Ready for a variation on the game of word association? When you see the word, say who immediately comes to mind: Popcorn. Chicken. Designer jeans.
If you answered Orville Redenbacher, Frank Perdue and Calvin Klein then millions of advertising dollars haven’t been spent for nothing.
Putting your face in front of your product is an effective way to promote your business. People tend to feel better about a product or service when they can associate it with a real live human.
If you’ve ever considered putting yourself in the advertising spotlight, consider these tips from three whom have done it successfully.
Tony Tantillo is seen giving fresh produce reports almost every night on KPIX-TV in San Francisco. After a year on local television, his Fresh Grocer reports are syndicated in 17 markets and still growing.
Tantillo was “discovered” three years ago at his family’s wholesale and shipping produce business when he was asked to say a few lines in a commercial for the Fleet Market Produce Row. A San Jose television station was so impressed by Tantillo’s performance, they offered him an on-air position. A few months later, he took the job at KPIX in San Francisco.
According to Tantillo, “it takes three things to make it on television, or anything for that matter. And that’s personality, personality, personality.” Tantillo’s comfortable on-air manner reinforces his credibility among viewers who look to the Fresh Grocer for the latest taste of our nation’s produce.
Jack Roberts of Lynnwood, Washington always makes a scene on local TV - bisecting a television with a chain saw, dressing his sales help as overpriced appliances and chasing them away - and by all accounts, Roberts’ stage performance is earning big ticket sales at his appliance stores. Roberts credits his trademark zany television commercials with helping to increase sales five-fold over the past decade.
Roberts decided against a staid approach to his advertising, saying a Madison Avenue approach would emphasize similarities, rather than differences with his competition.
“I can purchase standardized advertisements from my professional organization, but never have because I want to be known for being unique. I can’t grab the attention of viewers when I look like everybody else,” he said.
Roberts’ commercials have turned him into a hometown celebrity of sorts. He has been invited twice to play against the Globe Trotters basketball team before an audience of more than 13,000 in the Tacomadome, and has been featured in The Seattle Times, Seattle Magazine ”Almost Live” television and “48 Hours” on CBS.
Jim Koch didn’t have the money for costly advertising when he launched The Boston Beer Company in 1985. Instead, he opted for a public relations campaign in which he personally promoted his product. Only six weeks after launching his micro-brewery, Koch’s old-family recipe was voted the Best Beer in America at the Great American Beer Festival. In those early days, Koch went from one Boston watering hole to the next to spread the word about Samuel Adams.
Although Koch has achieved success in his business, he isn’t interested in hiring an outside spokesperson to promote his beer.
“No one could speak with more passion and love for Samuel Adams than me. I speak with authority and authenticity because I know and believe in my product completely,” he said.
During the past decade, the Boston Beer Company has earned rave reviews from People magazine, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek and numerous brew critics.
Koch, Roberts and Tantillo are living proof that you don’t need a lot of money to promote your product or service, you just need personality, ingenuity and a sincere belief in what you do.
