Dear Reader,

You are playing a dangerous game. A game that you didn’t even know that you were in. It’s no game of small bets. This is a game of extreme high stakes. It’s a game of tricks, addictions, and manipulations and very high costs.

You are playing the game of the direct response advertiser. This game is stacked against you. Big time!

The dealer is the direct response marketer. The house is Google, Bing, and the other search platforms. The player is you.

The dealer and the house are telling you that their game will make you rich. And that if their game doesn’t make you rich, it’s because you simply don’t know how to play the game.

“Here’s the problem Ron. You didn’t play the game the way I said to play the game. So, what you need to do is play the game again and you will learn.” – The house

“What are the rules to the game?” – The player

“You make your bet up front, and I deal you a lead.” – The dealer
“But how do I win?” – The player
“You make more bets. And you bet higher than the other players.” – The house

“If I bet higher than the other players, will I be the only one to get the leads?” – The player

“You will get the lead sooner.” – The dealer

“How many leads are given out for the same bet?” – The player

“Well, it depends.” – The house

“So, you are selling the lead to multiple players? How do I win at this game?” – The player

“You bet more money, more often.” – The dealer

“Won’t that just make me go broke?” – The player

This game is wildly popular! And the house has a big, beautiful building with no windows and no clocks. It is filled with bright colors and dings and whistles. Some call these distractions “metrics”.

The dealer stands behind the table the house built and takes his cut off every bet.

The player sits at the table, in the house with no windows, and keeps making his bets.

The house and the dealer always win.
Some players leave the table. Some just don’t know better.

Watch / listen above or read below.

Welcome to Todd Liles and the Wizard of Ads, a podcast for business owners who want to become remarkable.

Todd Liles: Roy, we’re building upon a theme here, which is answering the question, how do I know if my advertising is working? And we’re going to directly go into that question as the main focus for this episode. So I want to jump right into it.

If a business to consumer owner was sitting across from you, they came in, they had a one day with you, they paid the money, they flew to Austin, and they said, Roy, I don’t know if my advertising is working. What should I do? How should I figure this out? Where would you start with them?

Roy Williams: Okay. I want to know what people believe about them. What do people believe about you? Not what do you want them to believe about you, but what do people say to you? What do people repeat to you when they meet you? Is there anything?

Because see, when you have a reputation, people will let you know that they’ve heard of you by the things they say to you. They will repeat back to you phrases that they’ve heard in your ads. If that’s not happening, then yeah, you’re just wasting a lot of money and decorating the world with things to look at that nobody cares about in terms of visual ads. Or you’re saying things that nobody remembers, and therefore they never use that language in their conversations with you.

Todd Liles: Roy, is it fair to say that some people that sit across the table, when you begin to ask those questions, that their honest answer is, I don’t know because all I’m doing are just direct call to action ads. No one’s really saying much of anything about me, but maybe someone that’s already done business with it says, your guys does a good job, that’s it, versus other people may have some distinct things.

Roy Williams: Reviews are important, but reviews are not how you measure your advertising.

Todd Liles: Right. 

Roy Williams: That’s how you measure your techs. Okay, and the management of expectations. So let’s go back to when you’re sitting across from somebody. Now I’m going to tell a really deep, dark secret here.

Todd Liles: Okay. 

Roy Williams: There’s no better client than somebody who has tried everything they’ve been told to do and it’s not working. They’ve been tried everything they can think of and it’s not working. And so I meet a lot of people. And a lot of people say, oh, we want to hire you, but we’re going to do this much money this year. We’ve got a lock on that. With your help, we can even do better. Then I’m out.

No matter how much difference I make, I’m going to get no credit for it. They will tell themselves it was going to happen anyway. I’m always looking for somebody, and this is a secret… My perfect, perfect, perfect, perfect client, and all my biggest successes had either been flat or slightly down three years in a row, and they’ve been struggling and thrashing and spending all the money and doing everything that they’ve been told to do, and they’ve hired consultants and nothing is moving the needle. That’s the moment I look for.

You know why? Because when they start growing and I say, well, I will tell them… I will say, look, here’s what I think we can do in the next 12 months. Here’s what I think we can do in the next 24 months. Here’s what I think we can do in the next 36 months. I’ll tell them the truth because they’re going to write it down, and if I’m running my mouth, I’m going to get caught, right?

