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Television Commercial

Cliff Wilson MCPF

Cliff Wilson MCPF

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Loc
Worcester, MA
Company
Framed In Tatnuck
Just thought I'd share this marketing attempt by a group of framers in and around my city.
We created a website www.mylocalpictureframer.com and a TV commercial.
We ran the commercial on local cable for the holiday season back a couple of years.
No return. No one redeemed anything or mentioned it.

The commercial is playable on the home page of the website. Sorry, it doesn't play in Safari.

Just thought I'd share for those that think PPFA should produce a commercial.

I have my opinion on why it didn't work. Part of it is to satisfy all six framers, it got homogenized and lacked "character."

What do you think?
 
I remember thinking at time, that this campaign would do well. I loved the idea, and still do. It was exciting to see local framers who are friendly competitors get together to work on a project of this magnitude. I still find it hard to believe it was not successful. I like the visuals in the commercial, it's the dialog that is stiff. What could have been done differently to make the campaign more successful?
 
I'll add ... Our budget at the time was $10,000. Six framers. My thoughts were, if we could just each come close to breaking even, we could expand to more time slots and other media, like radio and print. Eventually, we could expand geographically. I had grand thoughts of a coop marketing like True Value, but it was not to be.
 
TV advertising is about Reach and Frequency. If you don't have an abundance of both, the results are barely measurable. Even with segmented cable advertising, it is quite expensive by the standards of most small independent retailers.

I think one of its weaknesses is one of its strengths: It has a call to action, but does not direct the viewer anywhere except a website. Leading someone to a website with a long name is a lot like directing someone to the yellow pages, they are also subjected to a lot of other sources that you did not intend. (it often results in a visit to a search engine to find the website). That means 3 steps to the name of a shop.

It is what I call institutional advertising, it plants the seed but does not result in direct, measurable action. It isn't worthless by any means, but it requires lots of frequency over a very long period of time to be effective. Its message is somewhat generic, and it might be more effective if the visual was more specific, like collections in a shoebox, then a finished shadowbox. (I know just enough about this to be dangerous, and am far from an expert).

It is also requiring the establishment of a brand, the "My local Picture framer," which takes even more time. The shops are not immediately apparent on the home page, which I think is a weakness.

To see measurable results from this kind of ad you would have to run it for at least a year with a frequency in the neighborhood of 50 spots a week for it to be viewed 3 times by the average viewer. Or spend a great deal more and have it run less times, but seen by more viewers like during the local news.

If I were a part of this group, I would be urging the members to keep it running as often as you could afford it. It is a good commercial with great production values. And I would consider figuring out a way to name the shops. Once you start seeing customers mentioning it, you will know that you have reached the optimum frequency. And sadly, it is only then that you will start seeing measurable results.

Just because it didn't result in immediate measurable results does not mean it was not effective. Over the long haul, it will be a part of some buying decisions. But what most of us need from advertising is immediate results.
 
Let me just say I do intend this to be a criticism of Cliff's efforts, I have the utmost respect for him. I am simplly looking into the future and what could be possible, that is where our efforts must be made.

People avoid TV commercials like the plaque! DVR's or online, people fast forward and skip them. When I started 20+ years ago, my business grew with with my clients collecting, now their walls are filled, their incomes fixed, they don't spend unless it is on maintenance replace the glass, clean out the bugs. Clients are my own age, in their forties and fifties or younger and traditional advertising falls flat...

Any advertising concept has to be online or somewhere else, old notions have to be turned around and repackaged. Marketing power is not in TV it is in email, the internet, mobile apps and places yet undiscovered. The real power resides in the choices we makes as individual businesses, not whatever luke warm attempt at sausage making marketing, a few squeaky wheels are clamoring for, do you own marketing. We do a fine job at bringing in marketing successes like John Rames, Ken Bauer, Kirstie Bennett and others, we can do more by taking concepts that work somewhere else and re-imagining them for our use. They are all around us being used everyday we just need to find them.
 
The commercial itself is not bad, especially the visuals. However, using a voice, other than what I assume was the house announcer at the cable company, the one viewers have heard a thousand times, is almost always a good idea.

Unfortunately, I think the campaign itself was doomed to fail for a number of reasons.

I realize you had six owners to please, but your commerical failed to distinguish the participating shops from those who didn't, including the Big Box stores. Your group had no identity, nothing that linked itself together, and nothing that offered a unique benefit provided by the group that a propsective customer would find appealing.

