So why would a towing service advertise on TV? and the Tow(toe) Mystery

I will not ever say Dixie Towing or the Hazzard Garage was the first to go on TV with ads for our type of company.

Back then it was pretty much Yellow Pages and maybe an ad sometimes in a want ad paper.

However in 1985 after I was required by a Trust Fund administrator to move to Boise, I saw an ad done by HELP Towing.

It was a simple ad, ran during repeats of Laverne And Shirley on CH-7 at around 11:30 PM Sundays. Who watches TV at those hours I thought?

So I asked Help's owners about it. They told me that they spent around $500.00 a month, and got around a $2,000.00 return each month on the increased volume of calls.

Wow I thought, could I do that?

But my ad had to be clever and creative.

Since Dixie Towing had its roots in the images of Hazzard County, why not do up something like a Hazzard commercial?

So I was watching TV again, at around the same point of time and this plumbing contractor in Nampa did an ad where he responded to a house on Boise's more afluent area, unplugged this rich lady's toilet and then at the end of the ad the gal was on the black marbled vanity gold fixtures and all and the plumber kisses the gals hand, and the slogan or ad tag ran, we treat all our customers like royalty.

Okay fast forward to 1995, I was going to tech school in Utah and was doing a paper and not on purpose spelled the word TOW as TOE.

My step son then, said there's your TV ad for the tow truck, at the end of the ad say we love towz and kiss the gals toes, playing on the two words. No biggy right?

You try and find a gal to let you kiss her toes on TV.

Either pro model or any other gal, most look at you as if you had a hole in the screen door.

But the casting goes on.

So why advertise on TV? To make money, to be more aggressive marketing wise in a small town to get going towing. If HELP Towing could generate that kind of money at 11:30 PM during re-runs of Lavern & Shirley, at $500.00 a month, making $2,000.00 a month that's a pretty good return on the investment.

If I only did half that amount in a month and spent a bit less, ad rate wise, could I make better a bad situation? I think so.

Next blog, going trucking in Hazzard County.

L8R

AyreWolf