The Power of Personality
One of our top endorsers today just lowered his talent fees, unprompted, by 15%. Among the seven signs of imminent world destruction, a station or talent lowering fees without the advertiser asking for it comes in at #2. Locasts are still first.
Can you believe that?
Could it be that the station and host which has long promised to be our partner is finally becoming a partner? Nahhhhh. Must be a clerical error.
Man, I’ve listened to this guy for years. I must have been one of the oldest listeners in his Lovelines radio audience. Such a fun schadenfreude show. He always pegged a troubled caller perfectly with “so what did daddy do to you”. I’m strangely connected to him, too. First, lots of people say I look like him (any resemblance in the picture below?). In fact, at Leo Burnett in Chicago, a couple of my colleagues called me “Carolla”. Second, we have a similar sense of humor. He makes slightly more money in comedy, though. Third, I was actually on Dr. Drew and Adam’s Lovelines show on MtV. I made up some story to be able to go up on stage and tell a national audience about my problems.
An advertiser could be taking a chance with him. He doesn’t have salesman in his personality. He’s kind of like Holden Caulfied, all grown up and given a radio show. So he’ll be funny in the spots, he’ll make sense, he’ll weave in other appropriate content, but he won’t really sell.
Sometimes that plays to an advertiser’s advantage: it may sound more earnest. Sometimes it doesn’t, like when a listener has some doubts about the product, process, or industry in general. He’s got that laid back “buy it if you want to…I’m not forcing you” way of voicing a spot. Works for Howard Stern. I hope it works for Carolla’s advertisers, too.
For me, I think I’d buy what Adam recommends. His judgments on movies, tv shows, actors, etc, are always spot on. I’m hoping people can make the leap and trust him with his judgments on legal documents, online storage, flowers, and cars.
I just hope he doesn’t ask me about my relationship with my mother and daddy. Er, father. THAT IS NOT WHY I ACT OUT! I don’t think it is, anyway. Oh, Dr. Drew, where are you?
I was blown away by an ad on KFI in Los Angeles today. It was one of Bill Handel’s “morning crew” doing an endorsement. I came into the middle of the ad and it sounded like Rich Marotta, the sports guy on KFI, but I’m not positive about that.
That’s not the point. The fact that Canon, a huge multinational corporation, is using endorsement radio is a very smart move.
The internet has commoditized everything, it seems. There are shopping sites, independent review sites (not to mention “independent” review sites), comparison sites, Brand sites, Brand microsites, affiliate sites, and the list goes on. If you find the right site, you can look at price comparisons, userability comparisons from actual purchasers and reviewers, and great offers on what you ultimately buy. You add all of Canon’s competitors to the mix, and you have a very hard time cracking the purchaser’s thick and jaded skull beyond price discounts. (And outside of maybe 2% of Americans, who’s really going to know the difference between one camera and another when you’re talking about the big brands?)
But if I’ve learned one thing, and I’ve probably learned at least two things, it’s that peer-to-peer reviews matter.
Enter radio endorsements. Again, in a very cluttered environment, by which I mean competitors and advertising as a whole, endorsement radio could be the difference between a flat year and a significant bump in holiday sales.
Take me, for example. I don’t know one camera versus another. But the ad I heard on KFI made it seem like if I’m going to buy a camera this season, I’d be foolish not to consider the Canon. At the very least, it put Canon in my consideration set…which is half the battle.
Awwwww snap, smart move Canon.
I remember a Carl’s Junior ad that Jim Rome read and endorsed (maybe it wasn’t Carl’s Junior…some hamburger restaurant other than McDonalds because I remember him saying about Grimmace: “dude is not fresh”). To my recollection, the ad wasn’t on the airwaves very long. To me, it meant that he wasn’t able to drive sales.
(There’s that “drive” word again. OOOOHHHHH I hate it. Give me another word, universe!)
Well, my experience with Romey has been fantastic. On a lark and a gamble, we tested the Jungle. The gamble is working.
Where else to try endorsement radio than a host that has millions of “clones”. It’s better than Limbaugh. I’ll take a clone over a brain washed robot, any day. I kid, of course.
But I’m not kidding about the power of Rome, here. His ads are great…weaving the content from the prior segment seamlessly into the “ad”. He’s passionate, and he sounds like he’s having fun talking about whichever company it is that he’s endorsing.
In our conversation with him, he had us believing we were the greatest product ever. This is rare. Not all hosts do this. Most seem positive and upbeat about your brand. But they’re not crazy enthusiastic. But Rome. Ohhh Rome. We got off the phone with him and we were doing backflips. He had us THAT pumped.
He can call me Chris anytime.
I have to take a detour from radio endorsements for just a second. I just lead a creative review of ad agencies at the company where I work. Here’s what I’ve learned: all you agencies say THE EXACT SAME THING. One literally could swap out the logo on 90% of the presentations with any other agency, and you would never know.
It would probably be efficient for all agencies to share the same powerpoint and only differentiate themselves based on referrals.
Here’s the painful thing. I worked at both huge and micro agencies for 11+ years. AND I USED TO SAY THE EXACT SAME THINGS THAT THESE GUYS ARE SAYING. Ouch. I thought I was being soooooooo innovative and creative…especially because I always handled the media portion of the presentation and you just have to talk about “synergies” of creative and content to seem creative. Guess what. Everyone talks about those synergies. Every one.
I’ve learned my lesson. If I were to ever find myself again in the agency world, I think I’d limit my presentation to about 5 pages and spend the rest of the time asking very detailed questions about how they will measure success…and providing about 10 referrals. And doughnuts.
Without further ado, whether they are good or not, here is what every agency will tell you. Guaranteed.
