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BrandsFormation’s Chuck Mefford, business strategist, author, trainer, and national speaker

These days Madison Avenue is obsessed with the science of measuring the short-term sales effect of advertising and converting existing demand. Performance marketers sometimes calculate ROI by show by week.

Journalist Doc Searles wryly observed, “Remember the movie ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers?’ Same thing here. Madison Avenue fell asleep, direct response marketing ate its brain, and it woke up as an alien replica of itself.”

How advertising really works: Meet Bradshaw & Bryant of St. Cloud, Minnesota

Minnesota has been called the land of “blue eyes & blue ears.” In the summer, it’s the “land of 10,000 lakes.” Either way, 1,261 miles to the west of New York City lies St. Cloud, MN, Nielsen Audio market rank 183 and the home of Bradshaw & Bryant, the famous law firm people seek out when they want “justice for the injured.”

Bradshaw & Bryant practices every day what Madison Avenue has forgotten. To generate substantial sales and profit, a business or even a law firm needs to create future demand rather than just obsessing over converting existing demand.

Michael Bryant, Managing Partner at Bradshaw & Bryant, who successfully generated strong awareness for the firm by spending nearly 70% of the company’s media budget on AM/FM radio

Michael Bryant of Bradshaw & Bryant had spent a lot of money getting their name out, not having much success.

In 2005, after attending a marketing seminar with his local radio rep, Kris Priebe from Leighton Broadcasting, Michael decided to focus on three things: his message, his media, and how he measured success.

He started to use storytelling, his voice, and a jingle that burned in “justice for the injured” with each story Michael told.

Each year, Bradshaw & Bryant devote about 7% of their revenues to advertising. They started with a focus on dominating one radio station, soon adding 3 more. After the first year, they tripled the practice.

As they grew, they bought more ads on more radio stations and soon became one of the largest advertisers on St. Cloud radio, buying only 52 weeks contracts with a weekly 3 frequency. Close to 70% of their budget is “upper funnel” radio. 15% is spent digitally. 5% on cable.

Bradshaw & Bryant ads are straight forward and genuine, with Michael always coming in after a story with his firm, confident, and very comforting voice. They usually end with the jingle that exclaims, “Justice for the injured…Bradshaw & Bryant!”

Today, Michael Bryant’s message lives inside people’s heads, rent free, bigger and better than most national brands. Bradshaw & Bryant is the undisputed leader in the minds of St. Cloud when it comes to personal injury attorneys.

“Making my business ‘top of mind’ has made a big, big difference. It’s not something that happens right away. It’s not something that happens fast. But you start seeing results when you hear people start quoting your commercial, word for word, singing your jingle. They know who you are! BrandsFormation makes a big difference because it’s NOT meant for a quick sale; it’s meant for the LONG-TERM sale. It builds trust with listeners over time. When they trust you, they tend to like you and do business with you,” says Bradshaw & Bryant’s Michael Bryant.

To understand the magnitude of the brand Bradshaw & Bryant has built with long-term advertising on AM/FM radio, the Cumulus Media | Westwood One Audio Active Group® commissioned Quantilope to conduct a study of 120 consumers in the St. Cloud DMA in May 2025.

Bradshaw & Bryant dominates unaided brand awareness

Consumers were asked, “When you think of personal injury lawyers and criminal defense attorneys, which ones come to mind?” Respondents had to write in all the brand names they could think of. They were not provided with a list of firms.

Of all attorney firms named, Bradshaw & Bryant leads in unaided awareness at 28%. Bradshaw & Bryant’s unaided awareness outperforms the next firm by more than two to one.

Why local retailers have to continually advertise: People are moving into your town who have no awareness of your business

The longer people have lived in the area, the greater the awareness of Bradshaw & Bryant. 41% of consumers who have lived in the St. Cloud, MN area for 10+ years were able to name Bradshaw & Bryant on an unaided basis. 9% of consumers who have lived in the area for less than 10 years were able to name Bradshaw & Bryant unaided when asked about attorneys.

