Okay, welcome back guys on this video and for the next series of videos that we're going to do this year for 2024. I'm excited to work with you guys to decode ads that we see all over from national advertisers to local advertisers. We're going to explore all sorts of different niches right here, and we're going to get into the imagery, the psychology of the ad, the design, the layout, and the purpose and objective of why the ad was even in flight at all. Okay? So stick with me here and we're going to dig right in.

Okay, let's jump right in. I'm going to reveal our first ad for 2024 and take a look at it. It is from Mr. Rooter. And here's the way I'm going to try to do this and it may change, but for this one, the first thing I want to do is just take a look at this thing and the first thing we're going to do, because the first thing that always hits us is we're going to talk about the picture. The image is what always hits us. Our mind is wired to absorb the imagery of the ad right away. So the first thing we see is this confident working guy here with his shoulder kind of kickback, which I like. I think if he was in this posture and kind looking closed off, that would not be good body language, but that kind of shoulder back sort of confidence.

We just finished the job, everything turned out great, communicating a lot of proficiency and authority around the trade that they're in, which is of course plumbing. The kitchen in the background looks beautiful. Could be real, could be fake, doesn't matter. I'm sure it was laid up. It looks like it's a layered up ad in the design department, but still done well. And the red, the brand colors do pop and jump off the rest of this whole webpage. It was on. I was always scrolling on my phone. This was an ad that was seen in the middle of an article and you can see they kind of call it out in very small print here, but either way, that's the first part that hits us, right? It's in their brand colors using the red. He got his red shirt, he's smiling. That's always engaging and he is directly looking at the camera too.

So we sort have a little bit of that eye contact there initially. Now let's get into the copy and try to answer what is the point of this ad? So clearly this one's a little tricky because there is not an offer here. There is not a discount, there is not a buy. Now for some of us smaller advertisers, we think, oh, get a deal right now, like run an ad, get a deal, run an ad, get a deal. This ad, and the reason I selected it for the first video here resides in a much more subtle, if not sophisticated approach. So let's just talk about the copy. The first part of the copy up here says, we let you choose what's best for you. And then they have the secondary message, which is basically a reframing of the same statement that says plumbing. That puts you in control.

So you get to choose what's best for you and you're in control. Okay? So let's just think about why would they spend thousands of dollars to get the copy on this exactly that way and to put this ad in flight. Here's my thoughts on this one. Clearly this ad is a brand control ad that is designed to create a narrative around Mr. Rooter and it's also working to handle typical buyer objections. So they have probably done some good look at customer objections. They're nationwide, they've got a lot of data to look at. One of the biggest concerns that Plumbering customers have is this job is going to get out of control. It's going to be 30, 40, 50 if not a hundred percent more expensive than I'm planning and I'm going to get screwed. And these guys just keep changing the price and it always goes up.

And the last time I hired somebody, it was a nightmare. So this is the scary consumer thought that plumbing costs are going to bloom out of control. Once these guys get in here and sell me, I'm going to sign this thing and then they're just going to take over and keep adding costs yet again, cost adding costs. So that's the objection that the buyer has. How do I know that this thing's going to get done for the price that we agreed? Okay? That is one of the biggest issues with any work that you have done on your home is that it can be quite a bit more expensive than you originally thought. They are handling this objection here in two ways. You choose what's best for you, we're not going to tell you what's best for you. You want the shower head on the left side, fine.

You want the drain here, sounds great. You want to move the toilet out into the hallway, okay? Whatever makes you happy, right? You're in control. And then plumbing that puts you in control or you choose what's best for you. And then plumbing that puts you in control is basically again, directly targeting that objection that buyers have that the deal, the job, the budget and everything is just going to completely suddenly go out of my control. But not if I work with Mr. Rooter. If I work with Mr. Rooter, I'm going to stay in control. And that's really what they're trying to do right here is handle that objection and they're doing it in a brand controlled message. And this is a narrative that they want out in the market that when you work with them, you're still in control of the project and that they're in service to you.

Okay? So it's pretty clever, but you can see that this is at the higher end of strategy, sophistication and budget because they can afford to run ads like this that are just to talk about how they work with their customers and just to handle objections in a very soft way. It's just messaging. There's no deal here, there's no offer. In fact, that takes us right to the call to action here. Learn more. Learn more has been around in marketing as a copywriting tool for decades and decades and decades is one of the most powerful well-tested call to actions that you can use. Humans are naturally wired to want to acquire information, which is probably why you're watching this video. We're all that way. We want to learn, we're just wired for it, and it's a very attractive call to action. There's two reasons why. One, I just stated, we naturally want to acquire information and get smart because that's part of our survival.

We've gotten this far from being smart and we're going to get through this plumbing deal if we play it smart too. So we need to learn as much as possible before we make a decision about the project in our home. So that kind of all ties together. The other thing that's nice about learn more as a call to action is that it is a low ask versus, and this is something we see a lot of our smaller budget advertisers. They want to go for the kill on the ad. They want to go for the buy now, get it now, order now, call now, book Now, all of those immediate and what I would call those are ads that are asking the viewer customer prospect lead to go from zero to a hundred and click to call is another one. Click to call now, sounds great on paper, it's cool technology, but it's actually a pretty tall ask and a lot of people don't want to get on the phone because they feel like they're going to get on the phone with some sneaky sales shark and they're going to get sold that actually from a call to action on an ad like this, and I'm sure they've done their testing is a little scary for a lot of homeowners.

I don't want to get on the phone with these people. They're going to try to rook me into something. So Roto-Rooter tactic here is to ask you to just learn about how we work with our customers, learn about how you're going to stay in control of this deal and learn how you're going to be protected in this arrangement, in this transaction. So they kept the ask low. There's something to think about too. When you are thinking about your buyer's journey, do you have places in your buyer's journey where you're asking the buyer to go to accelerate really dramatically when it's maybe not appropriate when they're not ready? Because if you have programmatic advertising that's asking for a buyer to accelerate the process rapidly and you're not getting good conversions, you're getting take on that ad. It's because it's too early in the relationship. And this ad, by the way, was fired to me cold.

This is not a retargeting ad. I was not shopping for plumbing and I certainly was not on the Mr. Rooter website. Now we do have clients here that are plumbers, so maybe algorithmically, I've clicked and been on plumbing sites and that could have swept me up into this cold targeting, but there's definitely not a retargeting ad. This is a cold targeted ad. I'm a homeowner and may or may not have plumbing issues, and I'm in an area that they clearly want to service because I'm sure there's some geofencing on this. Either way though, the call to action is soft with a low ask, right? It's a non-threatening call to action. This is brand control. The layout is nice. We have a confidence inspiring image. We've got good brand awareness here down with the Mr. Rooter logo, and the same message effectively reframed depending on who you are and how you interpret those things.

So that's also a good tactic as well there. So there's a lot we can take here from this. The biggest one for, and if you're a small advertiser and you're thinking about advertising is to say, Hey, wait a second. Ads aren't always about asking for a deal. Ads are also about telling a story about who you are and what it's like to work with you. Okay? So that again is higher level strategy, but very effective specifically. And I would say I'd love to see ads like this in retargeting as we indoctrinate leads and prospects into a brand. We use this type of messaging to teach them about what it's like to work for Mr. Rooter. Okay, so we'll see you guys on the next one. Go ahead and subscribe. This is kind of a fun setup. We're going to pull apart and decode ads here for the better part of the next number of videos. I love it when you guys leave comments if you're up like the setup. I think it's pretty helpful. I love to hear about that and we'll see you on the next one.