So if I read the stars and figure out what I’ve got to work with and figure out the strength of the competition, the size of the market, and are they capable of spending enough money to make a difference? Well, when I do the math in my head, and when you’ve been doing this for 40 years, you can kind of do the math in your head.

I will say, here’s what I think we can do. Do you think that’s going to happen anyway? And they say, oh, heavens no. There’s no way that’s going to happen. From your lips to God’s ears, please let that happen. I’m going, all right, so let’s do this.

Now remember, anybody who’s got the tiger by the tail, they’ve got the world on a string, and this is their just upward and onward, yeah, yeah, yeah, you go, boy. This is America. Go, go, go. I’m rooting for you. I’m back here just cheering you on. Thanks for coming by. God bless you. Stay in touch. But I’m going, yeah, I can’t make a difference, or if I do make a difference, I’m not going to get credit for it. Does that make sense to you?

Todd Liles: Yes.

Roy Williams: And so when somebody says, man, I have no idea what to do, cool, because you’re not going to argue with me.

Todd Liles: Do you actually like that client? 

Roy Williams: Yes. What I’m saying is when they know that they have no idea what they’re doing, and their back’s against the wall, and they’re frustrated, and they’re pissed off, all of my biggest successes begin with that client.

And I’m saying, so when somebody’s got the world by the tail, and they’re just killing it, they’re just taking over, I want no part of it. I’ve got a lot of partners who are happy to work with them, not me. And so I cheat. I don’t want to get involved unless I know I’m going to make a big difference that nobody’s going to dispute. I know that’s selfish, but I’m sorry.

Todd Liles: I don’t know that it is selfish. It kind of goes back to the risk of insult is the price of clarity. In a way, it does, because cock of the walk comes in, and what they’re really trying to do isn’t get your advice. They’re trying to brag on themselves. Now, there might be some people that got to get through that bragging on themselves, period, to get honest about how bad they are actually doing. So I’ll give some folks with some ego issues a little bit of grace there, because maybe they’re trying to impress you because you do have such a reputation. They don’t want to seem like a dumbass in front of you.

Roy Williams: I understand, but my thing is this. I want to make a huge difference. And the biggest insult, the most hateful thing you can ever say is you get two, three, four years in, five years in, and everybody in their life is telling them what a genius they are. Their banker tells them they’re a genius. Their CPA tells them they’re a genius. All their friends tell them they’re a genius. And they’re getting very, very, very famous and they’re making tons of money.

And I’ve been doing this 40 years. I mean, I’ve seen this happen dozens of times. And then the people who actually start believing it, that it was all going to happen anyway, and they act like they’re doing me a favor to let me work for them. Yeah, I’m sorry. I do not want to do this anymore.

And so my position is when you go in and you make a difference, and this is where you and I are very, very much alike, Todd, I want to know that these people, their kids get to go to college or perhaps a better college. They get to move to a better neighborhood. They get to take the family vacation they’ve always wanted, and they were never able to do that before.

It’s like if you could make a real difference in the life of a family and a real difference in the things they get to do and the people they get to help and how many people they can hire and how many people they can give jobs to that they couldn’t give jobs to in the past. And I want to say this because I say things at the risk of controversy.

That’s actually what I’ve learned from my Jewish friends. I have a lot of Jewish friends. And you know what? The belief among Jewish people is, and it goes back to a guy named Maimonides, Rambam, I think they called him. But Maimonides, like in the 8th century or something like that, was a rabbi, and he said there’s eight levels of charity, eight levels of love. And the very lowest level is just to give somebody money.

And they said, you know, if you just give somebody some money, that’s a good thing to do but not that good because they still have the problem. If they are short of money, and I’m headed somewhere with this, if they’re short of money and you give them money, you didn’t care enough to find out why they don’t have any money. 

There’s an underlying problem here that they don’t have any money. He says if you really cared, you would find out what’s wrong, why they don’t have any money, and you would get involved with them, and you would fix that problem. So giving a person a job is way better than giving them money. You don’t give them a fish, teach them to fish. And that’s how Jewish people think. And so the fact that they’re reluctant just to give you money, it’s not stinginess.

