Advertising in America

Ryan Chute
  • 5.0 (4)
  • Marketing
  • Updated Biweekly

Discover the magic of marketing with "Advertising in America"! Join hosts Ryan Chute and the Torbay Twins as they unravel the secrets behind iconic ad campaigns, share practical tips, and bring a touch of humor to the world of American advertising. Whether you're a seasoned pro or just starting out, this podcast will entertain, empower, and educate you every step of the way. Tune in and transform your brand into an unforgettable experience! Connect with Us: https://www.youtube.com/@advertisinginamerica https://www.facebook.com/advertisinginamerica https://www.instagram.com/advertisinginamerica https://www.threads.net/@advertisinginamerica https://twitter.com/adsinamerica https://ca.pinterest.com/advertisinginamerica https://www.tiktok.com/@advertisinginamerica

  1. Sep 10

    Lead Capture vs. Lead Generation

    Somewhere in the back of your operation, there's supposed to be a machine. You plug it in. It hums. Out come the customers, like a gumball machine, but for people who need a new water heater. That machine doesn't exist. In Episode 36 of Advertising in America, Ryan Chute, Chris Torbay, and Mick Torbay take apart one of the most expensive myths in modern marketing: that leads can be generated on demand. They can't. The weather makes the lead. The broken furnace makes the lead. Your only job, the only thing advertising has ever been able to do, is make sure it's your name they reach for when it happens. From grudge purchases versus identity purchases, to the 95/5 rule, to why Google's Zero Moment of Truth is actually the last moment of truth, this episode hands essential home service operators a clear framework for understanding where their marketing dollars actually go and what they're actually buying. Episode Highlights: The Gumball Machine Fantasy: Why "lead generation" is a myth and why your vendors profit from you believing itGrudge Purchase vs. Identity Purchase: Why furnaces aren't yoga pants, and why that changes your entire advertising strategyThe 95/5 Rule: At any given moment, only about 5% of your market is actually shopping. Who's getting them?Lead Capture vs. Lead Generation: The four thresholds every customer crosses before they pick up the phoneWhat Lead Gen Actually Is: Brand building, sales activation, and 30 years of Binet & Field dataGoogle's Hallway Problem: Why all the doors look the same, and what makes yours differentThe Zero Moment of Truth Myth: Why Google took credit for work your brand already didPay-Per-Click Equity: Spoiler: it doesn't exist. Here's where yours is actually going.🎧 If your phone rings when the furnace dies, you didn't generate that lead. You captured it. This episode shows you how to make sure it's always your name they reach for before the cold snaps, not after. 👉 Are you building a brand, or just renting space in a hallway where all the doors look the same? Take the Next Step: Tired of marketing that doesn't move the needle? Need to break through all the noise? In this exclusive one-on-one consultation, Wizard Ryan Chute will help you uncover:  ‍Overlooked advertising opportunities hiding in plain sight.‍Timeless psychological tactics that drive sales no matter the decade.‍Edgy strategies that capture attention and convert in today’s crowded landscape.📞 Spots Are Limited —Reserve Yours Now!  🌐 Learn more: advertisinginamerica.com Connect with Us: https://www.youtube.com/@advertisinginamerica https://www.facebook.com/advertisinginamerica https://www.instagram.com/advertisinginamerica https://www.threads.net/@advertisinginamerica https://x.com/adsinamerica https://ca.pinterest.com/advertisinginamerica https://www.tiktok.com/@advertisinginamerica

