What I Learned from Roy Williams, the Wizard of Ads (and How It Still Works in 2025)

When people hear I’m back in radio after spending more than 15 years in digital marketing and design, they usually ask:

“Does radio even work anymore?”

Fair question. I’ve lived in both worlds.

My answer lives in a stack of dog-eared pages from Roy H. Williams’ Wizard of Ads and the years I spent as Market Research Manager at Corus Entertainment before I left for digital.

I helped sales teams find ideal customers and build schedules that worked for three very different Calgary stations: QR77 (news/talk), Country 105, and Power (which became Peak, then Q107).

Three formats. Three audiences. One budget per client.

That role gave me a front-row seat to test Roy’s ideas with real advertisers, real budgets, and real competition with other radio stations and other media. What I learned then still shapes how I build campaigns for clients today—whether we’re using radio, digital, or both.

This is my Wizard of Ads cheat sheet for small and mid-sized businesses who want their marketing to work harder.

1. Dead Cows Everywhere: Stop Worshipping the Wrong Numbers

In “Dead Cows Everywhere,” Roy takes aim at three “sacred cows” of advertising: demographic targeting, gross rating points, and media mix.

His argument? You can hit the “right” demographic, rack up impressive rating points, and sprinkle your budget across multiple media, and still fail.

Why? Most campaigns obsess over who and how many, while neglecting what they actually say.

What landed for me as a research manager:

You cannot spreadsheet your way out of a weak message.

You can buy perfect reach and frequency. But if your ad is boring, confusing, or forgettable, you’re just paying to repeat a bad story.

The takeaway

This applies to everything—radio, digital ads, social media, email campaigns.

Reach and frequency still matter, but they’re supporting actors. The star of your campaign is always the message:

• Is it emotionally true?
• Is it different from what your competitors say?
• Is it worth repeating 50 times without everyone switching the channel?

At IDMD, we start with story and strategy first, then choose the channels and schedules that let that story actually sink in.

2. Category Dominance: Be Known for One Thing

Roy’s thesis in “Category Dominance”: the goal of branding isn’t awareness for everything you do. It’s to own a simple, specific position in the listener’s mind.

That takes courage. It’s much safer to say “We’re for everyone” or “We do a little bit of everything.”

The problem? “Everyone” never feels spoken to, and “everything” is impossible to remember.

The takeaway

Ask and answer one hard question: “If I could only be known for one thing in my community, what would it be?”

For a dental clinic: “Gentle, honest dentistry for people who hate going to the dentist.”

For a trades business: “The contractor who actually calls you back.”

For a professional service: “Estate planning that doesn’t feel like planning your death.”

Once you know your one thing, every piece of marketing—every spot, every post, every email—points in the same direction. Over time, you stop being “just another advertiser” and become the name in that mental category.

3. The Goose and the Gander: You Are Not a Tiny Big Brand

Roy’s point: what works for big corporate “geese” can be poison for the independent “gander.”

Big brands can afford full media mixes, math-heavy quarterly planning, and campaigns designed to please shareholders. Small and mid-sized businesses live in a different world. Every dollar needs to pull its weight. You don’t have the luxury of “image campaigns” with fuzzy results.

When I was building schedules at Corus, business owners who tried to imitate big brands by spreading thin across too many stations usually felt disappointed. The ones who picked a lane and stayed in it? They quietly built strong local brands.

The takeaway

You don’t need a big brand media mix. You need:

• One clear message
• Enough repetition for that message to stick
• A plan you can commit to for months, not days

The question isn’t “How many different places can I show up?” It’s “Where can I afford to show up consistently so people actually remember me?”

For many Calgary businesses, that means choosing local radio, targeted digital, or both—but doing it consistently rather than chasing every shiny new platform.

4. Radio Scheduling: Branding vs. Events (They’re Not the Same Thing)

This is where my worlds of research and storytelling collided.

Roy makes a crucial distinction that most advertisers miss: event campaigns and long-term branding are fundamentally different animals and should never be treated the same way.

Here’s what advertisers get wrong: they confuse the two, or worse, they run nothing but event campaigns and wonder why their brand never gains traction.

Long-term branding is the foundation.