It is like, no, if I care enough to help you, I need to go beyond giving you money. I need to help you solve your problem. And so if you really, really care, you help somebody start a business. You know why? Because they can make infinite money, and more importantly, they can give jobs to other people. And so when you can make this investment, and they benefit exponentially, and they get to pass it on to others and give them jobs, and then help those people start businesses, and so now you’re realizing how all this works. 

So in my mind and in your mind, I know how you are. I need to know I’m not just making money, and I’m not just making a name for myself, but I am, in fact, above all things, making a difference. And when you’re making a difference, and the people you’re making a difference for acknowledge that and appreciate it, now you have a relationship, and there’s a bond.

And like I said, I keep clients for decades, and I don’t believe in leaving this person to start working with a different person because they’re more famous or sexier or have more potential or whatever. It’s like, no, once you’re in, you’re in for real. You’re in to the end. You don’t ever back out of it. You just stay committed to it. And so when you think like that, then you choose who you work with very, very, very carefully. And so again, I want people that I know are really good at everything. The only thing they’re not good at is marketing. Because I can’t fix anything but marketing. So they need to be good at hiring, training, recruiting.

They need to be good at doing the work and making the customer happy, and they need to be able to scale that business. They need to be good at managing a business, which is why you and I have become such good friends is because whenever a person is deficient in any of those areas, you really need to call Todd Liles and get this training that I don’t know how to give you. And so I don’t do that for your benefit. I do that for their benefit. And I think you know that.

Todd Liles: We both appreciate it, though.

Roy Williams: No, I got it. The thing is I look at it and I said, how do you know when your advertising is working? Is your top line growing? If your top line is growing and you think it’s going to happen anyway, I don’t want to know you. I want you to know that it wasn’t going to grow anyway. You tried to grow it and it wasn’t growing, and then you started doing what I told you, and it started growing, and then it kept growing and kept growing and kept growing.

And there comes a point at which, and it’s somewhere between the fifth and seventh year. Remember how long I’ve been doing this. Somewhere between year five and year seven, people start thinking, yeah, he gets paid according to the growth of my company. So my company is now 15 times bigger than it was, and I’m paying him 15 times as much per month. I don’t think he’s working hard enough for all that money. And you know when I quit? The day they want to renegotiate.

Todd Liles: Yeah.

Roy Williams: It’s like, nope, sorry. We had a covenant. We made a deal, and I told you how big I thought we could get. And you said, bring it on. Let’s make that happen. And I’m going, okay, and I did. And now you’re thinking you’re doing me a favor to let me work for you. Okay, great. This is America. Do it yourself.

Todd Liles: There’s a lineup of mindsets here, and I’m going to see if I can bring what I see as at least two, if not three. And I’m going to tell a little story about myself. You know that I grew up in Mississippi. And when I was in Mississippi, I was poor. Poor in the state of mind and poor financially. And for quite a long time, that was just life. I was just poor.

Somewhere along the way, at an age that I don’t fully remember, when people were using our land to plant watermelons, and I went out and said, hey, let me help you. And they’re like, well, you can’t pick watermelons. You’re too small, but what you could do is you can bring us water. So I’d bring them pitchers of water, and every time I’d bring them water, it was 25 cents. I was like, oh, this is kind of cool. So I brought lots and lots of water, and I got really sore that day. And then eventually I got a little bigger, and then moved into watermelon picking, and then I got a little smarter, and I started investing in education.

So what happened was somewhere, I would say about age 11, I realized I was broke. I wasn’t poor. I just didn’t have any money. Poor was a mindset, because I had decided I wasn’t going to be poor. And I started imagining a life of what making $50,000 a year would be like, and then what’s it going to be like to make $100,000 a year, and then $250,000, and what’s it going to be like to make a million?

And my imaginations today is what will it be like the year I make $10 million? I haven’t done that yet. I will do that. And look, I may lose it all one day, and I may be broke again in my life, but I will never be poor, because I have a certain mindset of making it achieve and making it happen.

But the other part of what I have, and I think this is in large part what you’re talking about, it’s not someone having confidence, but it’s someone having a lack of gratitude and humility. And that’s a very unattractive trait in anyone when, at least in my opinion, I don’t want to work with anyone that can’t wake up in the morning and be thankful to someone or something or some entity. When they become, I did this all on my own and no one helped me, that’s really ugly. Because from that lack of gratitude comes this desire to, hey, we had a deal.

