Matthew Burns:
Well, we got another episode here of Sticky Sales Stories to do. Stephen Semple is always with me. How are you doing, buddy?

Stephen Semple:
I’m doing well, man. Doing well. Oh look, I know what you got queued up for this first one and it’s actually an ad that really hit me hard.

Matthew Burns:
Me, too. Before we play the video, I want to hang here for a second because it’s incredible how well they did in a minute to create the feeling, the emotion of a shared experience.

Stephen Semple:
Oh, they told my life story. Now, before we show this, I just want to say, last week I was in Austin. I was at the Wizard Academy. I was hanging out at the distillery on Friday with a few folks. And one of the conversations turned to that there’s hardly any good car advertising. I said, “Oh no gentlemen. Oh no gentlemen, let me show you one.” And I showed it to them and everybody was mesmerized. And the thing that amazes me is that this ad was played for a very short period of time. And at the end I’ll share my theory in terms of why that is.

Matthew Burns:
Okay, so let’s cue it up.

Commercial:
16, wide eyes. Driver’s license, took two tries. First drive, fast living. Hit the garage door, was forgiven. Bought a Roadster, second hand. Playing parties with the band. Showing off on the strip. End of summer road trip. Late for curfew. Speeding ticket in Kalamazoo. Loaded up. Off to state. Hijinks, tailgates, late night, big skies. A passenger with green eyes. Starter, midsize, family cruising. A sing along of her choosing. Now in the garage something new reminds you of when you were you.

Matthew Burns:
That is a story.

Stephen Semple:
Breathtaking.

Matthew Burns:
Right?

Stephen Semple:
Yeah. Now here’s the thing. They played that, certainly here in Canada, they played that in movie theaters. And around the time they played that, I was getting close to buying a new car. This was just before I bought my Porsche. And I watched this ad and I was like, “I’m going to have to buy Mazda. Crap. I’m going to have…” Please do not run this ad again. Please don’t run it again. But here’s what was interesting. I was sitting, watching the theater with Morning and her two daughters. Now that ad is aimed right at old dudes.

Matthew Burns:
Midlife crisis.

Stephen Semple:
Absolutely it is. It totally is. So Morning and her two daughters were all like, “Well, that’s a stupid ad.” I was like, “Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no.” And the line that they thought was the dumbest was the line right at the end, which is the one that ripped my heart out and handed it to me because I had a Mazda. And so here’s what I think happened. I think it was an unbelievably effective ad. Any older male I show it to, they all go, “Ah.” Because it’s their life’s story. And it’s how they’re feeling in the moment.

Matthew Burns:
And what I like is that you and I are about 10 years difference in age. You’re a little older, so I’ll respect my seniors.

Stephen Semple:
All right.

Matthew Burns:
Shots fired. Yeah, exactly, Steve said. But it didn’t hit me until we talked about it for the channel. Because when I watched it for the channel, I went, “Oh my gosh.” The one that hit me, so you had the final line. For me it brought me back to when I was a teenager and I didn’t have a Mazda. Sorry Mazda. But I did have an opportunity to destroy the… Destroy, I hurt the car with the garage door. It wasn’t I hurt the garage door with the car. It was the opposite, but it completely brought me back to that moment.

Stephen Semple:
Isn’t that interesting?

Matthew Burns:
We were getting ready. We were packing to do a family trip. And my stepfather, Doug Woodside, he pulled in. I was going in out of the garage all day, and it was one of those swing garage doors. They go all the way up and all the way back down. And he pulled the car in because he needed to do something at the back of the car.

He pulled the car forward for 10 inches, 12 inches. And I went in, grabbed something, and then swung the car door or the garage door down and hit the hood of the car. So my brain broke. But that forgiveness line, which is what happened to me, was like, he’s like, “Oh my God, buddy, that’s not your fault. That’s my bad.” And he felt bad. And I was in that moment going like, “Okay.” Right? So the emotion that gets me. They knew how to do this so well. And the other thing that I wanted to say about this ad was Mazda was also talking about DNA at the same time. So they had other ads where everything was about the DNA of the driver.

Stephen Semple:
Yes.

Matthew Burns:
And so when you say that the final line hits so hard, that’s what they were going for. They were very pinpoint targeting the DNA of the driver they wanted to sell to.

Stephen Semple:
We talk about building connection through shared experiences. There’s so many shared experiences. There’s the TPing of the car, which is just whatever hijinks, whether it happened to you or somebody else. Took you back there. There’s the garage door thing, which clearly happened to a lot of people. There’s the riding in the car with your girlfriend. There’s the getting married. There’s the kids. In a 60-second ad, it’d be interesting to go back and count the share… The speeding ticket out in the middle of nowhere.

