Matthew Burns:
Hey, Steve. What are you giggling for already? It’s because you already know we’re going to talk about toenail fungus.

Stephen Semple:
I weirdly like this.

Matthew Burns:
Here’s what I like about this one. This is not actually a company that produced this ad. This is the government of Canada, or a portion thereof, the government of Canada that put this ad together.

Stephen Semple:
Isn’t it crazy we’re doing a government of Canada ad that we’re featuring? What the hell?

Matthew Burns:
Right. It’s a government Canada ad for toenail fungus. You know what? Watch the ad first.

Toenail Fungus Ad

Ad, Kid:
It’s a gross big toenail!

Ad, Mom:
He’s right. It is disgusting.

Ad, Dad:
It’s nothing.

Ad, Doctor:
It’s a nail fungus infection.

Ad, Kid:
Ah, it’s a monster!

Ad, Dad:
Come on, it’s not that bad.

Ad, Doctor:
It’s contagious. You can even spread it to other people.

Ad, Mom:
You should really get that checked out.

Ad, Kid:
We’ve got to kill the monster!

Ad, Dad:
It’s nothing.

Ad, Doctor:
It’s an infection. You have to treat it. You need a prescription.

Ad, Announcer:
Nail fungus should be taken seriously. At the first signs, show it to your doctor, and ask about prescription treatments that can be applied to the-

Matthew Burns:
Okay, so, it’s a monster! I love the kid’s face is in the toenail. It’s right there. And he’s got his little action figures trying to battle the toenail fungus.

Stephen Semple:
And the dad completely ignoring him. Stop saying…

Matthew Burns:
Yeah. All the characters are right. The dad is a dad. That’s how dads behave, everything’s nonchalant. But don’t worry, it’ll take care of itself. Moms are like always worried about everything. “You’ve got to take care of it. That doesn’t look healthy. I want you to be around for a long time.” And I love the interjection of the doctor. “No, no, no, really, it’s bad.” And then, “You really need to take care of that.” Right? So it’s all of these little pieces create this awesome story, and it’s that interruption moments to the ones that I really like.

Stephen Semple:
Here’s what I find fascinating about it, and doctors will confirm this. What’s often the biggest challenge that they have? And we find this with the doctors we’re working with. They’ll all say patients procrastinate, and when they finally treat things, the patient ends up saying, “Wow, I should have come in years ago.” Procrastination is the thing.

Matthew Burns:
A hundred percent.

Stephen Semple:
Now, way too often with these things, “Let’s just educate the consumer.” It’s really hard to educate the consumer, but what they managed to do here is thread a little bit of education in there, but hit the procrastination right upfront. The dad’s, “It’s fine. It’ll be fine.” The kid’s the entertainment, the wife is the reality, and the doctor’s the education. And they sprinkle the education through the ad. It’s really quite amazing.

Matthew Burns:
Yeah, no, they did a really good job. And kind of what I liked was this whole idea of the trigger that, when we think about sales activation or anything to take action, we have two ways that that happens. We have an external trigger. Just think that you’re a roofer, a tree falls on your roof and you need to replace the roof. So that’s the external trigger. Something happened to make you want to do it.

Toenail fungus, which you would think, “Okay, great. Oh, my nail’s starting to look bad. That’s an external trigger, I’ve got to go do something about,” it’s not. We would think it is, but then they would not have to have where they’re hitting you from a procrastination standpoint. They need to do something to jar and trigger the internal trigger of, “Oh, yeah, I really should have that checked out.”

Stephen Semple:
Yes.

Matthew Burns:
The dad being so nonchalant and the mom being like, “Really, you should have it checked out,” and then the reality that it’s because it’s an actual problem. It’s not just an ugly toenail, it’s a toenail that actually has an infection inside of it. So, I loved that what they did there was so good. And then you said it the best, and the child is just the entertainment, which keeps us wanting to know what the heck is that kid going to say next.

Stephen Semple:
It’s a monster!

Matthew Burns:
Right, exactly. “We have to kill the monster.” Which is funny, when you think about it, what he’s saying is actually true and right, and exactly what’s supposed to happen, but he’s doing it in such an entertaining way, right?

Stephen Semple:
Yes.