Well, yeah, when I married Shannon, I really believed in those till death do we part vows. No matter what happens, she might get sick. I might get sick. She might transition into this supermodel that I didn’t marry, and she might look at me and go, well, look at this ugly guy I’m married to now. That wasn’t part of the deal. I might get really fat. So if we grow apart and we don’t commit to an actual relationship, it’s a business transaction, those things are ugly.

And the clients that we have, James and Michael Kuzminoski is a great example of this. They are brothers, and they treat me like a brother. And I’ve never been able to understand fully why. And here’s the thing, even though I don’t understand fully why, it doesn’t matter to me, because now I’m treating them like a brother. Once I understood what that side of that relationship means, I’m in it for them for life. They can grow this business, stay in this business forever. They can sell it.

And Michael has asked me, and this is when I knew that they meant it. He said, Todd, whatever this business ends up being and we move on from it and we do other things, we want you to be in our life. Would you be our partner in the future things, whether it’s real estate or other I’m like, absolutely.

Roy Williams: Sure. 

Todd Liles: I’m in it with you guys. 

Roy Williams: Here’s what’s interesting, is we began talking about how do you measure whether or not you’re educated. 

Todd Liles: I know, we took a way different turn.

Roy Williams: Here’s what’s interesting, but the deal is, maybe people got something out of what we were saying that we didn’t realize, or maybe we just need to scrap this and start over.

Todd Liles: No, I think it’s good.

Roy Williams: I do want to say that whenever the company is growing and more people are typing your name into the search engine, they go to Google and they type in the name of your company, that’s because your ads are building a reputation for you, okay? Unless they say, well, it could be customer referrals.

Well, is it happening now? Are your customer referrals triggering more and more people typing your name into Google? Because there’s a benchmark. How many people were typing your name into Google? It’s called branded keyword search, and it can be tracked. It can easily be tracked, but most people don’t. Do you know why?

Todd Liles: I don’t know why.

Roy Williams: Because most digital agencies don’t want to track them separately. Because if you saw… 

Todd Liles: Oh, they won’t take credit for it?

Roy Williams: No, no, no, no, no. If you saw how much money you make on branded keyword searches, and the conversion, and the average sale, and the gross profit… And whenever you see how  little money you make, and very often you’re actually losing money every the time you spend that much money to make a sale because it wasn’t a branded keyword search, because all they typed in was air conditioning replacement, they were looking for the lowest price. And so you made very little profit on those jobs compared to these.

You can look at the profit on the jobs. Branded keyword search, way more profit per job. Unbranded keyword search, very small profit per job. And super high cost of making those sales. And when you deduct the cost of advertising from the gross profits, you very often actually see a net loss. And so when you start tracking unbranded keywords separately from your branded keywords, you slash the hell out of your Google budget, your pay-per-click budget, and nobody wants that happening. So they blur those together, because when you blur them together, the strength of branded keyword search, if people know your name, covers for the wild inefficiency of the unbranded search.

I’ve got data for this. We shared it in the last episode. They need to look at that and go, this is from Service Titan. Now you can get from Google, you can get from the search engine, who clicked what? And so branded keyword search is what you’re after. And when you’re seeing more and more people type in your name into Google and the other, what we call the brandable chunks, these are the signature phrases that nobody uses but you. These are your special little things that you say, and if they don’t remember the name of your company, just remember this thing that you say. See what I mean?

Todd Liles: I do. Thank you for that. I’m going to use an analogy, and I promise it’s going to make sense in a moment, but when a person has an addiction to alcohol, like a real addiction, like to the point that their body has chemically altered to run on alcohol as part of its energy source, it needs it, to that level of addiction. A person can literally die if they cold turkey alcohol. It’s very, very dangerous. It has to be done appropriately. They’ve got to be weaned off of it as their lifestyle changes under the care of a medical supervisor.

And I’m not making light of anyone that suffers with addiction. I’m not. But I have a valid point to this because I’ve seen this. And we are very clear, extraordinarily clear with clients when they become Wizard clients that this is going to take time. We have digital options if you’re interested, but if they’ve got a digital crew and they like them, we go, okay, well, listen, if you like them and you’re going to keep them, keep them. But for the love of Pete, don’t go cold turkey. Don’t quit that while we are building these other things.

