A CLIMBER'S GUIDE

“What's the Score?”
03/05/2008

How do you keep score in advertising? How do you measure the results of a campaign?
Many advertising professionals dance around the subject but when it comes to winning the game - the bottom line is the bottom line - literally.

Attached is an ad for Heritage Toyota that was born to affect the bottom line. The good news is that Tundra sales are measurable and can easily be tracked to gauge the specific performance of this campaign.

We wanted to accomplish a couple of things with the "Tundra Truckin" ad:
1.    Create immediate top of mind association with Heritage and the Tundra by pushing the envelope creatively with edgy but intelligent humor and thereby, gain the attention of the market.
2.    Use the pitch to begin to communicate selection and savings as the reason to shop at Heritage without all of the clichd language typically associated with those claims.

Will it work? The proof will be in the pudding as they say. The short-term pudding has Heritage up over 100% in Tundra sales in the first month of the campaign. The ad first aired in the Superbowl on Feb 3rd and by month's end, more than doubled the previous months Tundra sales. This in a month when Tundra incentives were down and Toyota sales took a dive throughout the entire Boston region. Now to be fair, the only true measure of success will come over an extended period of time but we're confident that the impact of this spot on the market will see Heritage steadily increasing Tundra sales for the months to come.   That said, long-term success will sustain only if:

1.    The spots are scheduled appropriately (still feel there's a bit of a compromise with scheduling restrictions).
2.    The creative is evolved to increase its relevance and therefore its saliency (more on salient advertising below).
3.    The dealership focuses it's efforts on increasing sales internally by improving the point of purchase sales experience for the Tundra customers that come through the door.

In the eyes of the cautious and the timid, this ad is risky. In the world of reality, it's not. It is, however, the type of ad that gets shot down by committees. The CEO's would sit around the boardroom table and belch out a good hearty laugh and say, "that's the best truckin' ad we've ever seen," but then opt not to run it in fear of offending someone. This is exactly why the best ads come from a decision maker that has complete authority to say yes, full steam ahead, let's do this. If you want to know why we would encourage the use of an ad like this, please refer to "Risk and Reward" - the Climber's Guide for 2/18.

Now, we only run the ad in sports programming that targets adult men as well as prime time TV that airs after 9pm. Thankfully, Heritage had the courage to go with their heart and follow the call to make the ad stand out with great creative as opposed to baiting them in with a deceitful or manipulative offer. In fact Heritage has followed that philosophy all along because it's good business and it works. Their ads have been criticized for being different and uncouth, but they've accomplished a healthy brand in a difficult category. The fact that they "Rise Above the Clutter" is the reason that advertising has helped Heritage achieve unprecedented results over the past 18 months.

The main reason for our client's success with advertising could be summed up in one word, saliency. Salient advertising is the result of unpredictable and risky creative combined with relevance. It is defined as: salient adj
1.    particularly noticeable, striking, or relevant
2.    sticking out from a surface
3.    used to describe an angle that projects outward from a polygon
4.    represented as a jumping or leaping animal

Salient ads are always the goal. We don't always hit the mark as well as we'd like but we always honor the process of developing unpredictable creative mixed with relevance to the consumer in order to create the most salient message we can. That is how you win the game.

The spot is risky, creatively, but positions Heritage above the noise of the market. The spot escapes the fatal flaw of being invisible and, by doing so, will start the process of building a brand for Heritage with the Tundra customer. We have more work to do to accomplish long-term growth in Tundra sales but we're ahead after the 1st inning and we promise to let you know the score at the end of the game.

If it doesn't produce significant, long-term gains then we'll go back to the drawing board and try again. That's what advertising professionals should do. The only guarantee that we can give our customers is that we'll roll up our sleeves and get in there with them to ultimately uncover the approach that will create success in the long run. Otherwise, they should fire us and find someone who will.

Hope you enjoy the spot and please let us know what you think.

Truckin Tundra

Keep Climbing,

Jake

	Climb With Passion
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