EndorsementRadio.com

According to AdAge, Clear Channel is trying to sell upfronts for radio and TV. The article mentions that Clear Channel can include as part of an integrated package “…potential talent endorsements from personalities like Ryan Seacrest, Steve Harvey and Glenn Beck.”

I don’t really get it.

On the one hand, endorsement radio is really the only place where an upfront makes sense – especially for the top 10 endorsers. You have a very limited supply (the host and his time on the air) but plenty of demand (direct response advertisers). The networks can and actually do demand an upfront commitment to a certain level of spend. Again, that’s for the “big boys”. It used to be that way at the local market level. But with inventory you could drive four trucks through, it’s become tougher and tougher for a station/endorser to say “I only take an annual deal”. I’ve seen endorsers now say “let’s give it a shot for a month and see what happens”. It’s a different, and more buyer-friendly world.

But an upfront for an integrated package which includes radio, OOH, and digital? What? Why?

In TV it still seems to make sense – continued strong demand with a limited (and falling!) supply. The advertisers that depend on TV to grow the business or awareness, or simply need to hold onto their share of the market because their competitors are on TV, doesn’t have many options but to play in the networks’ game.

Radio, OOH, and Digital? Really? There’s an almost endless supply and diminishing demand.

In TV, what you pay in the scatter market is almost always going to be higher than what you could have negotiated in the upfronts (only in two years in the last twelve has this not been the case).

In radio, digital (owned by the station/network) and Outdoor, I’ll take my chances. It’s still a buyer’s market there and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

Outside of the terrestrial world, maybe. Pandora, for one, seems to be in a constant sell-out state. Buyers are already experiencing upfront-like negotiations with Pandora and video-sites like Hulu.

But radio – especially non-endorsement radio? Nahhhh.

Mobile Ad Model Uses Attention As Currency

Virgin Mobile USA is breaking new ground in mobile advertising by announcing its plan to offer customers a way to earn free talk time on their phones by watching ads – and taking tests afterward. SugarMama, as the program is called, will debut on June 14.

Pre-paid customers, when running low on minutes, will be able to boost their time by up to 75 minutes, earning one minute of talk time per 30-second commercial message viewed. The customers then fill out a survey about the product advertised.

http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/topnews/wpn-60-20060530MobileAdModelUsesAttentionAsCurrency.html

This is similar to the new 411 model where callers can get free information services by hearing an ad before their desired business contact number is retrieved. Again and again, consumers have a clear choice: Pay with time or pay with money. When the people with money no longer pay attention to your ads, what are you going to do?

Read the following excerpt from a review of “The Break-Up” to see what people really want these days:

“When Harry met Sally on movie-theater screens in the late 1980s, the result was wedded bliss. But when boy meets girl in the movies these days, the outcome is more likely to be hurt feelings, vicious cutdowns and no guarantees for the future.

Such is the case with “The Break-Up,” a $52 million romantic comedy that Universal Pictures is set to release on Friday next week. Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn star as a warring couple who share a Chicago apartment in the weeks after a messy split. Packed with searing insults and tearful confrontations, “The Break-Up” is as heavy on drama as it is on humor, creating a portrait of a doomed relationship that is as gritty as the romantic-comedy genre has seen in years.

A far cry from the Katharine Hepburn-Spencer Tracy pictures of the 1940s and the feel-good Meg Ryan-Tom Hanks vehicles of the 1990s, the modern romantic comedy has moved past sexism, ambition and long-distance relationships. Now romantic characters are dealing with phobias, infidelity and anger-management issues. With the recent success of edgy relationship movies such as “Wedding Crashers” and “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” two of the best domestic box-office performers of last summer, the tide of cynical date flicks isn’t likely to ebb soon.”
It’s everywhere. Harsh Reality. And people are paying for it. We don’t even want to escape at the movies anymore. We want to see our lives, amplified and with a hint of glitz. What stories are you telling people? Is your product or service going to solve the world’s problems and let people live “Happily Ever After”? If that’s what you’re telling people in sales and advertising, or even relationships, for that matter, I bring grave news; the world is on to you. They no longer want fake expectations and disappointments. Just say what you do, have some humility, and do what you say. Chances are, people will pay to see you, too.

According to today’s Wall Street Journal, “Two venture-capital firms are investing a total of $47.5 million for more than 50% of IAG Research, a firm that measures viewers’ response to TV ads and product placements.”

