Johnny Molson: I wrote earlier that copywriters and producers and graphic artists are having an unexpected boom right now, if for no other reason, than because businesses are trying to figure out what they should and shouldn’t say in their advertising — conversations you’re probably having in your business as well. So what’s the answer?

Well, here’s a chance to eavesdrop in on the conversations that we’re having amongst each other and having with our clients. Conversations you ordinarily would only hear if you were sitting around the Wizard’s Roundtable.

Today in Austin is Peter Nevland. He’s going to be talking about the four things that need to be in every commercial, no matter what’s going on in the world. In Toronto, Matthew Burns is looking at our changing media habits and whether or not this is the time to renegotiate your media buy. I’m Johnny Molson in Springfield, Illinois, and we are all from Wizard of Ads.

We begin today with Peter Nevland answering the question of “What do your customers need to hear from your business right now?”

Peter Nevland: I think the answer is kind of “It depends.” One thing we can say is a sense of normalcy and calm. People really need to get that. But how do they need to get that? I mean, are you a doctor or are you a heating and air conditioning company? Are you a jeweler? Are you a travel company? You know, what people need to hear from you right now depends on which business you’re in. If you’re their doctor, if you don’t send them something explaining to them the symptoms of the coronavirus — and at the same time, giving them a sense of calming.

Because who do we look to to give us a sense of calm when we’re in a crisis? We look to the people who know about the crisis. So we think that would be a doctor, right — so if you’re a doctor and you don’t communicate that to give people a sense of calm and normalcy. Well, now you’ve heightened the crisis and you are not serving your customers well. So you’re a doctor, you need to say that. You’re the heating and air conditioning guy and they only think about you whenever their heating and air conditioning goes out. What do you need to say to them during the coronavirus about the coronavirus? Nothing, unless they’re asking about it.

Johnny Molson: That’s a real interesting point. Because when we’re talking about a long-term brand, we’re not talking about somebody who’s hearing the ad and making a purchase today or seeing the ad and making the purchase today. That’s at some time in the future. So really you’re talking you’re talking to the future person who’s going to use that product or service.

Peter Nevland: Yeah, that’s right. If my customers are not asking about the coronavirus, they’re not asking me about the coronavirus when they call in and stuff like that — or at least there’s only a small fraction that are — then I don’t need to speak to them about the coronavirus. What do I speak to them about? What are the four things that any ad needs to possess?

(1) A Big Idea.

(2) Nuts and Bolts. But the Nuts and bolts probably don’t need to have too much of a price tag. If you really want to win people. And then the two that most advertising leaves off,

(3) Entertainment and

(4) Hope. Make it interesting. Entertaining doesn’t mean it has to be funny. Entertaining just means it has to capture our attention.

So you can be serious and sensitive. And that’s the way you do it. It just depends on your personality. But then Hope, the idea that it can get better. So could you give them a story that explains where you came from and why you do what you do, and maybe how you learned some amazing, wonderful lesson.

Shoot if you’re in the entertainment industry, you’re a musician, someone else who does live stuff. You know, how can you be getting in front of people? Well, crap — they’re looking to you for entertainment and hope, you’ve got to find a way to get in front of them and give them that entertainment and hope. So you’re paying it forward now so that they come back to you whenever they can come back. You have to be able to last that long, right. So, you know, there’s a lot of different is a lot different stuff there.

Sorry. It’s kind of a long answer. Matthew probably has something short and concise.

Johnny Molson: Yeah there’s a lot of variables. Matthew up in Ontario, what are you saying, what do you think your clients need to hear through their advertising now?

Matthew Burns: Well, I gave some some advice this week, actually, that was pretty interesting. I have a guy who’s always in front of his customers and he’s now not able to be in front of his customers. Part of that conversation is — he’s not a doctor, and I thought those a great point, Peter — you know, when you’re a doctor you talk about coronavirus. If you’re not a doctor, your lead-in isn’t coronavirus, it can’t be. Because nobody is asking that. If they ask you what you’re doing with your employees, specifically because of the pandemic, then great, you can answer that question. And I hope you’ve done enough work to plan for that. But if they haven’t asked you specifically that word, normalcy is the best word that I’ve put out to my clients. It’s just “Guys be normal.”

