The meeting room smelled like cheap coffee and bad decisions.
Fifteen managers sat around a conference table watching a social media expert walk them through her latest masterpiece. She kept calling the actress in the video a “bonny girl” who represents the brand image, and everyone nodded along like those little dogs people put in their car windows.
The video started with a slow pan of a building, a gentle jingle playing in the background.
4 seconds later, another slow pan inside the building.
Then the “bonny girl” walked into frame like she was appearing on a game show. Welcome she said with another long pause. Then the business name popped up with another long pause. Then the features and benefits started playing.
We were fifteen seconds in before anything remotely interesting happened, and even then, I use the word “interesting” generously.
She showed four more videos just like it. All the same slow pans. All the same pauses. All the same features nobody cares about when they see an ad.
Then she dropped the bomb…
She told the room that one video got 365 likes and that kind of engagement is something money can’t buy.
My brain nearly exploded.
How many people actually enquired from those 365 likes? How many booked a call? How many bought anything?
Nobody asked.
The managers kept bobbing their heads and smiling.
This company has been bleeding money on ads for years working with this same expert. And from what I saw in that meeting they have nothing to show for it except fancy camera work and a “bonny girl” nobody remembers.
The brutal truth about ads is that nobody wants to watch them.
Nobody.
We see thousands of ads every single day and we skip almost all of them because they’re boring.
You have about three seconds to grab someone before they scroll past. Three seconds to make them stop and think “oh wow, that’s exactly what I need right now.”
Without that attention grab, the rest of your ad never gets seen. Your features don’t matter. Your USPs don’t matter. Your “bonny girl” definitely doesn’t matter.
Most ads fail because they treat advertising like it’s supposed to be pretty instead of profitable. They hire expensive actors and camera,s but forget the only thing that matters is whether someone takes action.
If your ads aren’t working, it’s probably because you’re doing what that expert did. Making something that looks professional but doesn’t actually sell anything.
Where was the strategy? Where was the targeted messaging to cold leads, warm leads and hot leads?
The whole thing just made me want to cry, but I kept my mouth shut because it isn’t my place to mess with someone’s career.
But that doesn’t mean you have to suffer the same fate as them.
The Legacy Room builds paid media systems that turn clicks into customers and budgets into profit. We match creative that stops scrolls with search campaigns that catch people ready to buy. No “bonny girls” required.
We’ll target every stage of the buyer’s journey. Interested & comparing options, hot and ready to buy now… We’ll even grab people who didn’t even know they needed your offer.
Check it out when you’re done nodding, or grab this free PPC strategy template so you can do it yourself.
Later
Kav “no more bobble heads” Legacy
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