EndorsementRadio.com

“Click on the microphone in the upper right corner of the website and enter my name…”.

I really like the tracking mechanism ProFlowers has set up to learn which radio endorsements are pulling for them. I think they’ve actually branded a call to action through the repetition and frequency of thousands and thousands of ads. If you’re a talk radio listener, you know that if you go to ProFlowers.com, you’ll want to click in that microphone and enter Bill or Jim or Leo or whichever you listen to.

The problem they then probably have is the problem I have in my reports: what if a listener has heard their ads on Rush for years but that listener finally takes action on that local Bill Handel spot? The frequency and awareness was built on one program, but another program gets the credit. Or what happens if one code hits the blogosphere more than the others, getting credit for people that search for “proflowers discount codes”. (interesting side note: the younger the average audience in the demo of a radio host, the more likely it is that the discount code we use in our ads will hit blogs, coupon sites, etc. We have to do a lot of scrubbing every reporting period.) Or what happens if people simply forget to use the code but were driven through radio? I wonder what percentage of the ProFlowers audience types in the code, and has that percentage changed over time?

Ultimately, they’re probably doing much better than most in terms of tracking the results of their broadcast spending. And they must be eating into a lot of the big players out there. I’ve recently heard ftd AND teleflora.com recently using endorsement radio (around Valentines Day). Strange move for teleflora…I heard Petros Papadakis (sports) endorse them. Funny thing about Petros, he’s the last guy in the world that I would associate with something beautiful like flowers. I mean, he’s funny as hell, but he seems like the drunk frat brother that falls through the table to me. Chris Farley ain’t got nothin’ on Petros.

But I digress…