Today, while driving, I heard a radio ad for a longterm disability law firm.
I found myself noticing that if I needed to hire such a firm, a rightly-timed radio ad might just get me to call them.
Effectiveness of radio ads as a strategy aside, it got me thinking: some forms of advertising can create an impression of credibility
I figured if they advertise on radio, they must have reasonably big budgets. It’s not the kind of thing you do once, nor is it cheap to keep running them.
And if they can afford to advertise on the radio for an extended period, I also figured they must be reasonably successful at what they do. At least successful enough to do mass-media advertising (albeit at the local level).
This experience made me realize how advertising can, in some cases, create a level of implied credibility.
Another example of this might be seeing a company’s ad on an NHL hockey rink’s boards. They’d have to be reasonably credible to do that, right?
Or let’s pretend I was looking for a new coworking space. If I visited five local coworking spaces’ websites and one retargeted me with ads on all platforms but the others did not, I would probably assume they are at least a market leader worth considering.
Funny how you can buy some degree of credibility. Not a lot, but potentially enough to get an inquiry or two.
What other ways do people “buy” credibility?