Stephen Semple:
Look, it’s memorable. You will not forget it. Growing up in Southern Ontario near the border of Toronto, I was born in for Erie, right across the border from Buffalo, you got, especially growing up, a lot of U.S. television. So you would see U.S. ads.

Matthew Burns:
I was in Brampton, Ontario right next to Toronto. We got all the same shit.

Stephen Semple:
Okay. If I said to somebody growing up who’s our age, “Hurt in a car?”.

Matthew Burns:
William Mattar.

Stephen Semple:
And then what’s the phone number?

Matthew Burns:
444-4444

Stephen Semple:
Right. So imagine that presence that as soon as you say the words “Hurt in car?” William Mattar 444-4444. I mean, we could grab Gary Bernier and do the same thing.

Matthew Burns:
I think Gary would definitely understand it.

Stephen Semple:
The presence it had… Look, it grew him into a powerhouse. I think today they’ve got something like six offices or something crazy along those lines.

Matthew Burns:
Yeah.

Stephen Semple:
But when he started, he was a guy doing auto injury law, and he created these commercials that just resonated. Now, Matt, you found one of the old ones, and we’ll take a look at this old one. We’ll talk about the improvement they made. We’ll also talk about a mistake that somebody is making trying to copy it.

Matthew Burns:
Okay, here you go. Give me one sec.

Hurt in a car?

Call William Mattar.

William Mattar:
Don’t panic. You’ve been seriously injured and you may feel that your life has been turned upside down. Even worse, you have medical bills and there’s no money coming in. I’m William Mattar. Call right now because we can help.

Get help right now.

Call 444-4444.

William Mattar:
Let our focus be your advantage.

Hurt in a car? Call William Mattar. 444-4444.

Matthew Burns:
Now, I want to say this isn’t a particularly good example, and I want to say that it’s not only because it’s one of the regional ones. It’s one of the earlier ones.

Stephen Semple:
Oh yeah. It’s going way back.

Matthew Burns:
Right. But what I like about it is this is one of the early ones, and they did get better. Like anything else, you do it for a while, you do it consistently, you’re going to get better at it. But it’s a standard. I mean, this was produced by the local cable company. They went into the station. It was written by them. Somebody, and I don’t know if it was William’s decision, if it was at the cable company, but they decided, “Hurt in a Car? Call William Mattar”, which is a really awesome earworm.

Stephen Semple:
Well, yeah, because it’s got rhythm to it. Hurt in a car? Call William Mattar. And then this is where then they got better because in that version it’s, Hurt in a Car? Call William Mattar. 444-4444. Then they went, later ads are, “Hurt in a Car? Call William Mattar. 444-4444.”

Matthew Burns:
Yes.

Stephen Semple:
Now, the whole thing has got that rhythm and that rhyme to it.

Matthew Burns:
The cadence.

Stephen Semple:
The cadence, which makes it even more memorable.

Matthew Burns:
Yeah, absolutely.

Stephen Semple:
Hurt in a car? Call William Mattar. 444-4444, right?

Matthew Burns:
Right. But this example, I mean, it’s very “Activation. Call now.” It’s a lot of stuff that — with our clients — we fight against a lot.

Stephen Semple:
Yes.

Matthew Burns:
But they did such a good job with that earworm and then the phone number, which is really easy to remember. It’s not necessarily easy to remember on its own. It’s that whole thing, which becomes very much set into the brain.

Stephen Semple:
Yes. And what I really admire, it would be very easy today to pivot that campaign and talk about the website. Now they do put the website on the television ads that run today, but they’re continuing to lean into the phone number because it’s memorable. Look, it’s memorable. You will not forget it.

Matthew Burns:
That’s right, exactly. Listen, 1-800-GOT-JUNK.

Stephen Semple:
Yes.

Matthew Burns:
We can’t take away from the fact that, yes, it happens to be their website ain the company name, but 1-800-GOT-JUNK is memorable, and so you lean into it and you leave it there.

Stephen Semple:
This campaign turned this guy from a one-man legal firm to 30 years later, there are six offices. I don’t know how many hundreds of lawyers.

Matthew Burns:
Yes, massive.

Stephen Semple:
Man, the guy is a powerhouse, and if I was in northern New York and you were doing personal auto injury, you’d have to compete against that. Holy crap!

Matthew Burns:
That’s right.

