EndorsementRadio.com

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.

Bow to the shrine of Handel. The man could sell a bacon to a vegetarian, ice to penguins, or The Yankees to Boston. His ads for BriteSmile, HMS Capital, LegalZoom.com, and several local advertisers are truly world class.

Why? Oh, I wish I knew and I wish I could replicate the Handel magic in every market. I think it has to do with the fact that, much like a Howard Stern, Handel lays it all out there. He doesn’t hold back. You have the sense that he’s being absolutely honest in his opinions, even if they’re told through humor, and I think that resonates when he talks about an advertiser. The sense is that “Bill must really believe in this stuff if he’s talking about it so passionately”. Oh yes, that’s the other thing: passion.

You know how some celebrities are one way on camera, and off camera they’re a dead fish? Trust me on this one: I’ve met a few. Bill Handel is exactly the same on air as off, and it’s a wonderful thing. I mean, just check out this picture below of Handel with a mohawk:

And he’s exactly the same in opinion content as sponsored content: loud, brash, funny, and passionate. And lord have mercy, can he sell. My opinion is, if you can’t make Bill Handel’s endorsements work, celebrity endorsements and endorsement radio probably just ain’t gonna work for you. I suppose there’s the odd product that wouldn’t fit his demo in terms of age and income, but I’ve yet to see it.

So I repeat: bow to the shrine of Handel. (Any of you radio station folks see this and raise my rates and I’m going to lose it!)

One of my guilty pleasures when I’m driving around anywhere between 12p and 3p is to listen to Dr. Laura on 640 AM (KFI). I’m not sure if it’s because I have a touch of the old schadenfreude, or if it’s because I occassionally get some advice that I can use in my own life, or because I want to feel like literally the best husband and father on earth.

Whatever the case, I listen. So do millions of others. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we all know her faults. We all know what she said about homosexuality. We all know that she’s off base on some stuff. But, really, for a lot of people, she gives a lot of no nonsense, intuitive, I-could-have-told-them-THAT advice. I mean, who can argue with spending more time with your kids, treating your spouse with respect, and doing the right thing?

She does some great endorsements, and I bet they sell well. If she’s got a million people believing that what she says is ‘the right thing’, I’d imagine the radio endorsement is that much more powerful.

From my own experience, advertising in her show is a joy. Apparently, doing the right thing is kissing your kids at night, protecting your family from bad influences, and purchasing some of what I’ve got to sell. What, is a national radio advice show supposed to be a non-profit? Instead, Dr. Laura really investigates companies (or her people do, anyway), before endorsing them. In other words, she does the right thing.

(Wow, look at me…I look like a huge man-monster in an un-manly pink shirt next to her!)

John Gambling’s another WABC guy and he gives great endorsement. He’s another one of those hosts out there that actually wants to sample the product, and have his family sample the product, in order to make the spots seem that much more real.

It’s a great show in NY and we’ve been running with him for over a year. By the way…we’re in Ny and I’m the only one wearing black. What’s up with that?

We just started running endorsements with Judge Napolitano. You’ve probably seen him on Fox News and other shows talking about celebrity court cases or just big cases in general.

We’ll see how it goes. The show is called Brian and the Judge and it’s national. I’m sure there are some products out there (hopefully LegalZoom is one of them) where the fact that he was a Superior Court judge adds a lot of weight and credibility to the endorsement.

But you can’t deny the celebrity and the growing awareness of this sharp legal mind.

Go Judge, Go!

Let me give you a quick list of people I’ve met or had conversations with in my life: Dick Clark, George Clooney, John Cusack, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Leonard Nimoy, Neve Campbell, James Woods, Neil Patrick Harris, Laurie Metcalf, Jimmy Buffet, John McCain, Ron Howard. I’m sure there are more. All bigger than life, amazing people for various reasons. I’m not sure I was impressed by any of them as much as I was with Curtis Sliwa. I’m way too chicken to explain why he’s a bigshot, but Google him if you don’t know.

He’s breathtaking. The way Curtis tells stories. The way he balances humor with drama and danger. The way his New Yorkness comes through is absolutely compelling. Me, the people I work with, the station reps were spellbound as Curtis took us through a 10 year period of his life for over an hour.

