1-800-WE-GET-THE-MESSAGE-ALREADY

Here is a funny article from a friend of ours, Rich Harshaw at Monopolize Your Marketplace.  His point is valid – and one we support – repetition = recognition.  In this case, Rich’s example highlights billboards placed all over the city of LA, all featuring one branding vanity number.  Thank you, Rich!

Read on…

1-800-WE-GET-THE-MESSAGE-ALREADY:

While on
vacation to Southern California recently I was
inundated with 1-800 GET-THIN billboards at every turn on every freeway. Unlike
Wall Drug, who made the million-billboards-in-50-miles strategy famous, these
billboards promoting Lap Band weight loss surgery were all identical, featuring
a standard-issue California blonde raising her fist in triumph as she weighs
122 pounds on a doctor’s scale. The billboard is straightforward, to the point,
and most importantly, EVERYWHERE–there were several occasions where I could
see two of them at the same time.

If I had
to guess, I’d say that I saw at least 50 of them… and I was only on the LA
freeways for less than two hours (the rest of the time was spent in lap-band-billboard-free
San Diego).
There could easily be 100 or more of them scattered hither and yon.  I
also don’t know how much all those billboards cost; but given the fact that
they were in Los Angeles,
I’m guessing they weren’t cheap.

If you
call 1-800-GET-THIN you’ll reach a call center for Weight Loss Centers, which
is part of a Beverly Hills
medical partnership called TopSurgeons. According to their website, they have
11 locations. The procedure reportedly costs about $18,000, and according to the
guy who answered when I called, lost of insurance programs cover it. So let’s
break down some numbers: Assume that their billboard campaign nets them 20 new
patients per month per location on average, that’s 220 sales, or just a shade
south of $4,000,000 in fat people’s money. Given the fact that there are elevty
trillion people in Los Angeles,
that doesn’t seem too farfetched. If they were willing to allocate 10% of sales
to pay for advertising, that’s $400,000–probably enough to buy up all those
billboards. Pretty smart, huh?

To make
this work in your world, you don’t have to put up $400,000 a month for
billboards. Just make sure that you laser focus your message to your target
market and then pound the living daylights out of them. The message, when
delivered in such high doses, is literally inescapable.  And in marketing,
inescapable is a good thing. Viva Wall Drug!