  2. Aug 27

    Bored or Broken? How to Know When to Change Your Ads

    You're sick of your ads. Your audience hasn't seen them yet. That is the entire problem, and it's costing businesses millions in prematurely abandoned campaigns, reset brand signals, and marketing energy aimed at the wrong target entirely. In this episode of Advertising in America, Mick Torbay and Chris Torbay take different doors to the same room. Mick's argument: your good ads need to run longer than you're comfortable with. Chris's argument: the individual ads should stay fresh, but the advertising idea underneath them should never change. Both are right. And the distinction between the two is what separates businesses that build real brand equity from businesses that keep starting from zero. The conversation goes deep into why the client is always sick of the ad before the audience has registered it once, what peer-reviewed wear-out research actually says about how long ads stay effective, why the new marketing hire who needs to "make their mark" is the single biggest threat to any great campaign, and how to tell the difference between a campaign that's bored and one that's actually broken. Mick plays a mortgage broker's "perfect" radio ad. The man ran it unchanged for twenty years. You'll know within three seconds why that was a crime against attention. If you've ever been tempted to kill a campaign that was working, or suspect someone on your team is doing it for the wrong reasons, this episode is the intervention you didn't know you needed. Episode Highlights: Your Audience Hasn't Started Counting Yet: Why the client's clock and the customer's clock are never synchronized and what happens when you act on the wrong one.The Science of Wear-Out: What peer-reviewed research from the Journal of Advertising Research actually says about emotional ads vs. rational ones, and which outlasts which by a significant margin.Ads vs. Advertising: The distinction between the episode and the show. Mac vs. PC ran 66 individual spots. The advertising never changed.The CMO Tenure Trap: Average CMO tenure is 4 to 4.5 years. Great campaigns take 5 to 7 years to compound. The runways don't match, and the industry pays for it.Bored or Broken?: One question to ask before you change anything, and what to do depending on the answer.Famous Campaigns Don't Die of Natural Causes: From Skittles to Nike to Allstate's Mayhem, why the brands we still talk about stayed the course while everyone else chased novelty.The New Marketing Hire Problem: Why the fastest, easiest, most visible win for a new CMO is to kill the campaign that was just starting to build real equity.The Mona Lisa Test: The Louvre didn't change the exhibit because the security guards were bored.🎧 Hit play if you've ever been tempted to kill a campaign that was working or suspected someone on your team was doing it for the wrong reasons. 👉 Is your campaign bored... or broken? That's the only question that matters before you change a single word. Take the Next Step: Tired of marketing that doesn't move the needle? Need to break through all the noise? In this exclusive one-on-one consultation, Wizard Ryan Chute will help you uncover:  ‍Overlooked advertising opportunities hiding in plain sight.‍Timeless psychological tactics that drive sales no matter the decade.‍Edgy strategies that capture attention and convert in today’s crowded landscape.📞 Spots Are Limited —Reserve Yours Now!  🌐 Learn more: advertisinginamerica.com Connect with Us: https://www.youtube.com/@advertisinginamerica https://www.facebook.com/advertisinginamerica https://www.instagram.com/advertisinginamerica https://www.threads.net/@advertisinginamerica https://x.com/adsinamerica https://ca.pinterest.com/advertisinginamerica https://www.tiktok.com/@advertisinginamerica

