Radio Direct Response: Direct Response Radio Advertising Agency | Blog Zone

Is it me or am I crazy?

Certain irritating expressions have crept into broadcast news, traffic and weather reports that make me want to throw a rock at my TV and radio every time I hear them. What the heck is a “wintry mix?” A collection of mellow, New Age music from Windham Hill? A salty snack food with mini pretzels and Wheat Chex?

When did “wintry mix” become the preferred expression of weather forecasters to describe inclement weather from December to March? Whatever happened to snow, sleet and rain? Now every form of bad winter weather is described as a “wintry mix.” Soon, young children will squeal with joy and say, “Daddy look, it’s wintry mixing outside!” It’s not that snow, sleet and rain have “gone missing” from the daily newscasts; it’s just that they’re quickly being replaced by the unimaginative “wintry mix.”

“Gone missing” is another expression that maddens me. When did it stop being fashionable for news anchors to use the word “disappeared” to describe a missing person?

“Len DaVinci has gone missing since Friday, when his human-powered flying machine crashed off the Amalfi Coast.”

“Gone missing” sounds like “gone fishing.” It’s just not ominous. Odds are that a missing person is not perched on the banks of the Perkiomen Creek, fishing for perch. We have the Brits to thank for “gone missing.” If we keep sneaking British expressions into our newscasts, it will ruin the English language as we know it. At the end of the day, does it really matter?

There’s another one!

“At the end of the day” we can thank the Brits for yet another despicable expression that has crept stealthily into our vernacular to describe the insignificance of just about anything.

“At the end of the day, does it really matter what I think about over-used expressions?”

Maybe not. Maybe I hate that expression because I once worked for a dim-witted manager who used “at the end of the day” about a hundred times a day, every day.

Overused expressions become dangerously habit forming. Unlike slogans and phrases that creep into our language from movies, TV and radio shows or commercials, these phrases are neither funny nor clever. To me, they’re examples of lazy usage. Language gives us a toolbox full of magnificent words we can use to express great ideas and tell wonderful stories. An unused tool is just another rock.

Vince Raimondo, Vice President of Marketing

I was watching The Philadelphia Flyers last night, battling the Buffalo Sabres in an attempt to end a 10-game winless streak.  They quickly fell behind 3-0 and I sighed, “Here comes number 11.”

But then, something strange happened.  The Flyers didn’t quit. They fought back to score one, two, THREE goals to tie the game.  The 3-3 tie spilled into overtime and then the dramatic “winner take all” shootout, where three players from each team take turns, skating one-on-one breakaways against the opposing goaltender.  The Flyers had yet to win one of these edge-of-your-seat shootouts all season.

The last skater was the Flyers’ Danny Briere, a former Buffalo Sabres’ superstar who’s been roundly booed by Flyers’ fans for his recent lack of offensive production.  Last night, he got an earful from his former fans in Buffalo where he’s been branded a traitor for leaving town to sign with the Flyers.

Briere picked up the puck at center ice and skated towards the goal, shading left.  He then shifted direction, deftly stick-handling the puck with six, slight redirections in the space of a second before tucking it under the sprawling goaltender for the winning goal.

The way the Flyers mobbed Briere, you’d think they’d won the Stanley Cup, rather than their first game in 11 tries.  I, too, got caught up in the moment, pumping my fists in the air reflexively.  It was a great victory for a team fighting to make the playoffs.

This morning, I thought about that how that one moment could, conceivably, turn around the Flyers’ entire season.  How a single achievement – an endorphin-flooding burst of jubilance – can change a team’s attitude and future performance.

In advertising, campaigns sometimes get stuck in a rut.  Writers moan, “How many ways can I say the same thing?”  Buyers wonder how long the same weekly media buy can survive the inevitable law of diminishing returns.

But it only takes a spark.  An idea.  An outside perspective.  A new spin.

The English language contains 26 letters, 10 numbers and an infinite number of ways to arrange them.  Sure, you can always give up. So why do it now?

Remember that the next time you get stuck in a rut.  I certainly will.  Thank you, Danny Briere.

Mark Lipsky, President & CEO

There is only one kind of Customer Service I know of that works.  The good kind.  It’s service where a customer feels like he/she is the most important person in the world.  It’s the kind of service that many in today’s business world seem to have lost, when it comes time to taking care of their own customers and clients’ needs.