Are you willing to adapt? It’s not the smartest and the strongest that survive. It’s the ones that adapt. So don’t change your communication strategy too much would be my best advice. You’re still going to go down that same path. You’re not changing your words just because the coronavirus is there. A good example would be my landscaping company. This week they started new advertising for their springtime service. So they do aeration, that’s the way they start every spring. And so he got out there, put the price out there, let everybody know exactly what it’s going to cost and let their customers make the decision. But he’s not running it into radio right now because he was on radio before. He’s not ramping up his marketing, he’s staying true to who was. And he’s going to ride that out for a little bit. He planned ahead to make sure he could do that.

Now, that “planning ahead” part I think would change all of the communication that we do with our clients and how they communicate with theirs. If they didn’t plan ahead, if they weren’t doing their best, putting their best foot forward early on, making sure they can get through everything, that would be the difference, I think.

Johnny Molson: One thing that I’m hearing quite a bit from all forms of media, from radio to TV to billboards to the Internet are businesses who suddenly put on the brakes and said, “Woah, nobody’s moving. Why should I advertise right now?” Peter, do you scale back your marketing at a time like this?

Peter Nevland: I wish — I would love to say “Absolutely not. You know, I need to keep it going completely all the way through. In fact, if you’re thinking of doing anything, increase your advertising right now because nobody’s on the air. All sorts of companies are dropping their advertising. And your voice is suddenly everywhere. You’ve got this incredible share of voice. Like this is kind of advertising gold right now.”

I would love to say that. Ideally, that’s what you should do because you’re just going to win. once you come out of it. The problem is what happens during this time? You know, how do you survive this time? And so that makes that slightly different. In fact, somebody who’s very, very smart — I would say smarter than me — came up with this saying “Let’s not be for what should be. Let’s be for what is.” People who are for “what should be” go broke quickly and seem to live in a world of regret and resentment that the world can’t be as it should be.

Well, “the world that is” is people have limited budgets. And you’ve got to do as a business owner, what is going to help you. What is the most that you can advertise but still survive in whatever survival means to you? And if that means you have to decrease your advertising a little bit, you know? Remember, the ideal is to keep advertising as much as you possibly can right now. Because it’s going to pay off hugely, especially if you say the right things like we were talking about. But if you have to decrease a little bit, well, try to decrease it as little as possible. If you have to shut it off entirely, try to find some way to use your time to advertise during this time right now. Because whatever you’re going to do is going to be seen and heard more. And just make sure that it’s the type of thing that’s going to really give people that sense of normalcy and calm like Matt was talking about.

Johnny Molson: There’s a lot of businesses now who are saying, “Gosh, people aren’t on the roads as much as they are. They must not be listening to the radio anymore.” Matthew, how have our media habits changed?

Matthew Burns: It’s interesting that actually I was speaking with Peter yesterday about this because one of our customers is a roofing company. And so the timing was just horrendous as far as, you know everyone’s all on board four months ago. “Yes, we’re ready to go. Let’s get on radio.” It came down to the to the last minute where we’re like, “OK, we’re ready to go. We’ve got the ads written. Everything’s approved.” And the client is nervous.

So our question went to our media buyer, to our strategist, Peter got involved, and we just talked about “What does drive-time look like in our area?” This answer is so convoluted. You cannot answer it for everywhere. Because you look at traffic maps for Toronto, which is where we’re talking from, and in Toronto it’s a parking lot. There’s nothing happening on the highways, which means drive time is not happening in the parking lot.

Peter Nevland: Parking lot meaning “Not packed.”

Matthew Burns: An empty parking lot, thank you.

Johnny Molson: Like they’re waiting for the circus to to come and put up a tent.

Matthew Burns: It’s waiting to be filled up again. A lonely, lonely, desolate place. But does that mean that they’re not listening to radio? We don’t know. So do the research. So get in touch with the radio stations, get their numbers, go get the Nielsen data. I mean you’ve got to work with the people who know that stuff. I can’t specifically answer that question. But what I do know is I’m going to ask a lot of questions about what the radio trends are right now. Because I think one of the things you pointed out, Peter, was that you actually found down in Austin that people were listening to the radio a little bit more than they had.

Peter Nevland: Yeah, and the Nielsen data in America shows that.

Matthew Burns: Yeah, we’re just we’re about to get some of that data up here. And so we get to make that decision. We still want to go forward; we just need to get that data. And the client has asked for one more week to make a decision on “Do we start or do we push back?”