This is great lesson for local retailers. Your business might be super famous but every day new people move to town who have never heard of your business, an important reason to continuously advertise your business. Also, advertising memories fade.

Every advertiser has two jobs: Creating future demand and converting existing demand

Creating future demand is “being known before you’re needed.” Creating future demand is advertising to that much larger group of consumers who are not in the market and are not ready to buy now but will be in the future. The goal is making them feel familiar with and positively toward your brand in order to get them to gravitate toward them when they enter the category.

Converting existing demand is advertising to that small group of consumers who are ready to buy now and capturing as large a share as possible of them. It is estimated only 1-5% of people are “in the market” at any one period of time.

Converting existing demand and creating future demand require different creative/copy approaches and different media strategies

Marketing effectiveness expert James Hurman writes, “Converting Existing Demand is most efficiently achieved by tightly targeting those ‘in the market’ with rational messaging of product and price information that persuades them to choose our product over others.

Creating Future Demand is most efficiently achieved by targeting very broad audiences of ‘all category buyers’ with emotional messaging that is designed to stand out and be enjoyed by consumers, creating positive memories of our brand that will influence future purchase decisions.”

Sales event or promotional copy does not work on the large group of consumers who are not in the market and not ready to buy now. Creating future demand is about creating positive memories.

The consumer journey: Awareness, favorability, ad recall, consideration, and purchase intent

Across all stages of the consumer journey, Bradshaw & Bryant leads the market

Bradshaw & Bryant’s usage of AM/FM radio advertising has built a dominant brand.

Bradshaw & Bryant’s unaided awareness (28%) is +133% greater than the next brand (12%). Its ad recall (40%) is over one and half times the nearest competitor. This is significant as advertising recall is the most responsive measure of advertising activity.

Bradshaw & Bryant leads all brands in favorability. In terms of purchase intent, Bradshaw & Bryant is two times larger than the next brand.

AM/FM radio advertising works: Among AM/FM radio listeners, Bradshaw & Bryant’s awareness is +19% greater than in the overall market

Bradshaw & Bryant’s AM/FM radio ads are memorable; AM/FM radio ads are strongly associated with Bradshaw & Bryant

Those who recalled Bradshaw & Bryant advertising were asked where they have seen or heard advertising for the brand. 70% of Bradshaw & Bryant’s budget goes to AM/FM radio ads, which are strongly associated with the brand. Of those who recall having been exposed to Bradshaw & Bryant ads, 54% say they heard AM/FM radio ads.

While a tiny proportion of Bradshaw & Bryant’s budget is spent on TV, 60% think they recall being exposed to TV ads.

Bradshaw & Bryant offers a master class on creating future demand and how building a brand is the main driver of long-term growth and profit

Les Binet, the global head of effectiveness for adam&eveDDB London, created this outstanding one pager describing how advertising works:

Easy to mind, easy to find

By patiently investing in brand building advertising to create future demand, Bradshaw & Bryant has made his service “easy to think of and easy to buy.”

In the end, Bradshaw & Bryant’s lesson for Madison Avenue is that advertising is not just about manically measuring short-term performance. It’s about “being known before you’re needed.”

Key findings:

• Through its long-term use of AM/FM radio advertising, Bradshaw & Bryant dominates unaided brand awareness; Across all stages of the consumer journey, Bradshaw & Bryant leads the market
• Bradshaw & Bryant offers Madison Avenue a master class on creating future demand and how building a brand is the main driver of long-term growth and profit
• Every advertiser has two jobs: Creating future demand and converting existing demand; Bradshaw & Bryant excels at creating future demand
• AM/FM radio advertising works: Among AM/FM radio listeners, Bradshaw & Bryant’s awareness is +19% greater than in the overall market

BrandsFormation’s Chuck Mefford is a business strategist, author, trainer, and national speaker.

Contact the Insights team at CorpMarketing@westwoodone.com.