TV Advertising During a Crisis: A Discussion with Chuck Hengel

Welcome to the Marketing Growth Podcast. I’m Shane Barker, your host for the show, and Chuck Hengel from Marketing Architects is back with us to discuss how COVID-19 affected the TV advertising industry and the way TV ads were made. The thing I do want to talk about is TV advertising during a crisis, right? We just had this discussion before the podcast started about the pandemic and how it affected your business and mine, and different things like these weird things called handshakes that we’re doing now, and these things we call hugs—who knew that these would be coming back at such a vicious rate? And now we don’t even know how to do them anymore. I told you I was practicing on my pillow, and my first hug for my mom after a year and a half. It’s small little things like that. You said you got a handshake. We kind of look at our hands, now what do we do? Do we dip them in bleach? Or what’s the next step? Do we both go to our house and wrap the whole house in plastic? Or what are the next steps? I’m obviously being a little facetious, but I did want to talk about the pandemic and how it’s affected TV advertising. So what have you guys seen on your side?

Yeah, and that’s, I didn’t even think about that. It’s like, “Hey, you’re wearing a mask, not wearing a mask?” And then, depending on where that messaging is happening—in certain parts of the country, maybe they say you should wear a mask, or maybe you don’t need to—are you complying? And what kind of message does that give your audience that could either motivate them to say, “This is awesome. Hey, you’re wearing a mask, so I’m going to support you,” or that wearing a mask is ridiculous—”Why are you wearing a mask?” There’s obviously a political aspect to it. I think that happened back then, but gosh, I never thought about that. Messaging can already be challenging, right? You’re trying to get your message out and hit it out of the park. Now you’re saying, “Wear a mask,” and people understand what you’re saying, but it adds a different level of complexity. I do love that you’ll know pretty fast whether the content resonates well, and when it does, good things happen. When it doesn’t, you go back and tweak things. That’s no different than any campaign—SEO, PPC, or anything like that. You try a campaign, something goes, you get sales or you don’t, and then you tweak as you go.

So if you need help optimizing your campaigns for higher ROI, feel free to reach out to my team anytime. We have experts in SEO, content marketing, influencer marketing, landing page optimization, and more. Be sure to visit my website, shanebarker.com, for more information.

How did COVID-19 change the way that TV ads were made? I mean, we talked about the mass thing, but did it? I’m just trying to think of more—when you guys are making commercials, what were some of the pain points there? I can only imagine it was a little more difficult.

Yeah, I think that’s the key. In COVID, it accelerated us in a number of different ways. Before, you could absolutely produce something locally, but then those channels really opened up and said, “Okay, now, how do we do that?” Having animation was awesome. I went to your website and saw some of your commercials—you have some awesome stuff. It shows the creativity and that you don’t have to have a set in a certain area; it’s worldwide. You can cast people, get clips, and put them together through animation and other ways. That’s what’s interesting about it: if this had happened 15 years ago, it would have been a different deal. It might have halted the industry and made it extremely difficult, but things were already pretty remote. You can have different studios doing clips here and then put them together with a clip over there, and make it a phenomenal piece. I love that it didn’t pause the industry. At the beginning, it may have stopped things for a hot second, and then everybody said, “Hey, wait a second. We’ve got these channels. Let’s figure out how to make them better to put out the content that our clients need.” So what should brands keep in mind when it comes to creating TV advertising during the pandemic? What are some of the things they should think about?

I love that. I think the important thing was the tone, right? We had a lot of clients in the SEO world who said, “Oh, we don’t want to— we’re gonna wait, six months.” And I’m like, “But why? If everybody else is pulling back their budget, isn’t that the time to push ahead, assuming you’re doing things tactfully?” You mentioned that some of your clients said, “Let’s move forward on this, but let’s make sure we understand the tone and messaging and ensure we’re not being disrespectful during these times.” It was a great time when more people were in seats, paying attention, and spending money. They may not have been going out as much, but they were definitely sitting in chairs.

I can tell you firsthand that Amazon’s success was directly correlated to my wife sitting in her chair at home—I’m just kidding, please don’t buy more stuff because of that! But seriously, Pete, people have attention spans, and they’re watching TV, live streaming, and other channels. We helped a lot of businesses pivot from doing concerts to live streaming online and other formats. That pivot has been really interesting. I love seeing your clients say, “Let’s push this thing forward.” Let’s be mindful of what’s going on and figure out messaging that resonates with people who are watching and waiting for that message to happen.

And I think the key is it comes down to the data. That’s really the most important thing. As I tell people, “I’ve been doing this a long time, and I can give you my opinion, and I do think there’s some validity to it, but it really doesn’t matter.” It comes down to the numbers and what people like. It’s the same thing we talk about in SEO—who cares about your keywords if nobody’s looking them up? It’s the same with your work. I’m giving you my opinion, but we’re going to put this out there. And if the data says that everybody loves it, then we don’t need to debate that. We all come with our own ideas of how things should be and our own biases, but at the end of the day, it’s not about us. You can have your opinion—I’ve been doing this a long time, so it’s valid—but the idea is to put it out there and see what happens. It comes down to whether people respond to it or not, and I love that.

So what do you think? What is the future for TV advertising in this post-pandemic world that we’re hopefully nearing, and what are you seeing on your side for the future of TV advertising?

Yeah, I was going to say, I mean, that’s honestly me asking you—that was kind of an unfair question because you’d have to have a crystal ball, because it’s evolved so crazy over the last 10 years. I mean, other than, obviously, people love video, and we think that content will continue to stay, how that will be transformed—who knows, right? I mean, it’s transformed in such a crazy way over the last five years. Who knows what the future is? But I’m with you. It’s not going away in regards to the visual side of things. And that fragmentation happening now, and it being different than the way it’s done historically, can be a good thing.

Thanks, Chuck. It’s been a great episode. I’m sure our listeners now understand how to use the right tone and messaging to do TV ads and promotions during troubled times. You’ve shared great insights into maintaining the balance and not being disrespectful, while still helping your brand stay on top of the consumer’s mind. Our conversation with Chuck Hengel doesn’t end here—we’ll talk about how he created and sold off Hurricane, the number one walking cane company, on the next episode. So stay tuned.