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Cute and clever gets you watched. A campaign gets you remembered.
And in a business where they don't need you until the day they really need you—remembered is the only one that pays the light bill.
Most businesses think they have an advertising problem. They don't. They have a memory problem. They ran a funny ad. People laughed. Nothing stuck. Six months later, nobody can name the company—or worse, they're confusing it with the competitor down the street.
In this episode, Ryan Chute, Chris Torbay, and Mick Torbay go to war with each other, and themselves, over one of the most misunderstood tensions in advertising: the difference between cute and clever and a real campaign. One's a great joke. The other's a relationship. And most brands are spending real money on punchlines that evaporate the moment the laugh track ends.
Chris makes the case for humor done right and exposes why the real crime isn't cute and clever, it's cute and clever as a trend-chasing reflex. Mick defends the long game while admitting that in a landscape of boilerplate mediocrity, even a halfway decent joke is ahead of the pack. And Ryan ties it all together with the question no business owner wants to sit with: are you building a character, or just wearing a costume?
Episode Highlights:
🎧 Hit play if you're running ads that get attention but never seem to stick. This episode will show you exactly why and what to do instead.
👉 Are your ads building a character people remember or just wearing a costume they forget?
Take the Next Step:
Tired of marketing that doesn't move the needle? Need to break through all the noise? In this exclusive one-on-one consultation, Wizard Ryan Chute will help you uncover:
📞 Spots Are Limited —Reserve Yours Now!
🌐 Learn more: advertisinginamerica.com
Connect with Us:
https://www.youtube.com/@advertisinginamerica
https://www.facebook.com/advertisinginamerica
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Somewhere in the back of your operation, there's supposed to be a machine.
You plug it in. It hums. Out come the customers, like a gumball machine, but for people who need a new water heater.
That machine doesn't exist.
In Episode 36 of Advertising in America, Ryan Chute, Chris Torbay, and Mick Torbay take apart one of the most expensive myths in modern marketing: that leads can be generated on demand. They can't. The weather makes the lead. The broken furnace makes the lead. Your only job, the only thing advertising has ever been able to do, is make sure it's your name they reach for when it happens.
From grudge purchases versus identity purchases, to the 95/5 rule, to why Google's Zero Moment of Truth is actually the last moment of truth, this episode hands essential home service operators a clear framework for understanding where their marketing dollars actually go and what they're actually buying.
Episode Highlights:
🎧 If your phone rings when the furnace dies, you didn't generate that lead. You captured it. This episode shows you how to make sure it's always your name they reach for before the cold snaps, not after.
👉 Are you building a brand, or just renting space in a hallway where all the doors look the same?
Take the Next Step:
Tired of marketing that doesn't move the needle? Need to break through all the noise? In this exclusive one-on-one consultation, Wizard Ryan Chute will help you uncover:
📞 Spots Are Limited —Reserve Yours Now!
🌐 Learn more: advertisinginamerica.com
Connect with Us:
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You're sick of your ads.
Your audience hasn't seen them yet.
That is the entire problem, and it's costing businesses millions in prematurely abandoned campaigns, reset brand signals, and marketing energy aimed at the wrong target entirely.
In this episode of Advertising in America, Mick Torbay and Chris Torbay take different doors to the same room. Mick's argument: your good ads need to run longer than you're comfortable with. Chris's argument: the individual ads should stay fresh, but the advertising idea underneath them should never change.
Both are right. And the distinction between the two is what separates businesses that build real brand equity from businesses that keep starting from zero.
The conversation goes deep into why the client is always sick of the ad before the audience has registered it once, what peer-reviewed wear-out research actually says about how long ads stay effective, why the new marketing hire who needs to "make their mark" is the single biggest threat to any great campaign, and how to tell the difference between a campaign that's bored and one that's actually broken.
Mick plays a mortgage broker's "perfect" radio ad. The man ran it unchanged for twenty years. You'll know within three seconds why that was a crime against attention.
If you've ever been tempted to kill a campaign that was working, or suspect someone on your team is doing it for the wrong reasons, this episode is the intervention you didn't know you needed.
