Why Do You Run Commercials That Won’t Work?

June 9, 2017

(By Michael Dudding) What am I missing? Do percentages mean more than dollar figures? I’m talking about commercials that offer discount percentages versus dollar savings. I believe copy writers restrict sales by using “save X percentage” instead of “saving X dollars.”

Example: One local jewelry story was advertising a diamond sale on radio. The message said “you can save 20% on a one-carat diamond ring this week.” Twenty percent of what? Twenty percent means what? If the price of an item that has a discount isn’t given, you’re just wasting airtime.
Wouldn’t your message encourage MORE sales for that jewelry store if you said, “Save $400 on a $2,000 diamond ring” — $400 is 20%.

Years ago, a furniture store wanted to advertise its truckload recliner sale with my station. He was emphatic about saying in his message, “you can save 25% off the price of a new recliner this week.”
The recliner retail cost was $600. The 25% savings equaled $150.

After two weeks, very few sales, and a frustrated store owner, I offered a copy change. I suggested he change his message as say “save $100 off the price of a new $600 recliner during our truckload sale.” His comment was “$100 isn’t even 25%, it’ll never work.”  I convinced him to give it a try, he can always “have a price markdown to sell all remaining recliners.”

Two weeks later, after using my suggestion, he was extremely happy with his traffic, sales, and profits (and his radio ads!). Plus, he got to keep $50 profit  per chair to put in his pocket. He learned consumers can relate to “dollars-off savings” better than “X percent off something.”
It’s extremely rare for a message to entice me to shop at a store that only offers “percentage-off savings.” Why are you allowing your advertisers to run bad commercials that will not work? Maybe this is a reason radio is getting our “unfair share” of today’s advertising dollars. Don’t get me started on telephone numbers in commercials….

Michael Dudding is owner and GM of the KDSN radio stations in Denison, IA, and one of Radio Ink’s Best Managers of 2016. He can be reached at mdudding1@hotmail.com.