What Makes These Wal-Mart Ads So Tasty?

(Warning: If you are NOT a fan of red meat, reality TV show hosts, or corporate conglomerates, you may want to stop reading.)

Yesterday, Tim confessed his admiration for Geico’s successful marketing strategy.

Today, the love fest continues as I shine the spotlight on another company that’s doing it right.

Studies have shown the average person is exposed to over 5,000 marketing messages every day, so it’s become a challenge to cut through the clutter.

But one company’s advertising campaign has done just that.

That company is Wal-Mart. Yes, I know. I was surprised, too.

But, in my humble opinion, the recent ad campaign for Wal-Mart’s meat department featuring Man Vs. Food’s Adam Richman stands out from the crowded field. Here’s one of the ads in case you haven’t seen it:

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Why do I like this ad so much?

Because instead of using 30 seconds to talk about meat, they used it to teach me something I didn’t know.

Let’s face it. Steak is much more fun to grill and eat than it is to talk about (or worse, LISTEN to someone talk about). Yet, after a quick online search for steak commercials, I found a plethora of food companies wasting all of their ad time to talk about their steaks.

• “Our boneless rib-eye has the ideal balance of leanness and flavor”
• “Fresh, never frozen, sirloin fillets”
• “Premium certified beef steakhouse cuts”
• “Certified Angus beef”
• “Freshly cut, trimmed, and packaged by an in-house butcher”
• “Hand-cut for freshness and flavor”
• “Premium flank steak cut exclusively from Triple-A Canadian beef”

Blah, blah, blah.

In the Wal-Mart commercial, Richman takes all of six seconds to describe the steak. He then spends the remaining time dropping usable nuggets of dimpled wisdom.

Honestly, who would you rather listen to? A food snob droning on and on about the quality of his steaks? Or a food expert showing us how to make our steaks better?

See, when you spend less time talking about the product and spend more time explaining how customers will benefit from the product, you cut through the clutter.

And when you teach me something I didn’t know, I see you as an expert in your field.

Do you want to be the expert? Stop preachin’ and start teachin’.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to wake my steaks from their nap.