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Lights, Camera, Action

TJB Landscaping uses the power of television to promote its water gardening business.

Water Garden News
By Tracey Armstrong
May 2002

If the medium is the message, TJB Landscaping of Hamden, Conn., is screaming at the top of its lung. While television advertising is rare though not unheard of in the water gardening industry, TJB has gone beyond the more typical cable and oft-peak local programs to advertising regionally and locally - but on nationally broadcast show and even in prime time.

And the boisterous promotions appear to be paying off.

Who's Watching
In the year 2000, TJB owner Ted Greiner began airing the first of two 30-second spots. Careful planning and a lot of research went into this idea. First, he sat down and determined his target market. Who would be most likely to buy a water garden and when was the best time to reach them?

Greiner decided to market his product to an upper middle class sector (age 45-60, with a home in the $200,000 to $600,000 price range).

"Empty nesters are perfect," Greiner said. "They are the ones with kids that have gone off to school and have left an empty house to add a water garden to."

Once Greiner established his target market, he created a schedule for his commercial. It was aired in the evenings during the evening news and during the prime time hours. It also aired in the morning during Good Morning America to target the "gym crowd" and again during the Live with Regis and Kelly to target the upper income women who are home watching television.

"It's the women in the family that make the business decisions and I know this because I'm married," Greiner said.

That particular time slot received a greater response than any other commercial TJB has aired.

The commercial itself was made in a standard format: a thirty-second spot with three eight-second blocks and six seconds for the tag line. The concept behind the three eight-second blocks is to "get their attention" during the first eight seconds, then "look what I've got" and finally "wrapping it up" in the third block. The tagline is a "call to action" and is the section with all the contact information. "We left the tag line running along the bottom during the entire 30 seconds for added impact," Greiner said.

"We made two 30-second spots with a commercial agency by using a lot of splicing from a beta copy of an Aquascapes video (with Aquascapes' permission). We added a very soothing theme to run throughout the commercial: chirping birds, running water, etc. We then asked, `Is this a zoo? A botanical garden? No, this is a backyard that could be yours.' This strategy worked very well," Greiner said.

The total cost of airtime depends upon when TJB decides to air its commercials. For example, a typical spot between 5 and 6 a.m. will cost $50 each time it is run. In the evenings from 11 to 11:30 p.m., the same spot will cost about $180 and during the prime time hours the cost will be about $300 to $1,000 per 30-second spot, Greiner said.

By using each of these time slot opportunities, TJB says it has managed to reach 98.7 percent of the viewing public 8.9 times every month.

However, TJB Landscaping didn't stop there. It also created a five-minute infomercial that runs locally on Fridays and Saturdays for six-week periods at a time. The local broadcaster liked the commercial so much, Greiner said, "They used it as part of the opening and closing section of the infomercial time block that TJB had partially purchased [along with other businesses.]" This gave TJB Landscaping an extra eight minutes of airtime at no cost.

Power Ratings
The real question is: Was the promotional campaign successful?

"Well before we ran the first commercial our web site had 6,000 sessions. Within weeks of the initial airing, the web site jumped to 15,000. It was very successful. We wouldn't have continued with this type of advertising if it didn't work," Greiner said.

Even in times of economic despair this type of promotion has a positive impact. For example, TJB Landscaping aired a total of nine minutes of commercials last fall but after the September 11 attacks, spending started to slow down. "The public, in general, didn't want to part with any type of disposable income," Greiner said. It would seem that all that time and money had been spent in vain. However, now that the smoke has cleared and with spring in full swing, TJB Landscaping is booked until June. "The people that saw that commercial in the fall may not have been ready to buy a water garden then, but come spring time, they sure did remember us. It was because of those commercials," Greiner said.

The commercial campaign has actually taken TJB Landscaping out of its traditional 20-mile market place and into the entire state. "There are times when we are driving over an hour and half to go to a prospective site," Greiner said. "We are now adding a newspaper campaign with full color ads to our program in an effort to gain more local business."

Not bad, considering the company's humble beginnings. Greiner started as a neighborhood kid doing gardening, lawn care, snow removal and odd jobs. In 1976, he hired his first employee and bought a 1970 Dodge Dart and a small wooden trailer to carry the growing supply of equipment. The was named Ted's Job Bank and it offered gardening, construction, decks, home repairs and handyman services. In 1981, he incorporated the business and changed the name to TJB Landscaping Inc. Since then, TJB Landscaping has enjoyed a prosperous run in the water garden industry.

To date, TJB Landscaping has installed about 70 ponds. "Our most popular model is the 11-foot-by-16 foot pond, but there are many that we can install," Greiner said. "Most of our customers enjoy having potential customers drop by to take a look at our work and the ones that don't will sometimes give us pictures to use. There are, however, exceptions to this rule. The celebrities that we have worked for don't want anyone to be dropping by and hey, that's OK by me. It's understandable.

Fore!!
The home base of TJB Landscaping in Hamden, Conn., gets many visitors that come to enjoy the display water gardens that surround the business headquarters. The 50 foot-by-20-foot pond in the front has a deep stream with fish, a shallow stream, bridges and two different types of waterfalls. The display gardens are open 24 hours a day and the ponds are lit until 11 p.m.

"This brings us all kinds of interesting people," Greiner said. "There are the executive types that come and enjoy the water gardens during their lunch hour. There are the daters that come and enjoy the romantic setting in the evening and then there is the after-midnight crowd: police men and public service workers. Mostly, the police come and chip at our putting greens and play each other in games. [TJB also installs synthetic turf putting greens.] We have the largest water hazard around and there are many mornings that are spent fishing golf balls out of the koi pond, but we don't mind," Greiner said. And even if they did mind, to whom would they complain?