  3. Aug 6

    The Hidden Skill Behind Every Great Ad

    Every terrible ad that's ever hit the airwaves was approved by someone. Think about that. The HVAC commercial with the handsome technician and the voice-over about years of experience. The radio spot that lists quality, service, and low prices and nothing else. Every stinker. Every tune-out moment. Every ad that sounds exactly like every other ad in the category. Someone reviewed it, said yes, and unleashed it on the world. That person might be you. Not because you're bad at your job because nobody ever taught you how to do this one. In this episode of Advertising in America, Chris, Mick, and Ryan dismantle the most overlooked skill in marketing: the approval. Chris makes the case for hiring great people and getting completely out of the way, and what it actually means to be the person who says yes to the brave idea. Mick follows with four concrete questions that separate great advertising from forgettable garbage. And the discussion goes deep on the forces working against you: the built-in psychological bias against creative ideas, the committee effect that only knows one word, and why your gut reaction to something scary is almost never the right guide. If you've ever stared at a script and felt completely unqualified to judge whether it would work, you weren't wrong. But you don't have to guess anymore. Episode Highlights: The Approval Paradox: Why the person who says yes to the brave idea gets credit for everything and why the ones who said no are never remembered at all.The Get Out of the Chair Rule: What hiring Ridley Scott to direct a commercial actually teaches you about restraint as a professional skill.The Four-Step Filter: Mick's framework for knowing exactly what to reject, what to approve, and how to explain why to the team.The Bias Built Into Your Brain: Research shows that people who say they value creativity unconsciously associate it with vomit, poison, and agony before they've read a single line of the script.The Committee Trap: Every person added to an approval committee is structurally incentivized to say no. Here's why they can't help it.The Apple 1984 Lesson: The board voted to kill it. One executive overruled them. The rest is the most famous ad in advertising history.The Rick Rubin Model: The most successful music producer of the last 20 years doesn't play an instrument or write a single note, and what that teaches you about enabling greatness without authoring it.The Approver's Real Job: You are not the co-writer. You are the person who creates the conditions for a great ad to exist. That distinction is everything.🎧 Hit play to learn why the approval is the most powerful and most misunderstood job in the entire marketing operation. 👉 When was the last time you approved something that actually scared you? Take the Next Step: Tired of marketing that doesn't move the needle? Need to break through all the noise? In this exclusive one-on-one consultation, Wizard Ryan Chute will help you uncover:  ‍Overlooked advertising opportunities hiding in plain sight.‍Timeless psychological tactics that drive sales no matter the decade.‍Edgy strategies that capture attention and convert in today’s crowded landscape.📞 Spots Are Limited —Reserve Yours Now!  🌐 Learn more: advertisinginamerica.com Connect with Us: https://www.youtube.com/@advertisinginamerica https://www.facebook.com/advertisinginamerica https://www.instagram.com/advertisinginamerica https://www.threads.net/@advertisinginamerica https://x.com/adsinamerica https://ca.pinterest.com/advertisinginamerica https://www.tiktok.com/@advertisinginamerica

  4. Jul 16

    Don't Advertise Why You Sell. Advertise Why They Buy.

    Most businesses know why they sell what they sell. They love the craft. They believe in the product. They built the business around it. And then they build their advertising around it too, which is exactly where the money starts disappearing. Because why you sell is never why they buy. Coke doesn't advertise sugar water. Porsche doesn't advertise engineering specs. Life insurance companies don't sell financial instruments. And if you're in home services, you are not selling wrench-turning, roof nails, or refrigerant. You're selling certainty. You're selling the feeling that someone capable is handling something that was making life worse. The gap between why you sell and why they buy is where most advertising fails and most businesses never find it because they're too close to what they sell to see what their customers are actually reaching for. In this episode, Chris, Mick, and Ryan dismantle one of the most expensive misconceptions in advertising: that your product is the thing worth selling. They walk through the gap between what you offer and what your customer actually votes for with their wallet, why going "one level deeper" than your product still leaves you short, and how the best campaigns in history earned loyalty without ever mentioning the thing they were supposedly selling. Mick's home healthcare client said she was in the "peace of mind business." Mick pushed back. The business she was actually in? Not going to a nursing home. That distinction is the difference between an ad that moves product and a campaign that moves people. Episode Highlights Don't Advertise the Category: Why spending ad money on what every competitor can also claim is money you're giving away.The Literal vs. The Ethereal: Why the greatest ad campaigns in history don't spend a second talking about the product.The Co-Op Dollars Trap: Why accepting Goodyear's money to mention Goodyear in your ad means you just paid for half a Goodyear commercial.The Nursing Home Campaign: How "live where you want to live" defeated every stair-lift competitor in a single tagline.New Coke Proves Everything: People preferred the new formula in blind taste tests and rejected it anyway. Feelings beat facts. Every time.The Quarter-Inch Upgrade: Levitt said don't sell the drill, sell the hole. But it's not the hole either. It's the picture. It's getting your spouse off your back about the picture for six months.The Swap Test: Cover your logo. Replace it with your biggest competitor's name. If the ad still makes sense. Congratulations, you've been advertising for them.Attract Some, Repel Others: Why a campaign that speaks to everyone belongs to nobody and why that's exactly right.Captain Confusion Is the Villain: The emotional enemy in home services and the story that defeats it.🎧 Hit play if you've ever run an ad and wondered why it didn't move the needle. The answer is probably in the first three minutes. 👉 Does your ad still make sense with your biggest competitor's name on it? Take the Next Step: Tired of marketing that doesn't move the needle? Need to break through all the noise? In this exclusive one-on-one consultation, Wizard Ryan Chute will help you uncover:  ‍Overlooked advertising opportunities hiding in plain sight.‍Timeless psychological tactics that drive sales no matter the decade.‍Edgy strategies that capture attention and convert in today’s crowded landscape.📞 Spots Are Limited —Reserve Yours Now!  🌐 Learn more: advertisinginamerica.com Connect with Us: https://www.youtube.com/@advertisinginamerica https://www.facebook.com/advertisinginamerica https://www.instagram.com/advertisinginamerica https://www.threads.net/@advertisinginamerica https://x.com/adsinamerica https://ca.pinterest.com/advertisinginamerica https://www.tiktok.com/@advertisinginamerica

