This was a large locally owned lumber company and home improvement center with one location just outside a city of about 500,000 people. The nationally known big box home improvement stores have been open for about three years and he wanted to know how he could compete with them successfully as they had much larger advertising budgets and immediate name brand awareness from the day they opened.

The owner of this business runs a small town Amish furniture store, with a big problem. He was located between the state's two biggest cities with three competitors in one city and one in another. He wasn't exactly languishing out in the boonies, but he knew with the right advertising plan he could do a lot better. His first question was, "why would anyone travel 20 miles out of their way to buy Amish furniture from me and my wife?" Good question.

Sometimes a Marketing Bridge issue is so problematic that drastic action has to be taken. As an advertiser, one of the most- if not the most important Marketing Bridge elements is your company name.

We received a call from a business owner who, over the past ten years, had opened several auto repair and tire shops in a large, Midwestern city under his family name. We'll call him Bashir Car Care. Robert Bashir told us he'd advertised by sending out newsletters and direct mail promotions but little else until he tried radio for the first time.

He was on a radio station for almost a year but saw no evidence of its value. Of course we think any (appropriate for your business type) medium can work if you know how to work the medium so we were curious about a couple of things.

My first question was about the message.

He sent me the copy the radio station wrote for him and it was a typical cliche-laden collection of boring information that would motivate no one. What's worse, they'd never changed the copy one time from the beginning! (Depending on the frequency of the message, we recommend changing copy monthly, or so.)

My second question was, "has anyone from the radio station ever discussed your Marketing Bridge with you?" They hadn't, of course. Media salespeople are trained in selling, not in advertising and marketing.

Even though Robert was born in America and went to a local high school and college, his name was not a common one and could be problematic when advertising on a non-visual medium.

I suggested to Robert that people might have difficulty with the spelling should they want to look it up in the phone book, etc. He agreed and we began a discussion about a name change.

This was a major decision and an undertaking of some difficulty and expense but the alternatives were not pleasant either. Robert decided the name change was indeed critical to future growth through local advertising so we suggested "Capitol Car Care and Tires."

As it turned out, Robert was also a natural for reading radio scripts so he was included as a part of the commercials. The commercials stand out for their uniqueness so he's become well known to the large number of listeners to the radio station he dominates.

We always referred to him as "Robert Bashir, owner of Capitol Car Care and Tires." That way we reduce any questions on the part of current customer's who are used to the former name.

We also want to make sure people don't think he's no longer the owner, and having him in the commercials handles that. There are other ways to do that but his being in the ads themselves sure made it easier.

TAS Electronics, a car stereo dealer in Toledo, had a common problem when he requested a meeting with Michael Corbett and Dave Stilli. He wanted to get a firm grasp on his advertising expenditures and get the most he could for the money he was spending. Of course this is what every advertiser wants and in some cases we can accomplish that goal without raising the budget.