For example: Have you ever been seated at a restaurant, only to wait 20 minutes for your server to greet you?  Has a cashier ever taken your money and made you feel like they were doing you a favor?  Ever drive away from a fast food drive-through window only to discover that what’s in the bag is NOT what you ordered?

Good Customer Service is in short supply these days.  Tempers run short from the lack of personal services we, as paying customers, receive.  This is especially true for those consumers old enough to remember when every shop owner knew your name and truly valued your patronage.

How do people respond to good customer service?  Generally, they reward you with loyalty and repeat business.  They tell others about their positive experience.  Word-of-mouth spread from good customer service can grow your business.  However, recent research has shown that bad customer service experiences are five times more likely to be a topic of conversation, as people go out of their way to tell others about how they’ve been mistreated.

The same holds true for an advertising agency and its clients.

Clients depend on their agencies to meet and exceed their expectations.  Here at RDR, we impose a high level of accountability, because if our clients can’t measure success, their advertising budgets vanish.  So we measure and manage each campaign as if it were our own.  Because, in a practical business sense, it is.  We’re vested in every client’s success because the future of our agency depends on it.

In a society where customer service standards have sunk below sea level, we strive to make every client feel special through attention to detail and application of proven systems to minimize the learning curve and maximize profits.

Do you have any suggestions on how an agency can provide better service to its clients?  Please take a moment to share your insights and comments so that we’ll all benefit.

Danny Ocean, Vice President/Director of Operations

One of the questions we’re often asked concerns paid advertising on satellite radio.  “Does it work?” seems to be the most common.  The answer is “yes.”

XM Radio launched its satellite service in September 2001.  Sirius made it a two-bird race in July 2002.

Each service offers more than 70 commercial-free music channels for virtually every mood and taste.  This enticing “endless jukebox” built XM’s early subscriber base and gave it a leg up on its upstart rival.  Then, in October 2005, Sirius upped the stakes with a landmark $500 Million deal that brought The Howard Stern Show – and millions of new subscribers – to Sirius satellite.

Today, the two services boast a combined subscriber base of 15 Million plus listeners.  Now, bear in mind, these 15 million people are not all listening at once.  And most still listen to AM and FM radio, even though they pay for satellite.  And when they do tune to XM and Sirius, their listening is split amongst more than 300 channels.

Each service has a deep variety of News, Talk, Information and Sports content that accepts commercial advertising.  They run the gamut of audio streams from the most popular cable TV channels (CNN and CNBC) to foreign language programming in French, Spanish, Korean and “Canadian.”

There are talk channels for conservatives and liberals, religious and alternative lifestyles, truckers and women.  Sirius has Howard.  XM has Opie & Anthony.  Sirius has Martha Stewart.  XM’s got Oprah.  Both have channels devoted to kids, major league sports and a block of comedy channels that dial it up from “G” to “X” rated.  And ALL of the channels mentioned in these past two paragraphs will accept your commercial advertising.

Satellite radio advertising is affordable.  It’s targeted.  And, by definition, virtually of the people listening have enough discretionary income to afford a subscription radio service.  Better still, the sales departments at XM and Sirius have beefed up their ranks with experienced, terrestrial radio veterans.  This means they understand the importance of your advertising schedule delivering results and they now have a bit more flexibility to work with you to achieve those results than they did back in the world of AM+FM.

Don’t get me wrong.  Well over 90% of U.S. adults still spend an average of roughly 20 hours per week with AM+FM radio.  And the combined XM/Sirius subscriber base still equates to roughly 5% of the total U.S. population.  But there are opportunities in both worlds to market your products and services.

If you haven’t tested the airwaves on satellite and worked the medium to profitability, you’re leaving money on the table.

Mark Lipsky, President & CEO

Recently, The Philadelphia Phillies baseball team became the first sports team in history to sign on for Arbitron’s Portable People Meter radio ratings service. Arbitron will use the existing PPM technology installed in Philadelphia for generating custom reports of pre-, post-, in game and total listening estimates for the Phillies’ 2008, 2009 and 2010 seasons. The report will provide exclusive game-day broadcast average-quarter-hour and cumulative audience estimates for Phillies’ broadcasts on WPHT-AM, the flagship station of the Phillies’ Radio Network.

Sports sponsors, sports teams and radio station operators across the USA will be watching the first returns of the Phillies’ PPM results with big eyes. Here’s why. Radio operators and sports teams have long been telling the advertising community that their sports broadcasts deserve “premium” programming status and “premium” rates for attracting tens of thousands more listeners than the radio station’s regular programming. However, Arbitron ratings seldom echoed such claims. Once I was “Director of Sports Marketing” for The Philadelphia Eagles Radio Network and I just knew in my gut that we had a million listeners on game day, maybe more!! But nobody believed me.

