Talk about worthless old-school marketing. I’m talking about the Idaho Potatoes commercial with Denise Austin. It’s embarrassing. Get a celebrity to talk about how wonderful your product is. What a useless commercial.

They should take a lesson from HGTV. HGTV commercials are usually “how-tos” for various products or projects. That get’s people’s attention. That gives them something of value that creates two things. A sense of gratitude towards HGTV and a desire to see more HGTV. The Food Network is also very good at this.

So how could we redo this worthless Madison Shaminue commercial into something that might increase the sales of Idaho Potatoes?

How about creating one commercial of Denise Austin showing how to prepare a healthy potatoe soup recipe? You can then take the exact same commercial format and keep creating comercials of Denise or other health or fitness celebrities creating a favorite potatoe recipe. Any recipe can be presented in 30 seconds if it’s edited properly.

Then at the end of the commercial, give them a web page address to go to for get more healthy potatoe recipes. Now this is no longer a one shot contact. Now you’ve created a fan base who you can get to sign up for quicky weekly recipe emails or subscribe to your Twitter account to get links to new potatoe recipes. This is a natural for a social media campaign. Now you’ve created long-term value for your client and long-term value for the people who catch the commercial.

That’s how you create brand loyalty. That’s how you get people interested in your product.

I don’t know how many times I’ve seen my wife copy down recipes she sees on TV shows wishing they had a website she could go to to get the recipe. Why not take advantage of that desire of family cooks everywhere to get healthy, fast, cheap meal recipes?

I hate to think how much money was wasted on that useless commercial. That’s not a marketing campaign. That’s a marketing money pit.

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