Commercials – Charles (Chuck) Kensinger

Word of mouth

January 12, 2026

The best method of promoting your business is not advertising. It does not matter if you use digital media, broadcast media, or billboards; they are not the best option. Word of mouth has been proven to be the primary way customers find out about vendors.

If you are using a marketing company that has not already informed you of this, I feel sorry for you. One of my first jobs out of college was as a marketing director for a small company. We were in a niche market, and I recommended that our owner, who was our salesman, protect his personal reputation. It was our biggest asset.

I had no formal training, so I did not have all the book knowledge. I read every book I could lay my hands on about the subject. We conducted a direct marketing campaign through catalogs mailed to potential customers. We even had a toll-free number to accept orders. No, there was no internet or digital marketing at that time.

Our mailing pieces included order forms and a postage-free envelope to send them back to us. My boss purchased stamps and sent them on the pre-addressed envelopes. When I gave him the cost savings figures for purchasing a postage meter and a number to print on the return pieces to pay postage that way.

When I mentioned that over sixty percent of the stamps he sent out were not used for our orders, he did not believe me until I showed him the accountant’s ledger. I reworked the upcoming catalogs and flyers with freshly written copy. I photographed all the items in-house and saved almost as much money as I received in pay.

When I became a pet store manager, I trained our sales staff to remember the old saying, “The customer is always right.” We needed to acknowledge it as correct and realize that we should make them think it is true, but help them see when they were not exactly perfectly buying the best for them.

There was the lady who purchased tiny fish and put them in with the small ones that ate them the first night. I increased the sales by getting my customers to recommend my store. Later, at another company, I was instrumental in treating our customers in a fashion that they recommended us to others.

Our advertising budget was allocated to regional trade magazines and free giveaways to customers. Many of our vendors offered free sample products to us, which were not purchased as much as they could have been. I even put inexpensive products on the counters to promote good maintenance practices.

I left sales and marketing and became a purchasing agent, supervisor, and manager. I continued promoting my word-of-mouth advertising program from the other side of the desk. I can’t tell you the number of times I told others the best companies to purchase from and why I felt that way.

Improve your business by treating your customers the best that you can. Paying employees better who take care of customers is more effective than the best commercial you ever used. Getting them in the door to have them treated poorly never works. I know, your ad department just laughed at me.

Feel Good Ads

August 20, 2024

I’ve written about commercials that I find stupid or offensive. I would like to tell you about some of my favorites that promote happiness and health. Have you seen the Jardiance spots that promote this diabetes medication? They are an old-style musical song and dance production. If you don’t like musicals, you will not enjoy them.

Another good one is the Make-A-Wish advertisement with the little girl roping and pulling a star. She takes it to a window in a hospital room. She wants the star to grant the wish for another kid who needs hope and encouragement.

One thing that makes me feel good is music. I like a good advertising jingle or an old familiar song used in a new way. I am not talking about the mattress commercial that uses three words “all night long” from a song. I mean the songs that I grew up with. If an ad uses music from the sixties or seventies, it gets my attention.

That is what they are trying to do. Get our attention. Sell their products. We have a free economy. You can sell someone a rock and call it a pet. You can make a doll, give it a name and a birth certificate, and sell it for ten times what it costs to make. Don’t sell people stock certificates to a company that doesn’t exist. You might go to jail for that.

Advertising and propaganda are the same thing. Advertising is good. Propaganda is bad. They attempt to do the same things. Convince you that you need something they have. Propaganda sells ideologies. Advertising sells products.

Political commercials are propaganda. They want you to believe the half-truths and misinformation that they spread. That guy is a communist. He voted for higher taxes. No one wants higher taxes. We all hate commies, or is it anarchists this week? Put an old song in the background and we might listen to your commercial.

I need another song. I need to stop writing about what some commercials want me to believe and just relax and listen to the Beach Boys, Elvis, or the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. I think I need a new mattress. All night long.

Commercials # Two

July 27, 2024

These ads are insulting.

I watch commercials. I am a fan. Not all advertising meets my criteria. I am critical of those copywriters that make fun of us. The ads running with the councilor that are helping young homeowners not become their parents are especially offensive.

Two of our three daughters and their husbands own their homes. The finance company is also a shareholder. They are not becoming us. They all have some similarities to us and our in-laws. They are their own individuals. However, I shave my father in the mirror most days. On other days, I do not shave.

My children’s parents do not post pictures of meals and parties. Some of them and their children do. My life is not boring. If it was, you would not be reading my columns and books. I rest my case and my backside.

I am friendly, even on elevators. I also have bad jokes. At least my kids and grandkids say they are bad. I do not understand why they use my material if it is not worth laughing at. Some of them have been handed down for generations.

Then there is the TV commercial about the in-house composter. I recycle a lot of things. I follow the adage “reduce, reuse, recycle.” However, I believe that composting is best done in the ground. I have buried the leaves and food waste for many years. My garden beds are raised. That makes it easy to recycle food and yard waste. I no longer dig 3x3x6 foot trenches in my garden. It was an effective visual for the young men who wanted to date my daughters.