This is your core work. It’s about:

• Consistency over time
• Enough weekly repetition that people actually hear you several times
• A message that will still matter six months from now
• Building mental availability so people think of you first when they need what you offer

This is always-on. This is the patient work of becoming a name people know and trust.

Event campaigns live outside of branding.

These are tactical, short-term pushes for a specific sale, fundraiser, or promotion. They need heavy frequency in a compressed window, ads stacked close to the date, and a clear call to action.

They work. They’re important. But they should be used sparingly.

Why? Because if you’re always in “event mode,” you never build the brand equity that makes those events more effective. You train people to wait for your next sale instead of thinking of you as the answer to their need.

“Station within the station” (or Platform within the Platform)

Roy offers a solution for tight budgets: focus on specific hours or segments where your best customers are listening. Run enough spots in those hours that you become familiar to that slice of the audience.

You won’t reach everyone, but you’ll matter deeply to the ones you do reach.

I found this especially effective for small businesses with limited budgets. I could get them on QR77 News Talk, which although more expensive than most AM stations, was still less per spot than the FMs. And because it was a program format, I could sell ads within a specific program.

For example, a health-related advertiser like an MRI clinic within a health and wellness talk program. Three commercials a week in a single talk program resulted in a highly effective campaign. The audience was right, the context was right, and the repetition built recognition fast.

A small budget spread thin across the whole station went unnoticed. The same budget focused in the right program built real momentum.

This principle works in digital too. Rather than trying to be everywhere (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, Google Ads), focus your budget where your customers actually are and show up there consistently.

The takeaway

My first question is always: “Are we trying to move people this month, or mould memory this year?”

That usually means:

• A core, always-on presence to build top-of-mind awareness (this is your brand work)
• Occasional short bursts of heavier frequency for specific events (used strategically, not constantly)

The foundational work is branding. Events are the exception, not the rule.

5. Radio as Word-of-Mouth, Turned Up (and Why Local Radio Still Matters)

One of my favourite lines from Roy’s work:

“Radio is word-of-mouth advertising evolved to its highest level.”

When you think of radio this way, everything clicks:

• It’s personal: you’re in the car, in the kitchen, in the shop with people
• It’s intimate: the announcer feels like a friend, not a billboard
• It’s repetitive in a good way: the story can unfold over weeks and months

Why this still matters in 2025

Yes, digital gives you precision targeting. Yes, you can track every click. But local radio gives you something digital often can’t: trust and context.

When you advertise on a local station—whether it’s Shine FM, QR77, Country 105, or another Calgary station—you’re borrowing credibility from a trusted voice in people’s lives. The host becomes your implicit endorser.

That’s powerful for local businesses competing with national chains and online-only competitors.

The takeaway

If you wouldn’t tell the story that way to a friend over coffee, don’t put it in your ad.

Instead:

• Talk like a human, not a brochure
• Admit the real problems your customers face
• Offer a path that feels doable and kind
• Let your values shape how you talk about what you do, not just where you advertise

How This Shapes the Way I Work with You Today

When I sit down with a client, Roy’s fingerprints are all over the process.

We start with your category: What do you want to be known for in this community?

We shape a simple, memorable story: Who are you here to help? What are they struggling with? What becomes possible when they work with you?

We build a strategy that matches your reality: Budget, seasonality, goals. Event-driven campaigns vs. long-term consistency. Focused placement where useful.

We choose the right mix: Sometimes that’s local radio. Sometimes it’s targeted digital. Often it’s both, working together.

We measure the right things: Traffic quality, inquiry volume, and story recall. Not just “how many impressions.”

We stay flexible: Small and mid-sized businesses live in the real-world economy. Plans must bend without breaking when conditions change.

Radio doesn’t create miracles on its own. Neither does digital. But when you line up a clear category, a truthful story, and a strategy you can commit to, you create one of the most efficient ways to plant that story in people’s minds and hearts.

Whether that’s through local radio, digital channels, or an integrated approach depends on your business, your budget, and your customers.

If you’d like to talk through how these principles could shape a campaign for your business, I’m happy to walk through it with you.

Same researcher brain. Same love for good storytelling. Just better tools, more experience, and I actually want to help you tell your story to an audience who wants to listen.