1. Of course, we won’t know everything about your business. But we know everything about generating results.
2. We think like the entrepreneur.
3. We all come from big agencies and were looking to start something different.
4. We are radically different from the other agencies out there.
5. We don’t care about awards. What matters to us is the client’s success. But in case you’re interested, we’ve won…
6. Our teams work collaboratively. The creatives know what media is doing. Media knows what the account planners are doing. Etc.
7. We want our creatives to sit in an open, fun environment.
8. You want to meet the team that will work on your business? They’re us. We are the team.
9. What’s your budget?
10. We’re always optimizing your campaign.
The one that might drive me the most crazy is ‘what’s your budget?’. To me, that’s the wrong question. To me the best questions are:
1. What do you want to acheive, and
2. Can your business handle it if we do achieve that? Prove it.
So, knowing that everyone says the same thing, I think the ideal presentation focuses on questions to the client, an exploration of that energizing idea that will drive business, and very specific case studies, corraborated by the Advertiser.
I also hate using the word “drive” when it comes to marketing or business. Baby steps.
Man, if anybody deserves a national soapbox to talk about what ever he wants on a daily basis, it’s Dennis Miller. Dennis Miller going to talk radio is like all those Hollywood stars doing the big Broadway productions in New York: it raises the level of interest in the show and immediately gives the format a new audience.
Got to meet Mr. Miller on two occassions. Once at the LA Grammy’s (pictured here) and another time for lunch in Santa Barbara.
The guy is class. I love how he thinks. Many people know that he’s changed his mind on certain things (see 9-11-01). And as he says (I’m paraphrasing): I’m as liberal as the next guy, but when people start flying planes into your biggest buildings, that is significant and you’ve gotta fight that.
So he’ll go way “right” on some stuff and way “left” on other stuff. Right or left, he’s entertaining and engaging, exactly what you want in a talk radio star. Regarding endorsements, if he’s behind it, it’s got to be good. I’d probably buy anything he recommended.
Wassup Hiroshi?
Mark Davis is just plain fun. I’m constantly amazed by great radio personalities. You meet lots of stand-up comics (well, I do) and they are completely different as soon as the microphone is off. They drop everything and you can’t imagine meeting a more un-funny person. Mark Davis is actually MORE amped off the air.
I had the good fortune to sit with Mark over some de lic ious bar b que in Dallas after his show. He had the table of reps and execs in tears of laughter. He’s all Texas in the Big D. You wouldn’t listen to him and say “my, what a great Rhode Island host”. It takes 5 minutes for you to say TEXAS. Not that there’s an accent…there’s just nothing small about him. Well, as far as I know.
And he must sell a lot of product for a lot of people. He’s got a list of companies 10 deep that want to pay the station big money for his endorsement. They must know something.
Big D has a new meaning. Here is a picture of Big D and me.
Chris Baker is another one of those guys that were just born to do this. Twice nominated for major market talk host of the year, Houston’s Baker is (of course) one of those fiery conservatives. But unlike some others, he’s not afraid to take on the republicans. It’s scary how much he knows about national and local politics. And he knew a lot about us, too.
I had a chance to meet Mr. Baker at the KTRH studios on a recent Texas swing. He’s among the best rated shows in Houston, and within a couple of minutes I could see why. I could almost feel my chair being pushed back by his booming personality and voice. And not in a bad way.
I think that for the right advertisers, Chris could sell a heck of a lot of widgets. We’ve got our eye on you, Mr. Baker. Or do you have your eye on us???
Good Lord is Michael Berry fun. I live in California so I don’t get a chance to listen to his Houston radio show (but I’m going to look into this thing called the internet), but the hour and a half lunch I had with him was nothing short of rock-star entertainment. I could barely chew because my mouth was in a perma-grin through the entire meal.
First things first, Berry knows his stuff…and he’s FUNNY. Like Roger Hedgecock in San Diego (who often fills in for Rush), Berry is a politico. He’s actually the current (as of 2007) Mayor Pro Tem (kind of like the vice-mayor) of Houston, so he knows his local politics. But during the course of the lunch we discussed all types of law, sports, politics, marriage, children, world leaders, and ME. Yeah, usually these big name radio talk hosts talk a lot about themselves, but he had a lot of questions for my boss and me. Kind of nice for a change.
I wish Michael well, and I hope he does a good job for our products. He’s off to a nice start. If he’s half as fun on the radio as he was at lunch, Houston listeners have a daily gift at home and in their cars.
I’ve had the good fortune to meet Bob McCormick on a number of occassions. Bob’s a true media star. Sure, he’s got the voice for radio, but his face is built for TV. Well, he does a lot of reporting on TV also, but I love him because of his radio endorsements. He’s on KNX 1070, a powerful news and talk station in Los Angeles and he hosts a show called Money 101. It’s basically money and finance for the college educated, but not necessarily the PhDs. Rather, he covers a host of very common issues such as credit fraud, estate planning, mortgage rates, debt and debt relief, stocks and bonds, all the way to the price of gas and how to shop for men’s clothing. It’s usually very good radio.
What I like about his endorsements is that he’s very picky. He really investigates a client before giving his go-ahead, and the management is equally cautious about his image. It makes sense: he’s there telling us every day how to save money and not get suckered into a scam…so he better be recommending the right advertisers.
LegalZoom.com, for example, has had a two year partnership with the man, and the way he delivers his spots so seamlessly fits in with his normal show content, you hardly know it’s an ad. I trust Bob when he says that there’s a better way to manage my debt, and I trust him when he says that I should buy X good or Y service from his favorite companies.
Here’s a pic of me, LegalZoom co-founder Brian Lee, Bob, and his producer together. Good looking guy! Bob, too.