And yet, how many times have you heard people talk about businesses are down, and then six months later, and I’ve done this, you dig in going, what’s going on? Because, of course, ours hasn’t kicked in yet, but they did what we told them not to do. They quit cold turkey, and they’re causing real damage just like an alcoholic would. You can’t do that. So will you talk about a transition period?

Roy Williams: Right. So what happens is if what you’re doing is very inefficient, you’ve got to keep doing it until you get past the relationship-building part. In other words, when you’re spending a mass media budget and you’re trying to build yourself a name and a reputation and a bond with the customer, you cannot create a real relationship in the mind of the public in a short period of time. It cannot be done.

And so for at least, at the very minimum, three or four months, at the very minimum, hear that word, minimum, three or four months, almost all the money that you’re spending, you might as well just set it on fire because you’re seeing so little results in those first few months. And we tell people, man, the first three or four months is the chickening-out period, and if you’re not ready for that, I mean, if you hadn’t settled it in your heart that you know you’re not going to see a return on this money in those first few months.

Now, at about six months, you feel like you’re turning the corner, you hope you’re turning the corner. I don’t know, maybe it’s just the economy has picked up. Maybe it’s something else. Maybe it’s the weather. Maybe it’s just, you know, good referrals. But you’re going, I hope, it’s the marketing. I’m not certain yet, but I do feel like things are getting better.

It’s the second half of the first year that you start going, oh, this is definitely working. This is definitely working. Now, second year, I’ll give you some math for this. This is what I call country boy math. 

Todd Liles: We’ll take it. I like country boy math. 

Roy Williams: And I’ll tell you why. Country math means it’s an observation that I have learned to trust.

Todd Liles: Okay.

Roy Williams: Now, remember, we’re not measuring percentages. Write that down. We are not measuring percentages in this method. We are measuring dollar growth. Dollars. So in the first year, the number of dollars that you grow in year number one, most of those are going to come starting in the second half of the year. You’re going to see some results in the first six months, but not enough to justify the ad budget. Yeah, you’re going to see some results, but not enough to justify the ad budget.

Whenever you start feeling like it’s kind of justifying and gaining momentum, it’s the second half of the first year, maybe the final seven months, maybe the final eight months, but certainly the final six months. And you’re going to say, okay, we think it’s working. The dollars that you grow in year number one, you can count on all things remaining equal, at least double that number of dollars in year two.

Todd Liles: Double.

Roy Williams: Double the number of additional dollars you made in year one, it’s at least double in year two.

Todd Liles: Just so I have clarity. Let’s say I’m three million.

Roy Williams: Right. 

Todd Liles: And… 

Roy Williams: You grow by a million. In year one. In year one, you grow by a million.

Todd Liles: I grow by a million.

Roy Williams: So you grow by a million. Now you’re doing four million, right? 

Todd Liles: Right.

Roy Williams: If you grew by a million in year one, you’re going to grow by two million in year two.

Todd Liles: So we’re going to go to six.

Roy Williams: So now you’re going to six. You’re going to go to three million in year three.

Todd Liles: Got it.

Roy Williams: So year three will be three times the dollar growth that you had in year one. So if you’re doing three million and you grew by a million, now you’re doing four, then you grew by two, now you’re doing six, then you grew by three, now you’re doing nine.

So what happens is in the fourth year, all bets are off. Your advertising has now got momentum, and the year number four is when we find out if you’re tall enough to ride this ride, because it’s now the business owner is the limiting factor, not the marketing. And that’s whenever, when I say if we’re going, if I make a mistake, I partner with somebody as a client, and they aren’t capable of managing a business that’s bigger than the length of their shadow. And some people can manage a business that’s bigger than the length of their own personal shadow. Other people can only manage a business as big as they are. And this is whenever I’m going, no, no, no, no, that’s when I need to get them to Service Excellence so that they can learn how to run a business that’s bigger than they are.

And if they can’t run that, then they will freeze at that level, and marketing cannot grow them if they can’t hire, if they can’t recruit, train, and retain good employees. Keep going.

Todd Liles: Well, everything you’re saying is spot on. I have one slight adjustment I want you to contemplate. And this is it. We know that there are certain echelon points in businesses where they have to have overhead and do things to grow. What’s fascinating is that if someone came to us, and let’s say that they were at three, we kind of know that their next phase is going to be going to five.

