Family owned and operated.

Posted on March 8, 2008
Filed Under copywriting, radio advertising, television advertising |

Low, low prices! Locally owned and operated for over 50 years. “Come see the good folks at”… “Family owned”

I don’t know about you but I’ve been hearing this junk every day for years and it’s starting to annoy me. Folks, these lines don’t qualify as advertising copy. Low, low prices, yeah that’s real unique. Locally owned and operated, not unique not selling and does anyone really care. Same goes for “family owned”. Maybe my favorite ode to the total waste of precious advertising time and space is “come see the ‘good folks’ at… “. That’s real compelling.

I live in Austin, Texas where the average cost of a: 60 radio spot that reaches ten thousand people is about $120. So businesses that run radio commercials that read like this, “Come see the good folks at Car Country. Locally owned and operated for over 50 years we have the lowest prices in town”, waste approximately $12 every time it airs because the copy doesn’t get your attention and doesn’t give you a reason to buy their product or service. If a college advertising student turned in an assignment with this kind of copy writing she would get an F. There is no USP, unique selling proposition.

Would this get your attention? “We don’t have low prices, we’re not family owned, we’re not locally owned and we certainly don’t have any good folks to come see”. I know I would listen to the rest of the message and if the product or service being sold had any value to me at all I would go visit the good folks who had the nerve to get my attention.

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