Episode Highlights:
🎧 Hit play if you've ever been tempted to kill a campaign that was working or suspected someone on your team was doing it for the wrong reasons.
👉 Is your campaign bored... or broken? That's the only question that matters before you change a single word.
Take the Next Step:
Tired of marketing that doesn't move the needle? Need to break through all the noise? In this exclusive one-on-one consultation, Wizard Ryan Chute will help you uncover:
📞 Spots Are Limited —Reserve Yours Now!
🌐 Learn more: advertisinginamerica.com
Connect with Us:
https://www.youtube.com/@advertisinginamerica
https://www.facebook.com/advertisinginamerica
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Every terrible ad that's ever hit the airwaves was approved by someone.
Think about that. The HVAC commercial with the handsome technician and the voice-over about years of experience. The radio spot that lists quality, service, and low prices and nothing else. Every stinker. Every tune-out moment. Every ad that sounds exactly like every other ad in the category. Someone reviewed it, said yes, and unleashed it on the world.
That person might be you. Not because you're bad at your job because nobody ever taught you how to do this one.
In this episode of Advertising in America, Chris, Mick, and Ryan dismantle the most overlooked skill in marketing: the approval. Chris makes the case for hiring great people and getting completely out of the way, and what it actually means to be the person who says yes to the brave idea. Mick follows with four concrete questions that separate great advertising from forgettable garbage. And the discussion goes deep on the forces working against you: the built-in psychological bias against creative ideas, the committee effect that only knows one word, and why your gut reaction to something scary is almost never the right guide.
If you've ever stared at a script and felt completely unqualified to judge whether it would work, you weren't wrong. But you don't have to guess anymore.
Episode Highlights:
🎧 Hit play to learn why the approval is the most powerful and most misunderstood job in the entire marketing operation.
👉 When was the last time you approved something that actually scared you?
Take the Next Step:
Tired of marketing that doesn't move the needle? Need to break through all the noise? In this exclusive one-on-one consultation, Wizard Ryan Chute will help you uncover:
📞 Spots Are Limited —Reserve Yours Now!
🌐 Learn more: advertisinginamerica.com
Connect with Us:
https://www.youtube.com/@advertisinginamerica
https://www.facebook.com/advertisinginamerica
https://www.instagram.com/advertisinginamerica
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Most businesses know why they sell what they sell.
They love the craft. They believe in the product. They built the business around it. And then they build their advertising around it too, which is exactly where the money starts disappearing.
Because why you sell is never why they buy.
Coke doesn't advertise sugar water. Porsche doesn't advertise engineering specs. Life insurance companies don't sell financial instruments. And if you're in home services, you are not selling wrench-turning, roof nails, or refrigerant. You're selling certainty. You're selling the feeling that someone capable is handling something that was making life worse.
The gap between why you sell and why they buy is where most advertising fails and most businesses never find it because they're too close to what they sell to see what their customers are actually reaching for.
In this episode, Chris, Mick, and Ryan dismantle one of the most expensive misconceptions in advertising: that your product is the thing worth selling. They walk through the gap between what you offer and what your customer actually votes for with their wallet, why going "one level deeper" than your product still leaves you short, and how the best campaigns in history earned loyalty without ever mentioning the thing they were supposedly selling.
Mick's home healthcare client said she was in the "peace of mind business." Mick pushed back. The business she was actually in? Not going to a nursing home. That distinction is the difference between an ad that moves product and a campaign that moves people.
Episode Highlights
🎧 Hit play if you've ever run an ad and wondered why it didn't move the needle. The answer is probably in the first three minutes.
👉 Does your ad still make sense with your biggest competitor's name on it?
Take the Next Step:
Tired of marketing that doesn't move the needle? Need to break through all the noise? In this exclusive one-on-one consultation, Wizard Ryan Chute will help you uncover:
📞 Spots Are Limited —Reserve Yours Now!