Matthew Burns:
A doctor would never do that. A doctor’s going to always be, listen, we have a fantastic client, Dr. Milkie from Waukee Feet. Amazing doctor. He’s never going to point at the toe, “We got to kill the monster!” Which is going to trigger, and then he’s going to be like, he’s going to be very doctory, he’s going to tell you exactly what it is, and why he’s done it, and what the treatment’s going to take, and all that stuff. And that’s why people don’t want to go to a doctor. This ad by the government of Canada really highlights what’s necessary. This is the point, and why. And you know what? And your kids are no longer going to be hanging out at your feet.

Stephen Semple:
The funny part is-

Matthew Burns:
You can stop the wife nagging. Sorry. Yeah.

Stephen Semple:
Yeah. The other part that is so good about it is it’s so real and believable. It is believable that a kid would do that.

Matthew Burns:
Heck, yeah. Especially, they got the right age.

Stephen Semple:
Yeah. They got that annoying…

Matthew Burns:
Yes, they did.

Stephen Semple:
But it was entertaining, it was real. The dialogue between everyone in it was very believable. And then they took the technique of sprinkles, which I think is underutilized.

Matthew Burns:
Yes.

Stephen Semple:
This idea of drop a little piece here, drop a little piece here, sprinkle the education through the ad way too often. Let’s do the entertainment to get the attention, and then let’s do all the education at the end. Well, it’s like, yeah, then they just only listen to half the ad, when the education comes on, we tune out.

Matthew Burns:
That’s exactly. It’s why I said I didn’t like the William Mattar ad from an episode ago. They sandwiched it really well because they had the thing that worked and the thing worked at the beginning and at at the end. But in the middle it was just blah, blah, blah blah, lawyer speaking.

Stephen Semple:
Yes.

Matthew Burns:
Right? So with this ad no, you’re right, it was a little bit. And that’s the introduction of the doctor, very coyly. Actually, one of my favorite scenes was, right at the end, doctor friendly says, “You need to take medicine to have this fixed.” And the dad’s face was just was…

Stephen Semple:
They were all right.

Matthew Burns:
Oh, my gosh.

Stephen Semple:
I’m never going to hear the end of this while I get old.

Matthew Burns:
So good. You know what? Now that you say that, that’s exactly it. It’s like, “Oh, shit, I don’t want to tell my wife she was right.”

Stephen Semple:
But this is what makes us connect to it. Even if you aren’t married, you still relate to it because it’s your parents.

Matthew Burns:
Oh, yeah. A hundred percent. Or your best friend’s wife. There’s somebody else you know it.

Stephen Semple:
It’s a completely relatable, real experience. And whoever wrote the dialogue on that is incredible, because dialogue’s hard to do. Matt, you can write dialogue, I can’t write dialogue.

Matthew Burns:
I try.

Stephen Semple:
Dialogue is hard.

Matthew Burns:
Yeah, dialogue is hard.

Stephen Semple:
And that was brilliant dialogue, because it did not sound like an ad. It was a great ad.

Matthew Burns:
Yeah, I thought it was great. Actually, and talk about sprinkles, and so I’m giving away all of our secrets here, but we’re literally going to take some of these really key points. Dr. Milkie at Waukee Feet, he’s now wanting to lean into toenail fungus. And this is why we thought about this one, because he wanted it, you were like, “Oh, I got the…”

Stephen Semple:
I have the template.

Matthew Burns:
I have the technique, I have the template to do this properly. We’re doing radio ads, it’s going to be a little bit different. And now, they’re actually running a whole TikTok campaign around the exact same premise. So it’s really well done.

Stephen Semple:
So the takeaway for people on this is is this underutilized idea of sprinkles, where you can just drop a little piece, drop a little piece, drop a little piece.

Matthew Burns:
Yeah. That and, if you’re trying to market either for yourself or for somebody else, is remember the trigger. What are you trying to do? You’re trying to have them emotionally decide something internally as the trigger, or are you just trying to make sure that you’re the one they think of first when something bad happens externally? So that internal trigger versus external trigger and sprinkling in the details. Anyway. Awesome, man. Listen, this was a good one. I really appreciate it, and we’re going to be back in a week.

Stephen Semple:
All right. Thanks, man.

Matthew Burns:
Thanks, Steve.

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