  5. Jun 25

    You Can't Handle Different. (What Clients Can and Can’t Handle)

    You say you want something different. You don't. You want something different that looks like something that already worked. You want risk with a guarantee attached. You want a breakthrough idea that a focus group approves. That's not different. That's a polite version of what you've always done, wearing a new shirt. In this episode of Advertising in America, Chris, Mick, and Ryan go after one of the most dangerous lies in marketing: that clients want to do something bold. The truth is, most of them have already had bold presented to them. They just didn't buy it. They bought the safe version that came before it on the deck. Or after it. The one that felt like advertising. The conversation moves from Jack Nicholson improvising his way into movie history, to why The Sopranos cast assumed they'd never get a second season, to why the campaigns every business wishes they ran Old Spice, 1984, Got Milk, only look brilliant in hindsight. Because breakthrough ideas don't look like winners when you're staring at them in a boardroom. It looks like getting fired in 4K. Episode Highlights: You Can't Handle Different: Why clients ask for it, reject it, and then applaud it when someone else pulls it off.The Staring Off the Cliff Feeling: What true breakthrough ideas actually look like when they hit the table and why they terrify everyone in the room.The Deck Order Truth: Why agencies present the safe idea first, the wild idea second, and expect you to run with number three.The Sopranos Problem: Why the people closest to the most revolutionary things are always convinced they won't work.Risk and Reward. Pick One: Why you can't live in both worlds at the same time, and what it actually costs to stand out.Mere Exposure Effect: The 1968 research that proves repetition isn't lazy, it's how people come to love what they feared.The Parasocial Brand: Why your customers call the same HVAC company every time—not because they know you, but because they feel like they do.Different is the Story, Not the Operation: Why the thing that separates you isn't your service model, it's the strange, specific way you tell your truth.You're Not the Hero: Why the home services company that leads with "we're here to save the day" has already lost the plot.🎧 Hit play for the most honest conversation in marketing you'll hear this year. If you've ever been in the room when the bold idea got watered down, this one will feel uncomfortably familiar. 👉 Are you actually ready for something different, or are you just ready to say you were? Take the Next Step: Tired of marketing that doesn't move the needle? Need to break through all the noise? In this exclusive one-on-one consultation, Wizard Ryan Chute will help you uncover:  ‍Overlooked advertising opportunities hiding in plain sight.‍Timeless psychological tactics that drive sales no matter the decade.‍Edgy strategies that capture attention and convert in today’s crowded landscape.📞 Spots Are Limited —Reserve Yours Now!  🌐 Learn more: advertisinginamerica.com Connect with Us: https://www.youtube.com/@advertisinginamerica https://www.facebook.com/advertisinginamerica https://www.instagram.com/advertisinginamerica https://www.threads.net/@advertisinginamerica https://x.com/adsinamerica https://ca.pinterest.com/advertisinginamerica https://www.tiktok.com/@advertisinginamerica