🌐 Learn more: advertisinginamerica.com
Connect with Us:
https://www.youtube.com/@advertisinginamerica
https://www.facebook.com/advertisinginamerica
https://www.instagram.com/advertisinginamerica
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https://x.com/adsinamerica
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You say you want something different.
You don't.
You want something different that looks like something that already worked. You want risk with a guarantee attached. You want a breakthrough idea that a focus group approves. That's not different. That's a polite version of what you've always done, wearing a new shirt.
In this episode of Advertising in America, Chris, Mick, and Ryan go after one of the most dangerous lies in marketing: that clients want to do something bold. The truth is, most of them have already had bold presented to them. They just didn't buy it. They bought the safe version that came before it on the deck. Or after it. The one that felt like advertising.
The conversation moves from Jack Nicholson improvising his way into movie history, to why The Sopranos cast assumed they'd never get a second season, to why the campaigns every business wishes they ran Old Spice, 1984, Got Milk, only look brilliant in hindsight.
Because breakthrough ideas don't look like winners when you're staring at them in a boardroom. It looks like getting fired in 4K.
Episode Highlights:
🎧 Hit play for the most honest conversation in marketing you'll hear this year. If you've ever been in the room when the bold idea got watered down, this one will feel uncomfortably familiar.
👉 Are you actually ready for something different, or are you just ready to say you were?
Take the Next Step:
Tired of marketing that doesn't move the needle? Need to break through all the noise? In this exclusive one-on-one consultation, Wizard Ryan Chute will help you uncover:
📞 Spots Are Limited —Reserve Yours Now!
🌐 Learn more: advertisinginamerica.com
Connect with Us:
https://www.youtube.com/@advertisinginamerica
https://www.facebook.com/advertisinginamerica
https://www.instagram.com/advertisinginamerica
https://www.threads.net/@advertisinginamerica
https://x.com/adsinamerica
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Everybody and their dog is selling OTT right now.
Radio stations. TV stations. Outdoor companies. Your dry cleaner probably has a deck.
But here's what they're not telling you: most of what's being sold under the OTT banner is overpriced, under-measured, and bought from someone who has absolutely no idea what they're doing, and even less incentive to admit it.
In this episode, Ryan Chute and the Torbay Twins sit down with media buyer Beth Radtke and Wizard of Ads partner Ray Seggern to cut through the noise around Over the Top advertising. What it actually is, where it actually works, and how to avoid the traps that are quietly bleeding businesses dry?
The conversation pulls no punches. From Comscore's measurement sleight of hand, to the dangerous gap between impressions and actual people in the room, to the Atlanta case study, where one buyer got 5,000 households and another got 25,000 for the exact same $5,000.
This episode is a master class in media buying clarity. Because the medium isn't the problem. Buying blind is the problem.
Episode Highlights:
🎧 If someone is trying to sell you OTT right now, listen to this episode before you sign anything.
👉 Are you buying media or just buying someone else's commission?
Take the Next Step:
Tired of marketing that doesn't move the needle? Need to break through all the noise? In this exclusive one-on-one consultation, Wizard Ryan Chute will help you uncover:
📞 Spots Are Limited —Reserve Yours Now!
🌐 Learn more: advertisinginamerica.com
Connect with Us:
https://www.youtube.com/@advertisinginamerica
https://www.facebook.com/advertisinginamerica
https://www.instagram.com/advertisinginamerica
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https://x.com/adsinamerica
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Your brand has a story. The question is whether it's true.
Most businesses think they have a culture. They have a summer picnic. They have a mission statement on the wall. They have a boss who reads leadership books and then shows up late on Mondays. That's not culture. That's a fairy tale with fluorescent lighting.
In this episode, Ryan Chute and the Torbay brothers sit down with Wizard of Ads partner Ray Seggern, author of the forthcoming book Story & Culture & Experience: A Field Guide for Finding Your Awesome, to break down the three forces that determine whether a business becomes iconic or invisible.
Story is what the market believes about you. Culture is who your people actually are. Experience is what your customers actually feel.
When all three align, you don't have customers, you have champions. When they don't, no ad budget in the world will save you.