Prior to PPM, Arbitron had standard criteria for measuring specific times of the day over a seven-day period. Sports broadcasts usually occurred in non-traditional “Arbitron” time periods and on different days of the week. Often the sports seasons spanned two ratings periods. It was difficult for Arbitron to accurately isolate the size of the sports audience for one game, because their methodology simply wasn’t designed to do so.

I believe PPM will change all of that.

PPM has already illustrated that Philadelphia has a much larger radio audience than previously determined. According to PPM, many more people listen to radio, but for shorter periods of time. With Arbitron’s previous methodology, the opposite was true. In one day, radio went from a frequency medium to a reach medium.

When I was marketing the Philadelphia Eagles Radio Network, quarterly ratings always spiked during football season. Even though half of Philly was imitating Eagles’ broadcaster Merrill Reese on Monday mornings, the quarterly spike was seldom enough to justify the rates we needed to cover production costs and rights fees. Many radio stations actually lose money on sports broadcasts.

Without quantifiable ratings, I had to find ways to sell the “sizzle” without the “steak.” Our sports CPMs and CPPs were through the roof. Appealing to the sponsor’s passion as a fan, they were stimulated to sign contracts with promises of merchandising, luxury boxes, promotions, tickets, in-game features, autographs, press passes, memorabilia, away game trips…anything to make them forget that they were paying $2,000 a spot in-game.

With the advent of the Portable People Meter, I believe Arbitron will change the dynamic of audience measurement and allow sports broadcasters to quantify their audiences like never before. Finally, radio sports marketers will have some “steak” to sell along with the “sizzle.”

Vince Raimondo, Vice President of Marketing

Well, apparently we listed one love song too many over the past week. Our “Ultimate Mix Tape” for Valentine’s Day challenge brought some backlash around the agency and this request for equal time from Helene (who, honestly, IS happily married):

“I have to be honest with you — while I really like all kinds of music, and I am sure I can come up with a list of love songs for Valentine’s Day, I’d like to show my support for those people who cringe every February 14th.   So to honor those who are down and out of love this Valentine’s Day, I am offering you the ultimate list of “Anti-Love Songs.” 

1. Love Stinks - J Geils Band
2. (I Hate) Everything About You - Ugly Kid Joe
3. The Breakup Song - Greg Kin Band
4. You Oughta Know - Alanis Morissette
5. Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad – Meatloaf
6. I Will Survive - Gloria Gaynor
7. Don’t Know What You Got Til Its Gone – Cinderella
8. Every Rose Has Its Thorn – Poison
9. Time For Me To Fly - REO Speedwagon
10. She Hates Me - Puddle of Mudd
11. It Wasn’t Me – Shaggy
12. Love Hurts – Nazareth
13. Don’t Come Around Here No More - Tom Petty & The HeartBreakers
14. All By Myself - Eric Carmen
15. Piece of My Heart - Janis Joplin w/Big Brother and the Holding Company

And just in case you’d like some alternatives, a few more slaps at Cupid trickled through our inbox jukebox. Mix and match a playlist at your own risk.

• Achy Breaky Heart - Billy Ray Cyrus
• After The Love Has Gone – Earth Wind & Fire
• Before He Cheats - Carrie Underwood
• Both Sides Now - Joni Mitchell
• Dance All Over Your Face - KISS
• Didn’t We Almost Have It All - Whitney Houston
• Don’t Think Twice – Bob Dylan
• Goodbye Cruel World - James Darren
• How Could An Angel Break My Heart - Toni Braxton
• I Love You ‘Cause I Have To – Dogs Die in Hot Cars
• If Leaving Me is Easy - Phil Collins
• It Ain’t No Use – Stevie Wonder
• It’s All Over Now – Rolling Stones
• It’s Over – Boz Scaggs
• Leave Me Alone - Helen Reddy
• Look Away - Chicago
• Piece of My Heart - Janis Joplin
• Somebody I Used To Know – Elliot Smith
• Something for the Pain - Bon Jovi
• Song For The Dumped – Ben Folds Five
• Stiletto - Billy Joel
• That Ain’t My Truck - Rhett Akins
• The Hardest Thing - 98 Degrees
• Under My Thumb – Rolling Stones
• Used to Love Her - Guns N Roses
• Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under - Shania Twain
• You’re No Good – Linda Ronstadt
• You’re So Vain – Carly Simon
• Your Ex-Lover Is Dead - Stars

In our last Blog, Arwen shared her suggestions for a Valentine’s Day playlist that would burn a beautiful CD’s worth of music, suitable for gift giving.

