EndorsementRadio.com

If there was any bank in dire need of endorsement radio, it would be WaMu. In September 2008, they are taking a beating –WaMu is one of the big banks that is sorely hurting from the whole mortgage crisis of 2007/2008.

A sexy ad campaign is not going to get me to give my money to Washington Mutual right now, but some well placed endorsements could.

Plus, I almost feel like WaMu deserves what it’s getting for it’s horrible “The bank that makes you go Woo Hoo” campaign. I want to gargle nails every time I hear it. This cutesy little saying that no man should say. It comes across at best as insincere and at worst…what’s the word? Whimpy, I guess. It’s especially painful when the traffic guy or news gal has to say the line. See, WaMu’s agency can

make

a station say the line, but they can’t coach personality and inflection, the only thing that would save a dumb line like Woo Hoo. I laughed today when I heard the money guy on NPR say “I never understood that campaign”.

I understand it. They paid some ad agency to create something new and different…something that people will remember…that will capture the way their die- hard customers truly feel about free checking. They likely paid a few million just on the creative concepting. They got Woo Hoo for their money.

I’m getting off track here. Oh yes, I was talking about endorsements. With the trouble WaMu has gone through financially and to make good on a horribly conceived campaign, someone like a Jim Rome saying “look, WaMu is stable, they still have their free checking, their interest rates on CDs are outstanding, and I’VE got a lot of money over there…you gotta see what WaMu has to offer. For you small businesses, WaMu doesn’t just promise service…they deliver. They’ve helped me figure out this, that and the other and their advice has been dead on every time”.

With an endorsement, you’ve also just broken out of the clutter of every bank saying the same thing. And people are hearing the ads from someone they trust.

Otherwise, it’s more boo hoo and less customers.

I’ve spent more time with Dan Patrick than with most friends or family members. ESPN used to be my must-see-tv every night until I got a wife and kids. And bringing the sports to me intelligently, sarcastically, wittily, and groundbreakingly was the fab duo of Patrick and Olbermann.

I’m sure it’s the same for millions of other guys out there. Dan Patrick meant sports – delivered in compelling ways. Dan Patrick also meant trust. If Dan’s saying it, you can believe it.

Now that he’s got his own national radio show, I believe that trust carries over. He seems to be the voice of reason and calm in a sports world gone crazy. And one recognizes the Dan Patrick voice in an instant. I had the fortune to have lunch with him at Morton’s in Burbank, CA and I heard him a few steps before I saw him and shook his hand.

And what a nice guy. I work with a bunch of sports nuts (the founders and CEO of the company) so I think we were all a little tentative about talking sports with a guy that talks sports for a job…but outside of some business, the lunch was spent talking about the Lakers, Celtics, Cubs, Tiger Woods, and some college ball. We couldn’t have wished for better conversation.

If you’re an advertiser with some bucks, and the demo is right, give the Dan Patrick endorsement a shot (if he’ll have you). Your Brand will be en fuego.

Here’s a pic with Brian Liu, Brian Lee, John Suh and me with Dan in Burbank.

Take a listen to this ad. Wow.

It’s from Astelin, which is a nasal spray and I’m assuming a pretty good one. But how the company is going to sell any spray through this endorsement is beyond me.

Let’s see how many rules of radio they violated:
Pack way too much information in the ad? Check
Put in terms that nobody uses? check
Use complex medical terms when they don’t need to? check
Make an ad that should take a minute and thirty to read only 60 seconds? check
Mention that you’re advertising somewhere else to seem bigger? check
Have a name that is hard to spell (and don’t spell it for people)? check
Let the lawyers take over the copy (“as little as fifteen to forty-five minutes” Um, I think you can just say “as little as fifteen minutes”)? check
Make the side effects sound worse than the symptoms that the product is trying to relieve? check
Ask the listener if they are part of their target as opposed to assuming they are? check
Use an endorser but not have them say they use the product? check
Have a URL that’s hard to spell? check
don’t have an offer? check

Wow, it’s like the perfect storm of bad ads!

If you can’t hear the ad, here is what my army of beautiful secretaries transcribed:
“…you got allergies? Then this message is for you. Your nasal congestion, sneezing, itchy or running nose and post-nasal drip could be due to a mix of both seasonal allergic rhinitis and something called non-allergic vasomotor rhinitis. Non-allergic vasomotor rhinitis. Now what’s that? It’s when you’re sensitive to stuff like cigar smoke, cold air, cologne, even cleaning products. As many as 50% of all seasonal allergy sufferers may have a mix of both seasonal allergic rhinitis and non-allergic vasomotor rhinitis. You could be one of them. Ask your doctor about Astelin Nasal Spray with Asal Astine Hydrocholoride. Prescription Astelin. It’s approved for the treatment of nasal symptoms from seasonal allergic rhinitis and non-allergic vasomotor rhinitis. With Astelin you can start to feel relief as early as fifteen to forty-five minutes. Astelin is for people 12 and over. Common side effects may include bitter taste, headache, nasal inflammation or burning, and drowsiness. Visit Astelin.com. Call 1-866-Number or find information in InTouch Magazine. Don’t delay. Ask your doctor for allergy relief with Astelin today.

