A liquor store owner was thinking about doing a TV spot. He was bragging to me about how many doors he had in his new store. His old store only had eight. The new store has fourteen. Fourteen doors. Great, huh? I’ve been to liquor stores. I’m basically the target audience of this guy’s advertising. Not once have I walked into a store to buy beer and counted the doors. When I said, “so?” he replied that that means that they can have a larger selection of cold beer because they have more space in the fridge. Ohhhhh. Refrigerator doors. More cold beer. That IS a selling point. Doors aren’t. Even fourteen of them. The only person who would understand how important the number of doors is to a liquor store is another liquor store owner. This guy was too close to his own business to recognize that “door” was an industry term.
Business owners are in a uniquely bad position to know what would make a good ad for their business. They’re too close to their own industry to have any idea what an outsider (customer) cares about or would find interesting. Relevant. They simply know too much already to be able to know their audience–the guy on the other end of the TV.
I didn’t wind up working with that first guy, but I was fortunate enough to get a call from Comcast about another local liquor store who wanted an ad. Small business, typically frugal production budget, and a quick turn around time. We made a spot that addresses some things that the customer will understand and care about: they have craft beer (rare for the neighborhood), a great wine selection, and a big clean store you’ll feel comfortable shopping in. It’s a simple ad. The tone is warm, and it contains information that the viewer might find interesting, and the message is delivered by an owner who comes across as personable and credible. You can even see that they have a lot of doors.