Today, we post Part Deux, featuring the musical mix from Tracy, along with the M-Z portion of our “Extras” list.

Happy Valentine’s Day!!

Tracy’s Mix

1. When You Say Nothing At All – Keith Whitley
2. In Your Eyes – Peter Gabriel
3. Only You – Yaz
4. It Might Be You – Stephen Bishop
5. Time After Time – Cyndi Lauper
6. After All This Time – Rodney Crowell
7. Thank You – Dido
8. In My Life – The Beatles
9. She’s Got a Way – Billy Joel
10. I’ll Be – Edwin McCain
11. True Companion – Marc Cohn
12. Collide – Howie Day
13. Let’s Stay Together – Al Green

EXTRAS M-Z

• More Than Words – Extreme
• My First, My Last, My Everything – Barry White
• Never Gonna Let You Go – Sergio Mendes
• Nights in White Satin – Moody Blues
• Not Just Another Girl - Ivan Neville
• Only You – Yaz
• Open Arms – Journey
• Ordinary Day – Vanessa Carlton
• Par Avion - Mike + The Mechanics
• Possession – Sarah McLachlan
• Real Love - Steve Winwood
• Reasons - Earth Wind & Fire
• Ring My Bell – Anita Ward
• She - Elvis Costello
• She’s Got a Way – Billy Joel
• Shing Song - Steve Winwood
• Sick of Myself – Matthew Sweet
• Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I’m Yours – Stevie Wonder
• Somebody To Love - Queen
• Someone - The Rembrandts
• Something’s Got A Hold on Me – Etta James
• Stay This Way – Brand New Heavies
• Stellar – Incubus
• Such Great Heights – The Postal Service
• Tell Me Something Good – Rufus with Chaka Khan
• Thank You – Dido
• The Fever – Bruce Springsteen
• The One I Love – David Gray
• The Thrill of This Love – Van Hunt
• The Way You Look Tonight – Frank Sinatra
• There I Go Again – Vinx
• There’s Nothing Better Than Love – Luther Vandross w/Gregory Hines
• This Night – Billy Joel
• Through the Fire – Chaka Khan
• Time After Time – Cyndi Lauper
• Time to Say Goodbye – Andrea Bocelli
• To You I Bestow – Mundy
• Tonight’s the Night – Rod Stewart
• True Companion – Marc Cohn
• True Love – Elton John & Kiki Dee
• Unchained Melody – The Righteous Brothers
• Unemployed Boyfriend – Everclear
• Unforgettable – Natalie Cole w/Nat King Cole
• Upside Down – Diana Ross
• We’re All Alone – Rita Coolidge
• When I’m 64 – The Beatles
• When The Night Comes - Joe Cocker
• When You Say Nothing At All – Keith Whitley
• When You Say Nothing At All - Ronan Keating
• When You Walk In The Room - Paul Carrack
• Wishing Well - Terrence Trent D’Arby
• With You – Chris Brown
• Wonderful Tonight – Eric Clapton
• You And I – Earth Wind & Fire
• You Are My Lady – Freddie Jackson
• You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me – Dusty Springfield
• Your Song – Elton John
• Your Soul Today – Chris Cornell

Remember Mix Tapes? Those cassettes you’d create for someone special so you could share your favorite music and maybe, just maybe, a subtle hint about the way you feel?

Well, iTunes and digital downloads have made Mix Tapes all but obsolete. But that doesn’t mean you can’t burn a heartfelt CD dedicated to the one you love for Valentine’s Day. So we asked our staff to submit playlists and chose two from folks who don’t usually contribute to The Blog Zone. One will appear today, the next on Monday, along with a Master List of songs, broken down to A-L (today) and M-Z (Monday.)