  6. Jun 4

    OTT Advertising: The Secret to Dominating Your Local Market

    Everybody and their dog is selling OTT right now. Radio stations. TV stations. Outdoor companies. Your dry cleaner probably has a deck. But here's what they're not telling you: most of what's being sold under the OTT banner is overpriced, under-measured, and bought from someone who has absolutely no idea what they're doing, and even less incentive to admit it. In this episode, Ryan Chute and the Torbay Twins sit down with media buyer Beth Radtke and Wizard of Ads partner Ray Seggern to cut through the noise around Over the Top advertising. What it actually is, where it actually works, and how to avoid the traps that are quietly bleeding businesses dry? The conversation pulls no punches. From Comscore's measurement sleight of hand, to the dangerous gap between impressions and actual people in the room, to the Atlanta case study, where one buyer got 5,000 households and another got 25,000 for the exact same $5,000. This episode is a master class in media buying clarity. Because the medium isn't the problem. Buying blind is the problem. Episode Highlights: What OTT Actually Is: And how connected TV, streaming, and broadcast now all occupy the same living room with different rules.The Frequency Minimum: Why OTT sellers push frequency caps and why that's exactly backwards from what works.Impressions Are Not People: The measurement gap between IP addresses, households, and actual human beings watching your ad.Who's Measuring Who: Why independently verified data matters and what happens when the seller also owns the measurement tool.78 Steps From the Source: Why buying OTT through the wrong vendor means paying a premium for the bottom of the barrel.The Atlanta Case Study: Same budget. Same geography. 5× the reach. The difference was who was doing the buying.Live TV Is Back: Why appointment viewing is growing inside streaming and why that changes everything for local advertisers.Media Agnostic or Media Commission: The single most important question to ask before taking any media advice.🎧 If someone is trying to sell you OTT right now, listen to this episode before you sign anything. 👉 Are you buying media or just buying someone else's commission? Take the Next Step: Tired of marketing that doesn't move the needle? Need to break through all the noise? In this exclusive one-on-one consultation, Wizard Ryan Chute will help you uncover:  ‍Overlooked advertising opportunities hiding in plain sight.‍Timeless psychological tactics that drive sales no matter the decade.‍Edgy strategies that capture attention and convert in today’s crowded landscape.📞 Spots Are Limited —Reserve Yours Now!  🌐 Learn more: advertisinginamerica.com Connect with Us: https://www.youtube.com/@advertisinginamerica https://www.facebook.com/advertisinginamerica https://www.instagram.com/advertisinginamerica https://www.threads.net/@advertisinginamerica https://x.com/adsinamerica https://ca.pinterest.com/advertisinginamerica https://www.tiktok.com/@advertisinginamerica

  7. May 14

    Story & Culture & Experience: Why 80% of Businesses Are Running on Broken

    Your brand has a story. The question is whether it's true. Most businesses think they have a culture. They have a summer picnic. They have a mission statement on the wall. They have a boss who reads leadership books and then shows up late on Mondays. That's not culture. That's a fairy tale with fluorescent lighting. In this episode, Ryan Chute and the Torbay brothers sit down with Wizard of Ads partner Ray Seggern, author of the forthcoming book Story & Culture & Experience: A Field Guide for Finding Your Awesome,  to break down the three forces that determine whether a business becomes iconic or invisible. Story is what the market believes about you. Culture is who your people actually are. Experience is what your customers actually feel. When all three align, you don't have customers, you have champions. When they don't, no ad budget in the world will save you. This conversation goes deep on why advertising is secretly also a recruiting tool, how the boss's behavior predicts the team's behavior, and why the organizations that are hardest to fix are often the ones who most need fixing… starting at the top. Episode Highlights: The Three Circles: Why story, culture, and experience are inseparable and what happens when any one of them is missing.Culture on Accident: The businesses that are quietly brilliant but invisible and why that's a fixable problem with a powerful upside.What You Emanate, They Will Emulate: How leadership behavior sets the behavioral standard for everyone below it for better or worse.Every Consumer Ad Is a Secret Recruiting Ad: How the story you tell the market is simultaneously shaping who wants to work for you.The 80% Problem: The uncomfortable reality about how many businesses conspire to bend the truth and what that does to culture from the inside out.Assholeism: Ray's favorite chapter. The uncomfortable self-inventory that most bosses will never take.Does Your Business Have a Soul? The final question in Ray's book and the most important one in this conversation.The Leadership Trifecta: Help people win. Be trustworthy. Live in gratitude. Three buckets. Every mission statement in the world fits inside them.🎧 If you've ever wondered why your culture keeps breaking down, why your best people keep leaving, or why your story doesn't match what actually happens inside your walls... Take the Next Step: Tired of marketing that doesn't move the needle? Need to break through all the noise? In this exclusive one-on-one consultation, Wizard Ryan Chute will help you uncover:  ‍Overlooked advertising opportunities hiding in plain sight.‍Timeless psychological tactics that drive sales no matter the decade.‍Edgy strategies that capture attention and convert in today’s crowded landscape.📞 Spots Are Limited —Reserve Yours Now!  🌐 Learn more: advertisinginamerica.com Connect with Us: https://www.youtube.com/@advertisinginamerica https://www.facebook.com/advertisinginamerica https://www.instagram.com/advertisinginamerica https://www.threads.net/@advertisinginamerica https://x.com/adsinamerica https://ca.pinterest.com/advertisinginamerica https://www.tiktok.com/@advertisinginamerica