Stephen Semple:
The guy owns everybody’s brain on his phone number. And this is the other crazy thing, what I love is, a lot of people run hurt in a car? But he tied it. Hurt in the car. Have you been hurt in a car? Call William Mattar. And then he’s got a verb in there as well. So there’s just lots of good things. It’s a really good version. But it’s really interesting, when people see something that works and they try to copy it but they don’t understand why it worked.

Matthew Burns:
Why it worked.

Stephen Semple:
So I wish I was able to get a picture of this billboard. I didn’t see it again.

Matthew Burns
I’ll look for it. We’ll get it up.

Stephen Semple:
I was down in Austin driving down the road, and I saw a lawyer whose number is 444-4444. So somehow they’ve got it for Texas. But his whole thing is call the fours and no rhyme or recall back to his name. So it was like Dave Smith, call the fours. And I get what they were doing. They looked at William Mattar and said, “Oh, it’s the number that works. It’s the phone number that works. It’s having a number that’s all fours that works.” No. Hurt in a car? Call William Mattar. Call 555-5555. It’s not that it’s fours.

Matthew Burns:
It’s the earworm at the beginning.

Stephen Semple:
It’s the earworm at the beginning, and then having a number that ties that earworm.

Matthew Burns:
That’s right.

Stephen Semple:
It’s not that it’s fours. It’s the rhythm. Hurt in a car? Call William Mattar. Call 222-2222.

Matthew Burns:
Right.

Stephen Semple:
I could totally make that work.

Matthew Burns:
Right.

Stephen Semple:
This guy thought, oh, the success is have a phone number that is all fours and advertise that, call the fours. I can’t remember the guy’s name. And here’s the crazy thing, the only reason why I know that there’s a lawyer and it stood out has nothing to do with him. It has to do with the fact…

Matthew Burns:
That you know this campaign.

Stephen Semple:
… I know this campaign. So it would work for people in Texas who are from Northern New York. Because all he’s doing is going, “Oh yeah, that’s what William Mattar did.”

Matthew Burns:
Yeah, exactly. No, I agree with you completely. And here’s the thing, this isn’t a one-off. You think about it, and again, I don’t know if this happens to be an all Great Lakes area thing, but think about Pizza Pizza, which is a massive pizza chain in Ontario. And now they’ve reached out from Ontario, but I know them from Ontario. And their slogan is 967-1111.

Stephen Semple:
Eleven eleven.

Matthew Burns:
I mean we can sing it. 967-1111. They wrapped it into a jingle. Actually, you know what? We’ve got to bring Mick on. We gotta talk about jingles with Mick.

Stephen Semple:
Yes.

Matthew Burns:
But if they did 967-1-1-1-1, it doesn’t hold the gravitas that 967-11-11. You’ve got the cadence. You’ve got the rhyme. All of that works but your lawyer in Texas went, “Hey, the fours.”

Stephen Semple:
Call the fours. Now, there’s something that they could have potentially done clever with that.

Matthew Burns:
But they didn’t.

Stephen Semple:
But the point is they didn’t actually understand. And this is the reason why a lot of times people will look at an ad somewhere else, even in their industry, and they’ll bring it and they’ll use it and they’ll go, “It didn’t work. Why did it not work?” It’s because they didn’t actually take the time to understand why it was successful.

Matthew Burns:
That’s it.

Stephen Semple:
And look, this is why we’re doing this.

Matthew Burns:
Thank you.

Stephen Semple:
This is the reason why we’re doing this, is we’re tearing apart these ads so you can understand what made them successful. So you don’t just do a copy. You take the underlying idea of what made it successful and apply it to your advertising.

Matthew Burns:
Exactly.

Stephen Semple:
But look, William Mattar has become a very well-to-do man based off of those ads. And he has not varied for 40 years.

Matthew Burns:
Yeah, decades. We’re talking decades with the same exact campaign. People are like, “We got to change it up and keep it fresh.” Okay. You can make it better but you don’t have to keep making it fresh. You’ve got to start well, right?

Stephen Semple:
Yes, absolutely.

Matthew Burns:
When you brought it up, I know that I like to find things, but you brought this one up again, I think it’s a couple in a row now you’ve been flying at me. But this one here, I didn’t think of it because, again, when I knew it was very small. I mean, look at the ad that we showed at the beginning. It’s very poor production. It’s really not what we would help produce for our clients.

Stephen Semple:
Yes.

Matthew Burns:
But it worked magically. And so hats off to William Mattar.

Stephen Semple:
But it goes to show you, if you’ve got a good creative idea and you lean into it, you can make it work.

Matthew Burns:
There you go. All right, well, I hope everybody liked this one. We’re going to see you next time.

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