Peter Nevland: Yeah, definitely. I haven’t I haven’t seen that actually here in the US. And if anything, just continuing to be on the radio — radio stations are throwing in bonus spots all over the place. You know, so your frequency is going up. So even if the radio audience is going down for your same exact spend, you’re actually reaching more. So, if it’s going down that much, it’s like staying the same. You’ve got to just be aware how it’s going to go. I mean, there’s this there’s all sorts of different factors that play out.

I guess that’s what as Wizard of Ads Partners — I think that we probably wrestle with some of these questions a little bit more than maybe a lot of advertising agencies do. Because we’re incentivized based on how much our clients grow, not how much advertising we get him to spend. And so my advice to them about spending their money looks a little bit different because I’m interested in the preservation of their business, too. I’m interested in the growth of their bank account and the preservation of their bank account as well. It’s actually my highest motivation, right, because that helps me. So as a result, I’m considering — the advice that I might give would be might be different than other advertisers.

Peter Nevland: Oh, sorry, I broke the conversation.

Johnny Molson: No, no, no, no, no, [laughter].

Peter Nevland: What does he do? He thinks too esoterically. Nobody can respond to that. Why does Peter Nevland do that? Sorry. [laughter]

Johnny Molson: That’s all right. On that front, though, is this a time for businesses to renegotiate their buys with their media?

Matthew Burns: [laughter] I think that’s a double-edged sword question, isn’t it?

Johnny Molson: People are thinking it.

Matthew Burns: Yeah, no, 100 percent they are. I’m going to give you my limited advice. I’m not a radio guy, I’m a graphics guy. I’m going to give you my limited advice.

Peter Nevland: So this is worth a lot.

Matthew Burns: Yeah, right. Exactly. Thanks, Peter.

Peter Nevland: Sorry, you did it to yourself. [laughter]

Matthew Burns: If you’re already on radio, you should be definitely talking to your radio station and see what they’ll do for you. If you’re not on radio, you can definitely negotiate. It’s one of those things where if you come in going, “Oh, you’ve got to give me discounts…”

Everybody’s heard it. It’s not just one of us that’s feeling pressure right now, specifically. Everybody is feeling pressure. Restaurants are not making as much money as they used to. Live entertainment like we talked about earlier. The heating and air conditioning. Jewelry, nobody’s getting married. Everything’s being canceled. So if you want to take money out of somebody else’s pocket because you want to put it in yours, that’s what I’d caution you around now. If it’s getting a couple of extra spots because your radio stations are saying “Hey, listen, I’ve got some room and you guys stuck with me.” That’s great. Absolutely. You should be taking that. But I just caution on holding people, you know, turning the screws too hard because it could backfire on you in the long term.

Johnny Molson: This is no time to try to be a pariah. What are your thoughts, Peter?

Peter Nevland: You know, if you behave as though all media sales reps are the scum that you believe they are, you’re going to end up with those types of relationships with them. And you might even get lower rates here and there or whatever. But if you’re talking about the business owner, how you take advantage of another business, these other human beings in this time — or how you just work with them and maybe find a way to help them out… You’re creating valuable long-term relationships that’s only going to be a benefit. You don’t know when you’re going to need help. You don’t know when goodwill is important and how many of those bridges do you want to burn? I mean, I think part of this is a human lesson rather than just a marketing lesson. But that’s the best marketing is the ones where we celebrate humans.

Johnny Molson: And the building of relationships, not only within the company: manager to employee, owner to employee, but also the relationships of business to business. You know, it really is going to be tested right now. And some of the seeds you were sowing eight months ago are now — now’s the time to test and see how strong those things are. Because you’ll know. You’ll know real fast.

Peter Nevland: And you know, what better time to be sowing more seeds? You think if ever there’s a time when the ground of people’s hearts is fertile, right? And it’s in a torrential downpour of volcanic ash. All those things end up being incredibly life-giving over the long term, even though in the short term they’re very harsh. And so this is the time to be planting seeds like crazy. Those seeds and as much resources as you have, right. Sow your seed now because it’s going to be really fertile crops afterwards. You know, when they come to harvest and people need your service or whatever, they remember people who stood by them in a crisis. That’s powerful, so think about it. That’s not only true relationally. It’s also true from a business sense, because business is really a series of quite a few different relationships.

Johnny Molson: These are the questions we’re getting quite a bit right now, and so if there is something on your mind or a question that you have put it in the comments below and we will address it in an upcoming episode of the Wizard’s Roundtable, from Wizard of Ads.

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