There were so many that just anchored you to it. Here’s my theory of why they didn’t continue to run that ad, is that ad was targeted at me. It didn’t hit you as hard. Doesn’t hit females at all. So if you focus group this thing, it falls short. Unless you happen to be very cognizant of, I’m only interested in this group. And this is the problem that happens. The problem that happens is they start getting feedback from all the people outside of the group who go, “Oh yeah, it’s silly. Or the ad’s stupid.” And they go, “Oh, I guess the ad doesn’t work.” We see it all the time that when you use ad copy for your target, which is unbelievably powerful, but for the people who it’s not targeting, it falls flat on. Be okay with that.

Matthew Burns:
Yeah. Well, I mean to prove your point, what they did was they compressed all of the dating, the love, the schmoopy- moopy, all of that’s gone. But they said it in the guy’s version of it.

Stephen Semple:
Yes.

Matthew Burns:
They said it to the old man’s version of it. It’s like, yeah, all these things happen, but I really want to feel me again.

Stephen Semple:
Yes.

Matthew Burns:
But they compressed that time, which was neat because they took a long time of that beginning, that journey, right up to college. They took a long time. All the life experiences were there. And then they were like, “And you met the girl.” And we all know we love that moment of like, oh, okay, new love. And then it was like, yeah, then you had kids. And you upgraded your vehicles and they were all Mazdas. But remember when you were you.

Stephen Semple:
And I love how they handled the transition. So did you notice, here’s the other thing, portals. A portal to remind anybody. A portal is when you look through somewhere to somewhere else. And a portal is a transformational moment. When we go through a portal or we look through a portal, it’s emotionally transformational moment. And there’s all sorts of research and science behind this. So here’s the other piece of brilliance they did. The transformational moment that went from past to future was when the door opened.

Matthew Burns:
The garage door opened up.

Stephen Semple:
And the other part that they did that was brilliant to signal it was the disappearance of the dartboard. So the dartboard disappears, and the only time a portal is used is when he comes through the door and he moves from the past to the present.

Matthew Burns:
Yes.

Stephen Semple:
And that was a brilliant piece of psychological cinema photography. And look. And it’s easy, you sit and go, “Oh…” This stuff really works. It was a brilliant moment to make that transformation. Just the dartboard disappears, the door opens, he steps in, the car’s in the garage.

Matthew Burns:
Yes. And the reveal. It was very much a transformational reveal as the garage door comes up and you see the new and improved original version of the car that he had.

Stephen Semple:
Yes.

Matthew Burns:
No, fantastic. I can actually go to just all the life events. No matter whether you had a Mazda or you didn’t, you’re now going, “Well, maybe I should get a Mazda. They get me. They understand me.”

Stephen Semple:
And as I said, thankfully they stopped running that ad. So I didn’t buy a Mazda.

Matthew Burns:
Before you bought the sports car. Having two girls of your own, your new girlfriend has two children. You’re not driving around in a little sports car. Oh my God, that’s too funny. Yeah, I thought this was, when we talked about it and we’ve talked about this a while back, and then now we’re finally ready to do it. I thought what an interesting way to really show off the fact that this is a brilliant story. It has a beginning, has a middle, has an end. You’re famous for lining that up for us, you being our storyteller. And really highlighting all the power of how to bring emotion through to the end and talking to the person, the individual, that you want to buy the vehicle.

Stephen Semple:
And that is a great point. One of the things that is very interesting in that ad is you feel like the announcer is speaking one-on-one to you.

Matthew Burns:
I thought that was brilliant. I know it didn’t run long enough for our liking. We would like to maybe see a different version of it. And they really, I don’t know. Maybe you know if they had a different version, different family member, different human?

Stephen Semple:
I don’t think so. And they certainly could have done that. That would’ve been amazing. That would’ve been make one from the mom’s perspective.

Matthew Burns:
Right?

Stephen Semple:
Right. That would’ve been kick ass. That would’ve been a brilliant campaign that they could have done.

Matthew Burns:
That makes me think, now we have to find a campaign that decided that they were going to reach as many humans as they could as opposed to the one. We’re going to find a really good campaign. We’ll do it in a future episode, obviously. Awesome man. Thank you for bringing this up originally. I love it. We’re just going to continue to find more stories.

Stephen Semple:
All right. Awesome.

Matthew Burns:
Okay. All right, buddy. Talk to ya later.

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