And at three, they’ve got to at least add one key person behind the business owner. He needs a little help. At five, it’s a few more. It’s in those early stages where if we can get in early, and here’s our chickening out stuff, if we can get in with someone that’s around three to five and secure that foundation, and ideally if we could do that at about the same time… Because if they come on with a Wizard account, and we know that we’ve got 12 to 18 months before things really start going, if they wait until things really start growing, that’s probably a mistake. Because if we could have been with them in that 12 to 18 months to get them foundationally ready, get their people trained up, by the time they’re growing, now they’re capable.

So it’s almost like, oh, damn, this car’s going fast. They don’t have brakes installed sometimes. And for us, the reason why I was so fascinated and going, I’ve got to build this relationship, is because oftentimes we will build these internal systems and structures, and they’re ready and capable, but they don’t have the fuel for the car. It’s like, okay, let’s bring the Wizards in. So for me, it was like a natural one, too. Like, we’ve built this machine that’s sturdy. It’s firm. It’s well-built. It can handle the roads. It’s scalable. Now we need to up the engine. We’ve got to put in an engine that can really get them going.

Roy Williams: And it takes external and internal energies. And I’m going, we only provide the external energy. And I’m saying, we actually create problems inside the business. We don’t solve them. Because whenever you have more business coming at you than you can actually respond to, and you’re having to reschedule, reschedule, reschedule, and you’re making people angry because you don’t honor your word.

And it’s like, yeah, you guys need to get that together because you’re killing us here. You’re running them off faster than we can bring them in. And so operational stuff, I had to figure out for many, many years. I’ve got to find somebody that’s already good operationally. And what you were doing is going, you know what, we can get them ready to run a bigger business. Now we just got to figure out how to make it bigger.

Todd Liles: Yes.

Roy Williams: And so when you and I finally realized, it’s like, huh. As a matter of, I’ve always known that I needed somebody that could teach operational stuff. I never knew anybody that could do it. Most people in that business are frankly not good at it. They’re just motivational speakers.

No, gross. 

And so I remember you mentioned when we first were really getting to know each other, you said, man, all of my clients that are doing best are clients of you or one of your partners.

Todd Liles: That’s right.

Roy Williams: And there’s now 80 of us. And so I’m going, okay, the guy in the lobby I met, Jack.

Todd Liles: Jack.

Roy Williams: Yeah, Jack’s awesome. And I said, who’s your writer? He said, Chris Torbay. And I said, wow, you know what that says about you? He didn’t know. I said, a writer can only work with about 12 clients. And so writers are super, super, super choosy who they accept to work with. And I said, Chris is among the very, very, very, very best writers. I mean, Chris is astounding.

And I said, so the fact that he chose your company tells me one thing. The fact he agreed to work with you is it tells me that he really, really, really believes you can grow a lot. Because Chris’s compensation grows with the size of Jack’s company. And I said, you just told me a whole lot about your ability to grow because if Chris Torbay accepted him as a client and is his writer writing his ads, I’m going, yeah, I’d like to invest in your company, Jack. You’re willing to sell me some shares, because the fact that he’s growing like crazy. And we spent some time together. I really enjoyed meeting Jack. It was kind of by accident. He was in the lobby when I got here.

But the idea that a person being capable of managing the business they own and then we need operational people that can actually fix all of that because we don’t know how and we just don’t care and it’s not what interests us. It’s like, yeah, yeah, we’re going to cause you all kinds of problems. Figure that stuff out. You know, you got to have the people. You got to have the money. You got to have the systems. You got to have the bookkeeping. You got to have whatever it takes. Do all of that because that’s not what we do. And people always want to do advertising first and then we hit year four and it’s a crisis. And even though we’ve only, how long have we known each other? A couple of years? 

Todd Liles: Yeah.

Roy Williams: Okay. Well, say. Just hit quick. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So my point is whenever we’re working with more and more Service Excellence clients, we’re not going to have crisis in year number four. They’re going to be able to just grow and scale and keep on trucking. And see, that’s always been the big problem for us is usually what can happen in three years. They can scramble and struggle and miss sleep at night and just work late and stay on top of it. It’s usually year four that it all falls apart.

