The Five and Dime

Almost every ad agency in the world subscribes to the USP—the Unique Selling Proposition. What they typically tell their clients is we need to find the one thing that makes your company unique in all of the world, and that is the message that we are going to extoll in all of our advertising for you. The idea is that this USP will make you stand out from your competitors and give you the advantage.

There is a huge problem with this scenario: most companies don’t actually have a real unique selling proposition. There are a few…Apple Computers has their retail stores with the Genius Bar and so far they are the only computer company that I know of that offers a service like this; WalMart uses size to their advantage and beats up their suppliers to offer the lowest prices; and cell phone companies come out with new technology temporarily allowing them to offer something unique.

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Lastest television commercial that we created for the Ad Diner. That’s me saying, “hey, don’t make him mad” (the one being referred to as a “pinhead.”) www.AdDiner.com

Women Entrepreneur interviewed Cindy and myself for an article on their website. With the only problem in the article is they occasionally misspell the last name (we always tell people to get the “h” out of there), we otherwise thought it was a good article.

Read the article at Women Entrepreneur

This is a commercial we created for the Ad Diner. It uses Motion software, where we can take photos and manipulate them in a 3-D space, and then add video on top of that.

This particular commercial is a “spec” piece, (the jewelry store in the ad is not real.) It can be sold to any business and is designed to be flexible enough to work for anyone from insurance agents to car dealers. If you are thinking of doing holiday advertising, check out the Ad Diner for other holiday spots from their “menu” section. (We also created some fun radio called Santa’s Workshop where the store owner talks to elves.)

Visit the Ad Diner

What is the Ad Diner? It is a new way for small businesses to acquire creative advertising, including TV, radio, print, direct mail, billboards.

The business goes to the site, picks their industry category, reviews the ads on the site, and if they like an ad or campaign, they make the purchase. The Ad Diner will then take their logo and their information and customize the ads to work in their market.

The idea is simple: an ad that works in Peoria would probably work just as well for a similar business in Jacksonville, or Chattanooga, or San Jose. The ads are sold to non-competing businesses in different markets, and licensed for one year.

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