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Radio’s days of running ads with no accountability are numbered. Say goodbye to “Getting your name out there.” Say hello to pay per inquiry. People may disagree with certain advertisers that cannot find adequate tracking systems (ie. Pepsi). But with most advertisers, online pay per click search has changed everything and accountability is king. The wise content provider will learn to sell less “branding campaigns” which produce unquantifiable results. Instead, they will be well suited to teach their sales staff to be marketers. Then the results will speak for themselves, and the results will produce greater revenue for the content provider, because they will finally be rewarded fairly for over-delivering. Does that make you scared or excited?

I’m the kind of shopper that I hate to sell to. I’m transactional. I research what I want and then grind vendors down for the lowest price. I do it because I assume most salespeople are like car dealers and mortgage brokers. With these business models, it’s just a question of how bad they’re going to screw you. Typically, their pay is determined by what you let them get away with.

So I was shopping for a reverse osmosis system to give my wife for Mother’s day. I called up some vendors and found out they had some similar systems. Eventually, I found a company in my area that seemed to have the system I wanted for a reasonable price. Then I asked the standard transactional buying question. ”I’d like to work with you on this, but I think I can get it cheaper from one of your competitors. How much room do you have on the price?” His response stopped me dead in my tracks. “Unfortunately, we set up are business so that we don’t have any room to negotiate. I don’t believe you can get this same equipment from anyone else for less money. But if there’s anything else I can do to get your business, please let me know.” Needless to say, he got my business. It wasn’t rocket science. And it wasn’t painful. Painful is when we go back and forth playing guessing games about how much money he could help me save, but isn’t.

In my business, I get a flat percentage of what and advertiser spends. There is no need to negotiate for higher rates if I want a long-term client. It suits me to give my clients the lowest rate possible, so they will have a greater chance of achieving the success. If we define success as a 200% ROI, and my spots are twice as expensive as they need to be, I’m half as likely to get you to continue your advertising with me. It actually behooves me to sell more spots for a lower rate, and increase my likelihood for success. This, to me, is a much more fair way to charge for a service because it puts the buyer and seller on the same side.

If you want your customers to trust you, don’t play games. And don’t make them guess what you’re really charging. The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t. On the rare occasions that clients ask me about my commission structure, I tell them. I make a lot of money and they are ok with it. As long as I’m doing my job for them, they don’t complain. Transparency is also a great way to differentiate your self. Give it a try some time.

Pyramid schemes. Cold-callers. Make cold-calls yourself. Wait for Ups. Wait for referrals. There is no good way to sell radio.

This guy only sells 52 week schedules!

My daughter is pretty cute. Before you dismiss this information, I acknowledge that I cannot accurately access her cuteness based on my own observation. Fatherhood disqualifies me from objectivity on the subject. But I have some good reasons to believe that she’s cute, just based on the way strangers react when they see her. It’s like hanging out with an A List celebrity. Everybody stops and stares. I don’t really like going places like the mall or the grocery store, because I know I’m going to have to get into a discussion with someone about what beautiful blue eyes she has, that will always ends with the doom and gloom prediction that she will “grow up way too fast.”

This raises an interesting question: What’s so bad about grown ups? Let’s explore, shall we? Grown ups have opinions. Worst of all, they believe their opinions are right. Then they have egos. They have health problems, and they like to tell you about them. If they don’t use deodorant, they get B.O. The bottom line is they just aren’t cute. Cute only works with adults in the honeymoon period of a relationship. After that, it’s just obnoxious.

Babies (not just my baby) have the ability to be cute. They don’t behave any better than adults; they just look different. They are rude, entirely self-serving, and excrete on themselves. But we forgive them their trespasses because they generally look like miniature versions of Winston Churchill and mispronounce words with in a charming pitch. Somehow, our Creator designed us to have a place in our hearts that receives these creatures as cute and lovable. Functionally, they are no different than an elderly person in the final stages of dementia. They just happen to be cuter. And that’s why we take care of babies and put the elderly in nursing homes and “assisted living communities”.

How does that relate to sales, advertising, and getting people to trust you? If you are a salesperson, or and advertiser competing for the ears of a people who are numb to sales messages, you are like an Alzheimer’s patient whose body is shutting down. People are tired of hearing you repeat the same things over and over again. They don’t want to start another relationship that will leave them cleaning up your excrement. You have to become cute. When my daughter gives me a kiss, there is nothing I won’t give her. The only way for you to have this effect on your prospective client or customer is discover where they have pain in their lives and find a way to eliminate it. This is the new cute. Can you dig it?

Are you a jackass?

There’s a guy who works in my industry. Let’s call him Larry. Larry’s always got concert tickets in the breast pocket of his suit. He loves small talk and has a cliché for any situation. If you pay close attention to during your conversations with Larry, you’ll notice that he laughs at facts. If you’re going through a rough time, Larry will always tell you that everything is going to be fine. Larry is a Jackass. The biggest reason that Larry is a Jackass is because he tells his clients as that soon as they start their radio schedule, all their problems are going to disappear. Their phones will start singing, their profit margins will triple, and they can retire next year. Then when the results fall short of these promises, Larry loses the account and has to find another desperate soul to believe his empty promises.