  8. Apr 30

    Discounts, Data, and Delusion: Rethinking Valpak

    Is Valpak a relic of desperate discounting… or a misunderstood tool hiding in plain sight? In this episode of Advertising in America, the team takes on one of the most polarizing marketing channels out there—the infamous envelope of coupons. Is it junk mail destined for the trash, or a strategic weapon when used correctly? Chris Torbay fires the first shot, dismantling Valpak as a brand-killing, bargain-bin tactic that attracts the wrong customer at the worst possible moment. But Mick Torbay pushes back hard, arguing that no media is inherently broken—only the strategy behind it. Then comes the reality check. Media buying expert Beth Radtke steps in with data, experience, and a perspective most advertisers never consider: what actually happens after that envelope hits the mailbox. This episode isn’t about defending or attacking Valpak. It’s about understanding the real game. Episode Highlights: Why media doesn’t make marketing work—message does The difference between brand building and sales activationHow cheap reach can still be strategically expensiveWhy consistency and familiarity matter more than clever offersAnd how the wrong message in the right medium still failsBecause the question isn’t whether Valpak works. It’s whether you know how to use it. 🎧 Hit play to rethink not just coupons—but how every marketing channel fits into your strategy. 👉 Do you know how to make any marketing work?  Take the Next Step: Tired of marketing that doesn't move the needle? Need to break through all the noise? In this exclusive one-on-one consultation, Wizard Ryan Chute will help you uncover:  ‍Overlooked advertising opportunities hiding in plain sight.‍Timeless psychological tactics that drive sales no matter the decade.‍Edgy strategies that capture attention and convert in today’s crowded landscape.📞 Spots Are Limited —Reserve Yours Now!  🌐 Learn more: advertisinginamerica.com Connect with Us: https://www.youtube.com/@advertisinginamerica https://www.facebook.com/advertisinginamerica https://www.instagram.com/advertisinginamerica https://www.threads.net/@advertisinginamerica https://x.com/adsinamerica https://ca.pinterest.com/advertisinginamerica https://www.tiktok.com/@advertisinginamerica

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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
4 Ratings

About

Discover the magic of marketing with "Advertising in America"! Join hosts Ryan Chute and the Torbay Twins as they unravel the secrets behind iconic ad campaigns, share practical tips, and bring a touch of humor to the world of American advertising. Whether you're a seasoned pro or just starting out, this podcast will entertain, empower, and educate you every step of the way. Tune in and transform your brand into an unforgettable experience! Connect with Us: https://www.youtube.com/@advertisinginamerica https://www.facebook.com/advertisinginamerica https://www.instagram.com/advertisinginamerica https://www.threads.net/@advertisinginamerica https://twitter.com/adsinamerica https://ca.pinterest.com/advertisinginamerica https://www.tiktok.com/@advertisinginamerica

Information

  • Creator
    Ryan Chute
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    36
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Advertising in America
  • Show Website
    Advertising in America

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