Finally, and I think this is real important, the objective was to get people to visit a generic sounding website, where they could then find a local frame shop. This is circuitous detour of a path -- in essence you're asking the viewer to do something they could, and likely would, use Google to do. Better to bring them directly to the door, despite the hurdle.

The objective should have been to get them directly into your stores. To do that you needed a group name, a compelling and distinctive benefit, and you needed to (even if briefly) show a map, or list of names, perhaps mug shots, etc. You could then include a link to the CentralMassFramers.com or something that ID's the group. You could produce a few edited versions that highlights a few locations in each shop. A decal for the front door of each participating member would identify you as a group member.

It's awesome that you got six framers together to mutliply their ad dollars. This is exactly what the small businesses in our industry should be doing to help it compete with the chains, by promoting the benefits we offer that can't be obtained at the Micheals and Jo-Ann's of the world. If your's, or any other group wants to do it again, I'll be happy to help you do it in a way that has a much greater chance of success.
 
Paul -

Thank you for your well reasoned response - and WELCOME to the PPFA Corner. Your voice could make a big difference here and I hope you will be with us after March.
 
Thank you Cliff for sharing this. It is easy to share our successes, but not so much when something fails.
Like the others, I can see why this didn't have an impact for any of the stores other than a bit of a lighter wallet.

Let's look at what an add could do better. I think that an ad has to have a stronger emotional message other than just getting stuff on the walls. Something more along the lines of showing special events and how by framing them, we are preserving memories that can then be shared and passed down. I have come up with a hand full of concepts that fit this model.

One for instance would start off in the back of a church during a wedding, the minister would say "you may now kiss the bride" they would kiss and turn around to the camera and then it would fade to their framed wedding photo. The tag would be "Remember the time you said I do?" then have the shop name, location and website etc.

What I wanted to do was to have number of these in the campaign that would be rotated. Also depending on the commercial length 2 of these snippets could be run back to back.
 
Hard to explain this ... there were six of us.
There were (IMO) some really great ad ideas.
Stuff that would have an impact.

One thought it was too stuffy, one thought it might offend someone, one thought the colors were all wrong ...
What you see is what we could all agree on, and there was JUST six of us.

The problem with any of these "starter ad" campaigns is that they tend to have no personality, or at a minimum, NOT the personality of the shop.
Shops have personailties. Some people call it "your brand."

We hear over and over again that everything about your shop and every message should reinforce your brand (shop personality).

I'm not saying it can't be done, but EVERY attempt at an "ad template" I've seen has failed the personality test. Putting your own logo on just isn't enough.

I love the church idea and can see where you're going with the concept ... hit them in the emotion. I've said repeatedly that we don't frame art, we frame memories. You're trying to capitalize on that. I wish there was some way to see ahead of time how many would use such a program if it existed.
 
Perhaps it is not a good idea then to create an ad with one's competitors. Since when trying to please everyone, it ends up not pleasing anyone. We may as well please ourselves instead.

When placing an ad or running a commercial we intend to target an audience. Either to target as many potential customers as possible or a selective group. Ads on t.v. are expensive just as an ad in the Yellow Pages.

If it is too expensive for one company and does not bring in that many extra customers, then don't do it. There certainly are cheaper and more effective ways of advertising and as mentioned the internet is a good medium.

I tend not to watch the news on t.v. anymore as it gives me news I am not interested in. With the news on the internet I can be selective and just read those news-stories, that interest me. While I am reading the news on the net, all kinds of commercials pop up around.

They are annoying, but I cannot do anything about them. Some are even captivating and distract me from reading the news. Perhaps that is the way to go. Ads on Facebook and Twitter. So on.
 
Kai, the discussion started with the idea of PPFA producing an ad for members to use.
Essentially, two members next door to each other could use the same ads.
The entire concept involves "competitors" cooperating.

I get the concept and support it in principle, I just am having troubel envisioning the implementation working.

Dave, the print ads the PPFA produced were very similar to your concept, just static.
VERY FEW were used by anyone that I know of.
 
I used some of the ad slicks. Just so you know it wasn't a total waste.:smile-new: But you are right, they weren't used enough to justify the expense of creating them.
 
Had a look at the above website. Very clear and the printable voucher must be a bonus to the customer. Too good to miss.
None of the framers are in the same town and that is perhaps the way to go. If any framer out here wishes to set up a similar website, then it is helpful to contact framers in other towns and refer them to My Local Framer website.

Interesting placenames in Massachusets, Shrewsbury, Worcester. This is New England after all.
 
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