• by Les Luchter , February 19, 2024

Ever try speaking to a dentist while your mouth is full of dental paraphernalia?

The result might sound something like this: “I ike oing ooo tah entist nohw.”

That is, if you were so eager to praise the dentist that you couldn’t wait till you could once again speak straight.

The phrase above is one of several so-called “in-chair reviews” that Glastonbury, Conn.-based creative agency Decker has come up with for Mendota, Minnesota-based Mendota Heights Family Dental.

And, if that itself sounds strange, this client-agency relationship developed because Decker creative director Dom DeLoya, also this campaign’s clever copywriter, used to live in Minnesota.  

“We’ve all been there, sitting in a chair while our dentists work on our teeth trying to answer their question about how our vacation was or what you’ve been up to,” DeLoya says in a campaign announcement. “This leads to some amusing conversations. We turned these conversations into ads -- testimonials…right from the chair.”

Other DeLoya-penned reviews in the campaign include “I ehfinitely echommend thi cwinic” and “Ahazihng saff.”

Such praise “can help us stand out as a fun and approachable practice that truly cares about its patients,” Mendota dentists Dr. Asha Ghassemlouei and Dr. Dana Gunderson commented in a statement.

The campaign, designed to reach new patients, has used organic social, advertising in the local newspaper, mailers, posters and out-of-home on the dental practice’s own property, which faces the highway, Decker senior vice president Andrew Kesin tells Marketing Daily

The current creative will be used through March, with plans for new creative into the spring and summer, Kesin adds.