Here’s what I would have written (Astelin can have this one for free):

“It’s springtime and you are miserable: you’ve got nasal congestion, you’re sneezy, you’ve got an itchy throat or constantly running nose. You can’t get rid of it no matter what you do. Let’s face it, this isn’t just seasonal anymore…cold air, cleaning products, pet hair, even cigar smoke can give you the same symptoms all year round. I’ve got to tell you about Astelin, A-S-T-E-L-I-N. Astelin treats both the seasonal and non-seasonal allergic symptoms that drive you nuts. I live by this stuff…Astelin has drastically improved my life, and it starts working in about 15 minutes. It’s been my best kept secret for a while now.

I can breath better, no more itchy throat or constantly wiping my nose. No more frequent sneezing in important meetings. Well, I’ve got to let you in on this secret.

You’ve

got to try Astelin. That’s Astelin. It’s a prescription so you’ve got to ask your doctor. Ask for Astelin Nasal Spray.

You’ll be glad you did. For more information, including any side affects, go to icanbreathe.com*.

Astelin. A-S-T-E-L-I-N. I just had to tell you about it because it’s made my life so much better. And if you go to icanbreathe.com right now, you can even download a free guide to common things in most peoples’ houses that drive their eyes, nose and throat crazy! So stop being miserable. Start breathing like a normal human being. Get your Astelin today.”

Ok, I’ve got to admit that I wrote that in about four minutes but it’s so much better than what they have. It needs to be cut down a bit and we could probably hit some specific points harder. But it would sell some Astelin for sure. Imagine if we had a half hour to write this.

Achoo.

I think I heard one of the best endorsements ever today. It was Bill Handel’s endorsement of Elmore Toyota in Southern California. Man was it great:

1. He used (bought) the product
2. He talks about why this Toyota dealership is different than all others (Toyota dealers and any other auto). The gist: they’re not looking to squeeze you for all you’re worth on one auto purchase…they want you for life, as well as your kids and their kids — so they’re going to provide excellent value each and every time.
3. He provides consequences if Elmore doesn’t live up to their end of the deal: he says “call me…and I’m going to give you the cellphone number of the president over there”.

Fantastic job. I never particularly cared for Toyotas…but that endorsement might send me down I-5 for a gander.

I love the new ad that Dan Patrick is doing for Snapper lawnmowers. Actually, Patrick is endorsing an endorser.

In the ad, he’s really talking about how Brett Favre loves the product. Brett, despite his riches and his ability to afford 7,000 gardners every day, loves to mow his own grass.

And he only mows that grass on a Snapper.

So not only does big sports broadcaster Dan Patrick love Snapper, one of the most famous QBs in history loves it, too.

It immediately raises Snapper above the competition in terms of ad messaging – especially for their demo.

I might have to get me one of them.

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?

“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…

I never knew this. It looks like P&G was extensively using endorsement radio for Crest back in 2002 according to this great article on radio.

My questions is, if they had so much success with it, why didn’t they continue it? Maybe they did, but I never hear any endorsement spots. My guess is that Crest went back to mostly TV advertising.

Again, ER seems to make a lot of sense for toothpastes. When presented with numerous choices and numerous prices at the store, I’m sure several factors will guide a customer’s purchase. Word of mouth is probably not one of them: “oh my lord, suzy, have you tried Crest lately? It gets my teeth so white and the taste is so fresh. Here’s a coupon for your next purchase of Crest. Did I mention that I was talking about Crest?”

No, your friend will not do that. But your radio friend would…for the right price.

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.

Heaven help us.

Roy Williams of the Wizard Academy says that you can train your potential customers to only respond when there’s a discount. So, the advice goes, focus on value, benefits, and continuity. Marketing 101 stuff.

Ignore Roy’s advice at your own peril.

It happened to me.

We’re running ads with a huge local talk show personality for over two years with a discount code. The response during these two years have been phenomenal. Month over month profit.

After analyzing the numbers, we reasoned that we didn’t have to offer that discount code in the radio spot any more. His audience simply responds to anything he says.

So we drop the code. Guess what.

Sales plummet. We add the code back: sales are back on track.

Now, you say, that just means that you need to have an offer in all spots. Maybe. But if you’re advertising something to the right audience and people need what you have to sell, consider thinking long term. Especially if you’re using an endorser. The short term strategy is to generate quick response. But you gotta be tough. You gotta have faith. It’s proven time and time again that if people want what you’ve got, steady wins the race.

And you don’t need 10% off.