OMG! This Is The World's Best Burger!

The world's BEST burger? Really? I've written more Ads than most agencies write in a decade, and I'm telling you the burger doesn't have to be the best. It just has to be sold the best.

Have you ever wondered why McDonald's sells more burgers than any burger joint in the world? Sure, their Quarter Pounder with Cheese is tasty-ish. Their Big Mac has 2 all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a sesame seed bun (yes I still remember the Ad jingle… because jingles work), but that isn't enough to make them the best-selling burger place in the world, is it? Maybe.

Message simplicity for the win. Wait, where was the message? Cue Justin Timberlake jingle, please!

Don't Show How the Burger Gets Made

McDonald's understands the value of building memorable brand messages that are simple. Now, imagine the flip side of this. Imagine for a moment that McDonald's Ads actually showed you every detail of how they make their burgers…

The scene opens in a fog-covered, rolling, grassy pasture. Cows are grazing on the soft blades of dew-covered greenery as the sun rises over the hill. The announcer begins...

"We raise our grass fed cows until they are the perfect age… for slaughter. Then, we lead them into a truck, bring them to our processing plant and..."

...and I'll stop right there.

Why did I stop? Because no one wants to think about HOW a burger is made, they just want to eat the burger.

Message Simplicity and Memorable Messaging Works

What Big Brands Know That You Don't

Over 40+ years and something north of 100,000 Ads written, I've crafted messages for small businesses doing $100,000 a year and for multi-billion-dollar brands running national campaigns. I've noticed the exact same failure pattern in almost every small business Ad that crosses my desk: they try to say everything at once. Big brands never do that. Before I share what separates the two, take note -- small businesses need to steal a page out of the big-business playbook and start keeping their messages simple, the same way you'd sharpen a headline that earns the read instead of dumping every feature into the first line.

Oftentimes, small businesses, because they don't have a marketing department or the owner is the one conveying the importance of the message, try to cram too much information into their Ads. Every detail of their product, their service, their offering, is SO important to them. The problem is that, when you include every detail because everything is important, the entire message becomes muddy. It becomes impossible to define what the offer actually is, and, everything that's important suddenly becomes invisible.

A message where everything is important makes nothing important. The important stuff gets lost.

It's funny, you hear people use the expression "TMI" all the time, yet when it comes to their advertising, business owners don't seem to believe in "Too Much Information." Instead, they believe in the more information, the better. What they don't realize is, they're telling people step-by-step how the burger is made.

The process isn't the goal, it's simpler than that. It's three amazingly simple steps…

The Only 3 Steps That Matter

Step 1: Engage

Step 2: Entertain

Step 3: Ask

If you look at any of the Ads we run for our own company at the top of the funnel, you'll notice that they all have something in common: they are very engaging and entertaining before they ever ask for anything. That's not an accident -- it's the same three-step order I've used on every one of the 9 Super Bowl spots I've worked on and every campaign that's helped generate the $300B+ in client revenue we've tracked over the years.

Why is that?

Why aren't we hammering people with how-it-works messaging, deals, offers, specials, right from the get?

Because, like McDonald's, the world's most SUCCESSFUL burger, we are in this for the long game. Not every person in the world is going to be your ideal customer and you don't need to convert everyone. Additionally, your ads will be lost in a sea of sameness within the noise that is today's Internet and newsfeeds if you don't do something that makes your brand stand out, pop, or remembered. Instead of producing some long-ass, boring Ad that does nothing but sell, sell, sell, how about producing Ads that are memorable and unique -- the kind of Ad where the headline itself acts like a bouncer, deciding who gets pulled in and who keeps scrolling -- so you can become the go-to brand, instead of another blip on someone's newsfeed.

If you do that, maybe people will start singing your jingle.