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Arwen’s Mix

1. Ordinary Day – Vanessa Carlton
2. More Than Words – Extreme
3. Love Like This – Natasha Bedingfield
4. Unchained Melody – The Righteous Brothers
5. I’m With You – Avril Lavigne
6. Bless The Broken Road – Rascal Flatts
7. I Want You Back – The Jackson 5
8. Cowboy Take Me Away – Dixie Chicks
9. The One I Love – David Gray
10. Time to Say Goodbye – Andrea Bocelli

EXTRAS A-L

• 16 Maybe Less – Iron & Wine and Calexico
• A Girl Like You – Pete Yorn
• A Song For You – Leon Russell
• After All – Al Jarreau
• After All This Time – Rodney Crowell
• Against All Odds – Phil Collins
• Ain’t Nobody – Chaka Khan
• Always - Atlantic Starr
• Always – Bon Jovi
• Always and Forever – Heatwave
• And I Love Her – The Beatles
• As – Stevie Wonder
• At Last – Etta James
• Babe – Styx
• Back at One – Brian McKnight
• Beautiful – Gordon Lightfoot
• Beautiful Morning – Jermaine Jackson
• Bless The Broken Road – Rascal Flatts
• Boardwalk Baby - Eddie Money
• Can I Hold You - Colin Hay
• Can’t Get Enough of Your Love – Barry White
• Can’t Help Falling in Love with You – Elvis Presley
• Collide – Howie Day
• Colorful - The Verve Pipe
• Come Get To This – Marvin Gaye
• Cowboy Take Me Away – Dixie Chicks
• Crazy For You – Madonna
• Crazy in Love – Beyonce featuring Jay-Z
• Cupid – Sam Cooke
• Eyes Of A Girl - Wang Chung
• First Day of My Life – Bright Eyes
• From This Moment – Shania Twain
• God Only Knows – The Beach Boys
• Got to Get You Into My Life – Earth Wind & Fire
• Hard Habit to Break – Chicago
• Have I Told You Lately – Van Morrison
• Head Over Feet - Alanis Morissette
• I Go Crazy - Paul Davis
• I Knew I Loved You Before I Met You – Savage Garden
• I Love You Period - Dan Baird
• I Only Want To Be With You” by Hootie and the Blowfish
• I Wanna Be Your Lover – Prince
• I Wanna Stay Home - Jellyfish
• I Want You Back – The Jackson 5
• I Will Follow You Into the Dark – Death Cab for Cutie
• I Have Dreamed - Frank Sinatra
• I’ll Be – Edwin McCain
• I’m With You – Avril Lavigne
• If You Ever Stop Loving Me - Montgomery Gentry
• In My Life – The Beatles
• In Your Eyes – Peter Gabriel
• Into the Night - Benny Mardonis
• It Had to Be You – Harry Connick, Jr.
• It Might Be You – Stephen Bishop
• Jungle Fever - Chakachas
• Keep On Walking – Gino Vannelli
• King For A Day - Thompson Twins
• Let’s Get Down – Bow Wow
• Let’s Get It On – Marvin Gaye
• Let’s Stay Together – Al Green
• Love Changes (Everything) - Climie Fisher
• Love is Stronger Than Pride – Sade
• Love Like This – Natasha Bedingfield
• Love Song – 311
• Love Won’t Let Me Wait – Major Harris
• Love You Out Loud - Rascal Flatts

The second part of our Valentine’s Day Music blog will appear on Monday, February 11th.

Did you see those Super Bowl ads last night?  All those special effects?  All that creativity?  A couple of ads made me laugh, but most made me wish I’d used those 30 seconds to dash to the kitchen or rest room.

All of last night’s Super Bowl ads had one thing in common – a reported $2.7 Million price tag for 30 seconds of airtime.  And that doesn’t even factor in the cost of production.

Too bad.  Because $2.7 Million could have bought a FULL YEAR OF NATIONAL RADIO ADVERTISING.  That’s right.  12 months for the price of one, 30-second Super Bowl TV ad that’s already stopped delivering its message on February 4^th.

Just imagine.  12 full months to build your brand.  12 full months to drive sales.  12 full months to generate far more gross impressions than a one-and-done TV ad.

Just as the New York Giants’ defense did what was needed to keep their team in the game long enough for their offense to claim victory, a long-term radio presence wears down the consumer over time so that you can eventually close the sale.  That’s something rarely done in a one-shot, 30-second blast where sales are sacrificed for the sake of showmanship.

$50,000 per week goes a long way on radio.  A seasoned, direct response advertising agency can help you discover your strongest creative message, your most compelling offer and the most effective media outlets to maximize your ROI so that you’ll beg them to spend MORE than $50,000 weekly.

So, to those of you who didn’t drop $2.7 Million on last night’s Super Bowl, I say, “Congratulations.”

And give us a call.

Mark Lipsky, President & CEO