This conversation goes deep on why advertising is secretly also a recruiting tool, how the boss's behavior predicts the team's behavior, and why the organizations that are hardest to fix are often the ones who most need fixing… starting at the top.
Episode Highlights:
🎧 If you've ever wondered why your culture keeps breaking down, why your best people keep leaving, or why your story doesn't match what actually happens inside your walls...
Take the Next Step:
Tired of marketing that doesn't move the needle? Need to break through all the noise? In this exclusive one-on-one consultation, Wizard Ryan Chute will help you uncover:
📞 Spots Are Limited —Reserve Yours Now!
🌐 Learn more: advertisinginamerica.com
Connect with Us:
https://www.youtube.com/@advertisinginamerica
https://www.facebook.com/advertisinginamerica
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https://x.com/adsinamerica
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Is Valpak a relic of desperate discounting… or a misunderstood tool hiding in plain sight?
In this episode of Advertising in America, the team takes on one of the most polarizing marketing channels out there—the infamous envelope of coupons. Is it junk mail destined for the trash, or a strategic weapon when used correctly?
Chris Torbay fires the first shot, dismantling Valpak as a brand-killing, bargain-bin tactic that attracts the wrong customer at the worst possible moment. But Mick Torbay pushes back hard, arguing that no media is inherently broken—only the strategy behind it.
Then comes the reality check.
Media buying expert Beth Radtke steps in with data, experience, and a perspective most advertisers never consider: what actually happens after that envelope hits the mailbox.
This episode isn’t about defending or attacking Valpak. It’s about understanding the real game.
Episode Highlights:
Because the question isn’t whether Valpak works.
It’s whether you know how to use it.
🎧 Hit play to rethink not just coupons—but how every marketing channel fits into your strategy.
👉 Do you know how to make any marketing work?
Take the Next Step:
Tired of marketing that doesn't move the needle? Need to break through all the noise? In this exclusive one-on-one consultation, Wizard Ryan Chute will help you uncover:
📞 Spots Are Limited —Reserve Yours Now!
🌐 Learn more: advertisinginamerica.com
Connect with Us:
https://www.youtube.com/@advertisinginamerica
https://www.facebook.com/advertisinginamerica
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You don’t have an attention problem… you have an entitlement problem.
Most advertisers walk into the market like they’re the main act, expecting people to listen, care, and convert. The reality? You’re the interruption. And if you haven’t earned that attention, you’ve already lost it.
In this episode, the team dismantles the illusion that good products, polished branding, or bigger budgets automatically translate into results. From painfully generic HVAC commercials to bloated national campaigns, they expose the real issue: advertising that says everything and means nothing.
The conversation cuts deep into what actually works, earning attention through entertainment, holding it through storytelling, and delivering a single, memorable idea instead of a laundry list of features. Because the market isn’t ignoring you… you’re just not giving it a reason to care.
If you’re still relying on “quality, service, and low prices” to carry your message, this episode is your wake-up call.
Episode Highlights:
🎧 Hit play to learn why attention isn’t given—it’s earned, fought for, and kept through craft. If your marketing feels invisible, this episode will show you exactly where it’s breaking down and how to fix it.
👉 Are your ads actually earning attention… or just interrupting people and hoping they tolerate it?
Take the Next Step:
Tired of marketing that doesn't move the needle? Need to break through all the noise? In this exclusive one-on-one consultation, Wizard Ryan Chute will help you uncover:
📞 Spots Are Limited —Reserve Yours Now!
🌐 Learn more: advertisinginamerica.com
Connect with Us:
https://www.youtube.com/@advertisinginamerica
https://www.facebook.com/advertisinginamerica
https://www.instagram.com/advertisinginamerica
https://www.threads.net/@advertisinginamerica
https://x.com/adsinamerica
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From the publisher's feed
Discover the magic of marketing with "Advertising in America"! Join hosts Ryan Chute and the Torbay Twins as they unravel the secrets behind iconic ad campaigns, share practical tips, and bring a…
Connect with Us:
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https://twitter.com/adsinamerica
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