I’m just staying this, if he can captivate three A.D.D. marketers for over an hour, imagine what he can do in 60 seconds. Actually, Ron Kuby, his WABC partner, usually does the endorsement spots and Curtis chimes in. Whatever the case, I’ll hold the Curtis and Kuby endorsement spot up against any mega-agency any day of the week if your goal is sales. I bow to the microphone of Curtis Sliwa.

(Look at me trying to be all buff next to him. The guy could kill me with his pinky).

When Ron Kuby, famous liberal attorney and WABC morning talks how host enters a room, you know it. Very funny, very loud, and very expressive. He sat down, looked around for 5 seconds and said “I’m glad you called me to this meeting…IS ANYBODY GOING TO TALK?” I’m not sure why we didn’t talk at first. I think it was because we were instantly overpowered by his persona. Certainly NY radio listerners are, because they’re buying LegalZoom product like hotcakes, and it’s due in part to his hilarious ads.

See, Kuby is an attorney. He basically tells his audience that he doesn’t know how to do all the things LegalZoom does, but could figure it out, and while he’s figuring it out, he’ll be charging $400 per hour. So he says do it right, use LegalZoom.com. Instant credibility, because he’s a lawyer. Instant attraction to the spot, because he does it so well.

Oh, one more thing. He almost always ties in the endorsed product to what he and Curtis Sliwa were just talking about. Great ads, and great radio. Almost makes me want to live in NY to listen to them every morning. Almost.

Well, if I could go to that Babbo restaurant once a week…maybe I will!

Kuby = great radio. You heard it here first. Well, probably 8th or something.

How did I not know about Glenn Beck until last year? The guy is amazing. My first thought was that he was probably another Limbaugh parrot. Nope. Glenn is about as unique as they come. Funny, self deprecating, very intelligent, passionate, and…how do I say this? Quirky? He’s a nutball. But in a good way. Anyone seen his CNN show? It’s great.

For advertisers, he’s potential gold. Why? Because he actually cares, or gives the very strong impression that he does. When we met him, he had just changed the script we were using to talk about a friend of his who used our company to create a limited liability company.

As far as radio endorsements go, it’s as good as they come. It was an honor to meet Glenn Beck (i’m the boring white guy in the light blue shirt). Go Glenn, Go.

During the LegalZoom.com New York media tour, we had the honor of meeting Bill O’Reilly, who does a phenomenal national endorsement for the company where I’m VP of advertising. I live in LA and have a lot of liberal actor friends, so you can imagine the comments I got: “how did you ever get the sulfer smell off your clothes?”, “how could you?”, “dude, you’d sell your soul for a buck”. (I also got from my conservative friends: “Can I touch your hand?”, “Oh man, you are so lucky”, and “I’m actually a liberal…how could you?”).

Lots of people don’t like the guy. But I’ll give him this, he blows you away in person. We walked away from a brief meeting with him feeling like we were superstars. Why? Because he told us we were. The man is on the number one rated cable tv show for a reason. Probably several reasons…and we got a glimpse of them.

Here’s to you, Bill O’Reilly. I have a hard time agreeing with you a lot of times (though if you really listened to what his viewpoints were on a lot of subjects, you’d say “hey, I kind of think that, too”). But I’ll tell you this: you talk about our company like it’s going to save America. Maybe it is.

You often expect when you meet with a bonifide star, be it movie, sports, or media, that you are going to perhaps get 5 seconds of their time. During those 5 seconds they’ll be looking at their watch and talking to PAs. You’ll be lucky to get eye-to-eye contact.

Not the case with Sean Hannity. He couldn’t have been more interested in what we had to say, more engaged, and more charming. He does a phenomenal Dallas and San Diego endorsement for LegalZoom.com and will soon be talking about LegalZoom on his #2 rated national show.

Obviously, as advertisers, we’re probably going to command more attention from a media star than someone off the street, but I was still very pleasantly surprised. Sean (yes, he said “call me Sean”) invited us to his Hannity and Colmes show (Colmes was off this day, he had another liberal star sit in), entertained us with jokes during the commercial breaks, talked with us for quite a while after the show, then slung a backpack over his back and shot out the door.

Politics aside, you can see why he’s a star. And you can see why he’s such a good endorser. (By the way, I’m the dashing young guy in the black jacket and laser blue shirt standing up).