They called them and they said, we will take all of them. I think that’s how it happened. We will take all of them.

Now, here’s the other thing that if that’s true, that makes that strategy so brilliant is it’s not like they could copy that somebody else had done this and, “Oh, now I’ve got to do this idea.” They would’ve been the first to come up with that idea. It would’ve been a significant investment. They would’ve been taking all of them.

Matthew Burns:
That’s right.

Stephen Semple:
And so I give them even more credit. I think that’s the only way that happened, which meant they took a big gamble of doing something that no one done before, and they wrote a big check and made a massive commitment to doing it. The only way I could think that you would be able to execute that idea, and they would’ve had to make the decision quickly because it would’ve been like, yeah, we’ll write that check right now. Now you’re done.

Matthew Burns:
Exactly. Yeah. No, this was really neat. And it’s funny you talked about it before and then you said, oh my gosh, this isn’t the highway. They did it again. They did it on this highway. We were watching them go by and go by and go by and go by. And I’m like, holy… There was no way I would’ve believed you without seeing it for myself. And now we’ve got proof on video, which is amazing.

Congratulations to Johnson Automotive Group. I don’t really know their full name. They’ve got Lexus and a whole bunch of other brands under their belt. Congratulations, guys. I mean, way to make the risk work. And if it was your idea, fantastic. Working with a great marketing company to help you get there. If that’s how it happened, then congratulations to them for being awesome.

Stephen Semple:
Absolutely.

Matthew Burns:
We’d love to take credit for something like that. So yes, this was an interesting one, a little bit strange. And like I said, this is about being sticky. This is something that didn’t leave us after we left North Carolina. I live in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Steve lives in a small little town up in middle of Ontario, Collingwood, just outside of Toronto. I mean, this is stuck with us for at least a year, year and a half. So it fits the bill for what we’re trying to do here. So thank you, Steve. Great one. Awesome my friend.

And hopefully we can come up with some other weird ones. And if not guys, reach out and let us know what other ads you like and maybe you have a weird one that’s really stuck with you over the years and you want us to go and do some research on. We’d love to tell you all about it. Thanks man. I appreciate your time today.

Stephen Semple:
Alright, thanks Matthew.

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