All the insurance commercials drive me up the wall. While sitting on the ceiling I compare Flo, Evie, the Allstate guy, the cartoon general, the toucan, and all the other spokespeople. You can insure your car, life, health, pets, and all your expensive toys.

There is even insurance that is represented as a warranty. Everything stops working at some point. Pay a monthly fee and someone else will pay some of the repair expenses. Be sure to read the fine print. What they tell you in the commercial is not what you thought you heard. Listen for “starting at,” “beginning with,” “from,” and all those other words that require thousands of words to cover their rears.

The ads for the portable fire pits that show their product in many settings with different folks around them are some of the best I have seen. They are simple and understated. The main purpose of advertising is to make you remember their name. I remember some of the company’s names, which I have shared here. There are those that I couldn’t give you even if I wanted to.

What are your favorite commercials and why? You may not see many except for the ones that pop up on your phone or streaming service. Mostly those are short and sweet which is what makes the best advertising. If there is small print on the screen or *, &, #, or other non-verbal communication do not agree to anything before you read everything. Happy hunting.

Commercials # One

November 8, 2023

I watch commercials. I am a fan. Not all advertising meets my criteria. I am critical of those copy-writers that make fun of us. The ads running with the councilor that is helping young homeowners not become their parents is especially offensive.

Then there is the TV commercial about the in-house composter. I recycle a lot of things. I follow the adage “reduce, reuse, recycle.” However, I believe that composting is best done on the ground. I have buried the leaves and food waste for many years. My garden beds are raised. That makes it easy to recycle food and yard waste. I no longer dig 3x3x6 foot trenches in my garden. It was an effective visual for the young men who wanted to date my daughters.

All the insurance commercials drive me up the wall. While I am sitting on the ceiling I compare Flo, Evie, the Allstate guy, the cartoon general, the toucan, and all the other spokespeople. You can insure your car, life, health even for your pets, and all the expensive toys you own.

There is even insurance that is represented as warranties. Everything stops working at some point. Pay a monthly fee and someone else will pay some of the repair expenses. Be sure to read the fine print. What they tell you in the commercial is not what you thought you heard. Listen for “starting at,” “beginning with,” “from,” and all those other words that require thousands of words to cover their rears.

The ads for the portable fire pits that show their product in many settings with different folks around them are some of the best I have seen. They are simple and understated. The main purpose of advertising is to make you remember their name. I remember some of the company’s names I have shared here. There are those that I couldn’t give you even if I wanted to.

What are your favorite commercials and why? You may not see many except for the ones that pop up on your phone or streaming service. Mostly those are short and sweet which is what makes the best advertising. If there is a small print on the screen or *, &, #, or other non-verbal communication do not agree to anything before you read everything. Happy hunting.

Have you seen my glasses?

July 21, 2022

Have you seen the Dish ad with the couple where he is looking for something and she is using her voice remote to find a movie she wants to watch? He raises up and asks her “Have you seen my glasses? We see his glasses are on the top of his head. She replies, “They’re around somewhere.”

I am going to scream about this degradation of older men. Do you know why the two actors’ roles were not reversed? I believe it is because the advertising agency would have lost much of their business if they were viewed as making fun of a woman.

Another question I have is why isn’t this couple mixed race? That seems to be the way most commercials are cast. Wouldn’t it be just as cute, if it was a white woman that said, “They’re around somewhere.” I’m sure the agency did not want to deal with the fallout from possible racism.

It is acceptable to make fun of men. Color or Race means nothing if the man is considered elderly. The idea of a forgetful old man is always a good laugh. Don’t make fun of a young black man. You’ll be called a bigot.

Another problem with this commercial is that it is making fun of those of us that do not have very good memories. Yes, I am in my sixties, and I have heard the story that when you get older there are three things that happen. The first is you lose your memory and the person telling the joke can’t remember the other two.

To prove my poor memory is not caused by aging, I will tell you the other two. You go to the bathroom a lot more and your breakfast consists of about two dozen pills. My memory started to go when I was in my twenties. When in grade school, high school, and even college I was praised for my ability to memorize scripture, statistics, poetry, speeches, and vocabulary words for four languages.

One of the things you learn when your brain does not recall things as easily as it once did, is to compensate. I began carrying a notebook in my pocket when I was in journalism. I still carry it. Everything I need to remember is in there. Phone numbers, ideas for articles and books, and even things I need to pick up at stores.

I have worn glasses since I was in the third grade. They are always on my face. I now wear a strap on them since I had cataracts removed and the new lens gave me the vision to read clearly. I still need glasses for everything else. They are always on my eyes, my chest, or the nightstand.

While many of you think this commercial is humorous, I hope you understand why it distresses me. One thing I assume is that the woman is his wife. If I am wrong about this and she is his sister, then I understand. So as Rose Ann Rosanna Danna would say, “never mind.”

Charles (Chuck) Kensinger