Bug-A-Way Pest Control Of Joplin, Missouri Knows How Advertising Really Works: Be Known Before You’re Needed
How can any business be around for over 20 years and nobody know them?
Simple answer: If you don’t make your brand “easy to mind and easy to find.”
Today, advertisers are obsessed with the science of measuring short-term sales effect. The priority is on converting existing demand rather than creating future demand. The focus is just on the 5% who are in market, not the 95% who are not.
The meeting that caused Doug Hansen’s heart to sink; No one could name his company
Local business owners were in attendance at a BrandsFormation© BrandKamp (sponsored by Zimmer Marketing) in Joplin, MO. Chuck Mefford, BrandKamp leader, asked the group to think of a pest control company and name it. Doug Hansen, the long-time owner of Bug-A-Way Pest Control, was stunned.
Not one person named his company: “I’m sitting there with a 100 to 125 people and not one of them could name a company besides the national companies. It set me back. Out of all these people, as long as I’ve been in business, for over 20 years, why have they not heard of my name? All the advertising we have done and to not have anybody realize that Bug-A-Way Pest Control was a company here in Joplin!”
A concentration of AM/FM radio and memorable ads were the keys to Bug-A-Way Pest Control’s significant growth
Doug and his son Rorie knew things had to change. They pulled back on their print and TV advertising and focused their investment on entertaining AM/FM radio ads with an addictive jingle, “Customer satisfaction is our number one goal at Bug-A-Way Pest Control!”
To understand the magnitude of the brand Bug-A-Way Pest Control built with long-term advertising on AM/FM radio, the Cumulus Media | Westwood One Audio Active Group® commissioned Quantilope to conduct a study of 150 consumers in Joplin, Missouri in January 2026.
Bug-A-Way Pest Control places a strong number two in unaided brand awareness
Consumers were asked, “When you think of pest and insect control services, 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.
Bug-A-Way Pest Control has gone from zero unaided awareness to beating Terminix and placing a close number two to Orkin.
Why local retailers have to continually advertise: People are moving into your town who have no awareness of your business
The Quantilope study also measured aided awareness by providing consumers with the names of local advertisers. The longer people have lived in the area, the greater the awareness of Bug-A-Way Pest Control and a number of other well-known local businesses.
Generally, two-thirds of people have lived in an area for ten or more years. About a third have arrived in the last ten years and are much less aware of local businesses.
61% of consumers who have lived in Joplin for ten or more years said they were aware of Bug-A-Way Pest Control. 46% of consumers who have lived in the area for less than 10 years said they were aware of Bug-A-Way Pest Control. Nearly two times as many long-term residents were aware of Superior Roofing (43%) compared to people who moved to the area in the last ten years (22%).
This is great lesson for local retailers. Your business might be famous, but every day new people move to town who have never heard of you. This is a crucial reason to continuously advertise your business. Also, advertising memories fade.
Across all stages of the consumer journey, Bug-A-Way Pest Control has strong brand equity
Bug-A-Way Pest Control’s usage of AM/FM radio advertising has built a dominant brand.
Bug-A-Way’s unaided awareness (20%), ad recall (28%), and brand favorability (25%) are very strong. Impressively, nearly one of five people (18%) in Joplin have ever used Bug-A-Way Pest Control. A whopping 29% say they would use Bug-A-Way if the need arose.
Bug-A-Way Pest Control offers a master class on creating future demand and how building a brand is the main driver of long-term growth and profit
By patiently investing in brand building advertising to create future demand, Bug-A-Way Pest Control of Joplin has made their service “easy to think of and easy to buy.” Their lighthearted and humorous ads have “created positive feelings and associations” with “broad reach ads that people find interesting and enjoyable.”
In the end, Bug-A-Way Pest Control’s lesson for marketers is that advertising is not just about manically measuring short-term performance. It’s about “being known before you’re needed.”