Or How to Make a Radio Commercial with The Pickup Truck Girls
Special Thanks to Ad4! clients Custom Trucks
Making radio and TV commercials that effectively tell your story is difficult. The Pickup Truck Girls from Custom Trucks on Research Park Blvd in Huntsville let Ad4! come into the studio with them as they worked on a couple of new scripts for their radio advertising.
From experience, I can tell you that nothing goes as planned the first few times. Take #1 is a great example:
Custom Trucks owner Burns Smith is a second generation owner. His father started the business back in 1969. Burns knows his customers. He knows that they value trust more than anything. And they like the Pickup Truck Girls.
The fun and often comical style of The Pickup Truck Girls, Diane Appleby and Shannon Geiger, is his creation. What started out as a fun whim is now an expectation. Their customers expect to hear some funny take on the season or something else. One thing is for sure: The Pickup Truck Girls sell truck accessories. Customers come into the shop and want to see the Pickup Truck Girls. “We had customers come in and want to take their picture with us.” Said Diane.
These ladies have a great sense of humor and don’t let the more masculine nature of the business impact them one bit. They, along with the third ‘girl’ Karen Blackwell, really know trucks. We’ll let take 2 speak for itself.
These girls are serious business people and dedicated employees of Custom Trucks. Shannon is the office manager and Diane is the sales manager. Karen Blackwell is the outside sales person. She works with vehicle dealers and shops to promote the Custom Trucks business. That doesn’t mean that they don’t like to have fun. These ladies understand their roles as Pickup Truck Girls and have fun with it.
Making effective commercials, no matter what the medium, is part art, part science.
The art is the message, telling your story to your target audience in a way that moves them to take action. This is something at which Burns Smith is really good. It goes back to understanding your clients. While it might not be how we would promote his products, it’s definitely how he likes to promote his business and sell his products. And he’s been successful for 50 years!
The science part is knowing what to buy. Not understanding this is akin to selling wedding dresses on ESPN at 3:00 AM. It’d be a waste of time.
Not only are there dozens of radio stations in the market, there are dozens of shows during each of the 5 week days and more on the weekends. The science part comes from understanding your target audience and doing the research to find out where they are, and when. Just imagine trying to pin your self down. If you were a marketer trying to sell to you, how would you do it? You probably have some pretty specific ways about you. You either listen to radio or you don’t. Maybe you listen to political talk. Maybe you listen to country or light hits. Maybe you listed to satellite radio, uh oh. Whatever your ways, you could probably figure out the best way to sell to yourself. Now for the fun part. Take 10 of your friends or co-workers and try to sell them in the same way. How many of them would you actually reach? Now instead of 10 of your friends, how about 100, or 1,000, or 10,000? The problem gets more complex as you try to pin down a large demographic group of people. In our case with Custom Trucks, it’s pickup truck owners.
In the end, they get the spot right. You can view the final rough take below.
And with a little help from our friends Kevin Younkin and Stuart Langston at iHeart media, we have a finished piece. Stuart wears lots of hats. This day he was wearing his production engineer hat. He takes out all the spaces and noises and adds some nice music. When he’s finished what plays on the radio sounds like this:
If you’d like to meet the Pickup Truck Girls or get some snazzy accessories for your vehicle, visit Custom Trucks. They’re located at 4510 Research Park Blvd in Huntsville.
256-837-6620
If you’re interested in seeing how radio or TV advertising will impact your growth plans, give us a call. We don’t have pickup truck girls, but we know how to grow your business. 256-705-3544
Connect with me on:
