Lessons in advertising from Santa of the South
Why should I advertise?
This question bugs me immensely. I've heard it from the smallest of small operations and some of the biggest. But I have to contend that these business owners and runners don't know why they should. Honestly, it's not covered in most marketing and advertising textbooks, not to mention business books.
No matter the data or years of case studies to support or even justify this "airy-fairy" service's existence, they still believe "if you build it, they will come" (without letting anyone know what it is, where it is, why it's unique, etc.).
As an industry, we need to break it down for our clients, but we have to start at the beginning. When a potential client asks, "why should I advertise?" What they're actually trying to say is, "I don't believe advertising works?". That elephant in the room needs to be, in the most politically correct manner, culled. We can only do that by proving it works.
This should be the point where I abandon this existential task of writing to an audience with whom I have no relationship or rapport because who am I to say what works and what doesn't? I suppose anecdotes and examples would help my cause. So, I'll begin with my grandfather's entrepreneurial venture, and subsequently, my family's business.
My grandfather/Oupa, who's name I bare, grew up in a poorish part of town. Poor in the sense that it's in the middle of an industrial district and the sense that he and his siblings had to find work from very young ages to help provide for the family.
Eventually, he had to drop out of school because of these commitments. His daily grind was to go around to other people's yards and mostly collect scrap pieces of metal and car parts.
That turned out to be relatively lucrative, as most people did their own mechanic work in those days. He would attempt to fix those parts, and that subsequently turned into a business and scrapyard that would become my playground as a child.
Today, I look back at the success of that business, trying to find out how he could ever have made a success without proper education or even advertising? It has taken me a while but what I have come to realise is that while he might not have had an "education", he did have the knowledge, the type you only get by trying and failing and then getting back up one more time. And he actually did advertise and market his business. He did it through storytelling.
I remember growing up thinking my grandfather is a giant of a man. With his barrel chest, battle-hardened hands, sleeveless shirts and short jean "pant", he was a pretty intimidating figure to look at, but he always wore a smile. He had this magnetism about his personality that drew people closer, and before they knew it, they were getting his life story whether they wanted to hear it or not. That never mattered as his stories are so well crafted with quirks, suspense and a sense of optimism that you didn't mind hearing it again and again.
His telling of his narrative wasn't necessarily advertising, but it was self-promotion in the sincerest of ways. However, the "real" promotion came from the PR and publicity stunts he created to promote his business. The difference between his marketing and what we've come to expect from today's corporate world is his stories were authentic.
1. Word of Mouth
Growing up, Oupa was a skinny kid with no real meat on his bones. One day his father asked him to help clear out cemented in steel poles from a 100m stretch of road. The steel bars were to be dumped, which didn't sit well with Oupa. "There are at least a few hundred kilograms of metal sitting there", he thought.
So, he proposed that they should instead try to remove the cement and sell the scrap. His father wouldn't hear it as he thought the cement was so hard that it would take days to remove it all. But he left Oupa to his devices to return later that day, thinking that it would teach him to listen.
When his father returned, he found this lanky boy passed out with a pile of pristine steel poles freshly cleaned with not as much as a speck of dust on them. His father was stunned and couldn't figure out how on earth this undernourished kid could have hammered off all of that caked cement.
Oupa later explained that he knew he couldn't just let all that metal go the waste, so he tried to hammer it off. But try as he might, nothing would shake off that concrete. Not until he got so frustrated that he struck the poles with his hammer instead of the caked concrete. That's when he noticed the vibrations from hitting the metal shook the cement so much that it would crack and fall off. This story would become a staple of his teachings to us grandkids. Even if frustration leads to the ultimate solution, the lesson was clear; Think differently, and you will find a way.
2. PR and Awareness
He came third in the National Strongman competition somewhere in the late 70s or early 80s, and he never even trained for it.
There he was, a complete outsider, having "trained" on V8 engines and the general heavy lifting of parts from here to there, and he stunned the crowd and other competitors at NASREC so much it made it onto the 7 o'clock news on the SABC. That was his PR. Even the local community newspapers picked it up and lauded the local boy that did good, citing his business name and address.
3. Press, Radio, Mobile Outdoor Advertising, and Activation
My grandfather was also a stuntman. Not many people can say that, even though the professional sense of being on a movie set or equivalent lacks in mine. He was a stuntman, Evil Knievel style. He would jump old Cadillacs through burning double-decker buses at Wembley Stadium in the South of Johannesburg. But the genius of it was that for weeks before the stunt, passersby at the yard could see the sign writer working on adding "Buks Delport Motor Spares" in large letters with the address and phone number to the bus.
The signwriter, an old family friend, Pat, whose full name I can't recall (I still believe it is Pat Signs), would usually add in a quirky illustration. The illustration would be of a bearded man riding what resembled a falling-to-pieces Model T with speech bubbles saying things like: "I'd better get down to Buks Delport".
A week leading up to the stunt, Oupa would drive that bus through streets promoting the event.
At the event, newspapers and cameras were ready to capture the death-defying leap a 2 ton Cadillac was going to go through a fire engulfed double-decker bus.
After the feat of sheer madness, Oupa would begin repairing the bus and Caddie for the following year's jump.
If you are a scrapyard/workshop and want customers to trust you, there is no better way of achieving it than by jumping a perfectly good car through a bus and then repairing said vehicles and doing it again.
4. Press, TV, Radio, Mobile Advertising, Activations and CSI
What most people of the South will remember about Oupa Buks is the charity work he did every year for 38 years before his passing in 2013. He was the Father Christmas of the South, and he had sleighs and helpers, and Mrs Claus was always by his side.
Oupa took an old 58 Ford Bedford truck (the second incarnation or MK2 of the sleighs), machined, welded, and hammered into a firetruck-red Santa's sleigh, fully equipped with four life-sized prancing fibreglass reindeer on a 12-foot spring-loaded lever that stuck out the front.
This 58 Bedford would travel around delivering food, clothing, and gifts to the underprivileged blacks and underprivileged whites marginalised by Apartheid South Africa. Yes, the repeated "underprivileged" is intentional.
A story that sticks out for me was when Oupa travelled to a township in or outside Boksburg. It was during an anti-apartheid protest. The police barricaded all entrances to the township, trying to contain the "violence".
I can only imagine the officers' jaws assume a mouth breather position when a sizeable unlicensed sleigh with a burly man in a red suit, and fake white beard, pulls up, demanding to be let through because it's Christmas. All while exclaiming (all in Afrikaans, of course), "I have presents to deliver!".
My grandfather would giggle like a schoolgirl retelling how these officers would have uphill trying to convince him otherwise. And their shock when a phone call came through from some high ranking official nearby granting Santa Claus entry to the rioting township.
After that, his stories always took a vulnerable and intimate turn. He would explain why he would do such a thing at such a time and for so many years. He wanted to make the people, and especially the kids, smile for a change.
He said the smiles on their faces when they received parcels of food, clothing and hand knit stuffed toys were why he did what he did. It was all worth it, the money that came out of his pocket, the long hours driving, repairing the truck, my gran's year-long knitting of stuffed dolls, all of it was worth it. It was worth the hard times and good times, all just to spread a little bit of hope.
My grandfather's success in business came from hard work, discipline, integrity and gratitude. His business's marketing and advertising turned it into a trusted, well-known brand (at least in the South). That trust led to sales. The hard work and high standards on every job led to repeat business. It's that repeat business that enabled him to give back something way more exceptional.
If he hadn't pushed so hard, advertising without advertising, I wonder how his business would look today? What would those Christmases have been like for so many?
Luckily, he got his name out there and let everyone know who the man behind the name on the shopfront was and what he stood for.
Going back to the question of why you should advertise and does it work, all you need to do is ask yourself:
What if 10% more people knew about my business?
What if you could craft messages focused on your best attributes that answer the questions in their minds as to your trustworthiness?
Would that improve your bottom-line?
And finally, what would you do with a more authentic business and brand? My answer: do something great.
