When my company started advertising on cable TV, I knew that we had it made. Don't get me wrong, it's not like we were small time before that. We had done radio advertising as well as some advertising on TV, but it had all been local. We simply had not had the money, and our clientele were all from the region that we were located in. For me, cable TV advertising was a milestone. It showed that we had expanded our business far enough to make it practical to advertise to a nationwide consumer base. It really was a proud moment for me and for everyone else in the company.
Of course, in many ways cable TV advertising was one of the most difficult things that we have ever done. Before that, we had done all of our advertising design in-house. We have some very creative people working for us, and some of them had some limited media exposure. I would not say that we had the best, most slickly produced advertising out there, but we did have good advertising. It got people in the door, which is all it was supposed to do. The rest is always up to the company.
But cable TV advertising was another ballgame altogether. First of all, cable TV advertising rates are much higher than rates for normal TV advertising. We could not afford to get it wrong. We could not afford multiple commercial runs so we had to get the cable TV advertisements right first time, and that meant hiring an advertising agency.
That was intimidating, to say the least. My brother had always warned me about ad execs. He had worked with them a lot in his line of business, and he was right about them. They are slick and hard to read. I know that they were working for us, trying to decide what was the best cable TV advertising campaign for our company. Even so, I didn't trust them. Their art, after all, consists entirely of manipulating people. How can you trust someone like that?
In the end, however, I had nothing to worry about. I was assigned to a great advertising marketing professional, and he made some great cable TV advertisements for us. Our cable TV advertising campaign went off without a hitch. It was a proud moment in my life, and in the lives of my family members.