That’s Larry’s problem, not mine. Right? Wrong, because when I get in front of Larry’s leftovers, they think I’m his cousin.

I remember something a friend of mine told me in high school after she found her boyfriend was cheating on her. “Trust is like a piece of glass. Once you break it, it’s shattered forever, and it will never be the same.” I think that is largely true in business as well as relationships. My job is a lot harder because many prospects think I’m going to Larry them. My new approach is to tell them the worst case scenario before I take their money. If I think a campaign will work, I want the client to believe that their success is likely to be a close call. Is that reverse manipulation? I don’t know. But I also don’t ever know with absolute certainty that a campaign will work. So I prepare for the worst and do everything I can to make it the best, and sometimes, I get to over deliver.

Since you’ve read this far, I’ll tell you a secret. I’ve been Larry to clients, too. Even today, I experience mild relapses from time to time. It wasn’t that I thought I was lying. I just didn’t know any better, so I did the tap dance and hoped for the best. I thought that getting the client excited was my job. I don’t believe that anymore. My job is to give a conservative estimate of how I truly believe I can help their ad dollars perform.

Maybe you’ve been Larry. Maybe you’re Larry still. Take heart; you are not condemned to be Larry forever. You don’t ever have to be Larry again. I’ll tell you one more secret: Since using my new method, I make more money than Larry. Maybe that will give you some hope.

The Future

I hate it when this happens. About a month ago, I submitted three proposals to our corporate executives at Clear Channel describing ways that we could innovate the way we do business within our company. In one of them, I explained to them, what I see, as a major opportunity to maximize our podcasting capabilities. Currently, listeners can download podcasts of any programming they may have missed from their favorite shows. So if a listener missed Bill Handel’s interview with Arnold Schwartzenegar, they can just download it later and never miss a thing. Plus, advertisers get to sponsor it with a :15 second commercial that listeners must hear before getting to programming content.

Here’s my idea: Podcast content provided by advertisers. The content would be presented under the heading of “Learn from the Experts”. While we are experts in radio news and entertainment, our advertisers are experts in their particular field. Our demands would be that the information not be a pure advertorial; rather real, helpful, insightful information for our listeners. Of course, all call-to-actions would direct listeners to call, click, or respond to our client in some way.

For example, a plumbing advertiser can do the “Fix a leaky Toilet” show providing basic plumbing tips. Our lawyer can do a “File a Small Claims Seminar”. Our mortgage company can do a “Watch for Pitfalls when buying a home” show. Whether in interviews or one-person, clients will find this a valuable way to showcase their knowledge and bring sales their way.

I thought this was a pretty innovative idea, until I read the Wall Street Journal on Monday. Naturally, TiVo has beat me to the punch by executing this idea on television. Companies like Kraft and GM are already taking advantage of this and providing On-Demand content that is actually informative for someone that is genuinely interested in learning about that product category. Of course, Ford is pissing away this opportunity by creating cute ads that they hope people will download for the entertainment value. They have hired Penn and Teller to perform magic tricks with a Ford in the background, hoping to have some nice product placement in their ads. Nice work, Ford. Money well spent. Maybe you should partner with DreamWorks, while you’re in the business of entertaining people. But at least some of them are getting it right. Ready for the best part? The advertisers pay a one-time fee to get in, but after that they pay per download. This vindicates everything I believe about the advertising industry. The days of, “Take my word for it, this advertising campaign will work great,” are long gone. We are entering an age of shared risks and accountability for the correlation between ad dollars and gross sales.

So I had an idea that is already being implemented in another industry. We’ll see if ClearChannel decides to follow suit. Either way, I can’t take credit for the innovation because someone else already got there. I hate when that happens.

Transfer of Confidence:

When you sat down, you transferred confidence into your chair, trusting that it would support you. Without a transfer of confidence, no one makes a sale, spends time with a friend, gets a date, trusts a Deity, or even gets out of bed. For our purposes here, we will explore specifically how to achieve a transfer of confidence in order to make a sale.

Scott is a VP of Consumer Marketing for the largest and fastest growing on-line legal services company in the world. He buys ad space and plans the message. Dan sells radio ad space to local businesses and then plans the message. Both come from unique perspectives, and both want to answer the same question: How do I get people to trust what I am saying? In this blog, we explore anything that gets us closer to understanding what exactly will produce a transfer of confidence.