Todd Liles: Well, we can do better together, that’s for sure. All right, I got another national ad for you.

Roy Williams: All right.

Todd Liles: I think you’re going to know this one. I didn’t know this was the very first ad, but let’s check it out. I’m not even going to tell people what it is because I think even if you’re listening, you’re going to know very quickly what it is. All right, let’s play it.

Older Marathon Runner: I run 17 miles every morning. People ask me how I keep my teeth from chattering in the wintertime. I leave them in my locker. 

[On Screen: Just do it.]

Todd Liles: Just do it. So I went on a search, like, when did the Nike Just Do It campaign actually come out? What was its first ad? Of course, in my mind, it’s going to be a young athlete. It’s going to be Michael Jordan. It’s going to be—no, it’s Walt Stack, 80-year-old, running across the Golden Gate Bridge with his shirt off, with music in the background that sounds like it could have been written by Paul Simon. And two very short lines that ends in sort of a joke. And by the way, he’s got his teeth in when he’s smiling.

Roy Williams: Yeah. 

Todd Liles: So you probably remember this ad.

Roy Williams: Oh, I do, I do.

Todd Liles: So what works about this ad?

Roy Williams: You know, I’m actually curious. If you chose these consciously or unconsciously, because every episode the ad you choose is amazing for exactly the same reasons. It does exactly the opposite of what everybody expects somebody in your category to do.

They don’t show you these muscular people you wish you’re as beautiful as they are. They show you this 80-year-old guy, and they blow your mind by saying, this guy runs 17 miles a day, and he’s 80 years old. And then he runs like an 80-year-old guy, and he looks like an 80-year-old guy. And I’m going, huh, vulnerability, vulnerability. For him to be willing to be seen with his shirt off, running like an 80-year-old man, and just doing his thing, and for Nike to go, we love this guy, we’re proud of this guy, he represents our brand. Just do it. You’re 80 years old, just do it, just do it. Just start running. And so the Volkswagen ad, the Apple ad, all these ads, the Procter & Gamble ad for Think Like a Girl, what’s it called?

Todd Liles: Like a Girl.

Roy Williams: Like a Girl, okay. All of those, they were doing something that was new, surprising, and different, and it was almost precisely the opposite of what common sense or logic would tell you they should do. And so we relate to the guy, and those of us who don’t have perfect bodies and we’re not athletic and we don’t look good with our shirts off, we’re going, dude, that’s my boy. I look better than him, and he’s willing to go running down the side of the road with his shirt off, and the man runs 17 miles a day. He’s my hero. And so you love Nike because Nike loves him.

Todd Liles: So to answer your question, I went on a search of really well-known popular ads that worked. And for me, this show is just as much for me as it is for the listener and the watcher. I want to learn. I want to learn, and also I want to look back 40 years from now when I’m 85 and go, look at the time with my friend Roy.

Because there’s no part of me that ever imagines that I will know what you know. And I don’t believe that I will, but I believe I’ll be smarter for it. I want to document this for the world. So the answer to your question directly, these things that you’re pointing out, no, I didn’t realize it. I didn’t recognize it. I, like most consumers, go, that’s a damn good ad. I don’t know why, but it’s a damn good ad. And you’re unpacking it for us, so thank you.

Roy Williams: Well, the bottom line is I did not realize that all these ads that were the legendary primordial seminal ads for these brands, I didn’t realize that they all had that thing as obviously in common with each other is they’re doing is precisely the opposite of what you would expect the brand to do, but it works. When they’re doing something that shouldn’t work, but it does work, it delights you.

Todd Liles: Is that the takeaway from today’s episode?

Roy Williams: It is. It’s kind of like when what you’re doing doesn’t fit, but it belongs. It doesn’t fit, but it absolutely belongs. The old man doesn’t fit in an ad about athletes, but he belongs. And all of the things you’re seeing, so the little tiny car in an age of big, powerful, heavy gas guzzlers that are luxurious, yeah, that doesn’t fit the zeitgeist, but it belongs.

It belongs because it occupies its own space, and you either like that space or you don’t. But Volkswagen was the king of that space at that time. And so differentiate yourself, and if you can do what surprises people, and it shouldn’t work, but it miraculously does because it speaks to them at a different place. It comes from an unpredictable angle, and it talks to a different part of them than what they were expecting you to talk to. 

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