EndorsementRadio.com

Have I already written about this? Maybe I have, but it warrants repeating: movie studios should be using endorsement radio like nobody’s business.

Any studio knows that advertising and initial buzz gets you your opening weekend. After that, the make or break is word of mouth.

Helllloooooooooooo studios.

I heard that the Adam Carolla show actually does some pretty non-intrusive ads for HBO shows. I need to take a listen to that. Apparently, they seemlessly weave in positive reviews of TV shows into their content. I’m only assuming this is pay-for-play stuff…but it sure sounds like an endorsement to me.

And it sure sounds brilliant to me.

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.

Listen to Marotta talk about Canon

In the world according to Scott, here are four scenarios where you should strongly consider endorsement radio:

1. You’re introducing a new product category…something that needs to be explained. I really think Vonage would have been served well by starting with endorsement radio. Their initial ads were baffling to me. What percentage of Americans know what VOIP is? The endorser could have simply said: Vonage…they use technology to make your long distance phone calls cheaper and better, guaranteed. I use it, and you should, too.
2. You’re not a well known brand and need the credibility of a known brand (radio personality). Areas that need a lot of credibility, I think, include financial services, legal services, anything involving children, anything involving your identity (congrats, LifeLock, on a brilliant campaign), health services, and contractor services.
3. There’s a lot of competitive clutter. I don’t know why companies in hugely competitive environments don’t use radio endorsements more often. Every commercial sounds the same in automotive, fast food, business services, phone services, travel…even the humorous ones. An endorsement cuts through the clutter quickly, IMHO. Why, for example, isn’t travelocity using endorsement radio? Expedia? Anyone?
4. You need to regain your reputation. How about borrowing some credibility, hmmm? Jiffy Lube I think is doing it successfully after some negative press recently. I just saw a funny online video about Verizon. Bet they could use some credibility about now.

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Dr. Greg Cynaumon, the miracle of direct response and endorsement radio’s all time hero, graciously provided me with his thoughts on the psychology of direct response advertising. It’s a fascinating read from someone who has literally helped generate billions…that’s Billions, for his clients and partners. Thanks Dr. Greg!

Psychology AND Direct Response Advertising
By Dr. Greg Cynaumon
President and CEO of Ad•Col•ogy, Inc. A premiere Los Angeles based advertising agency.
www.Adcology.com

To the reader:
The following excerpts were extracted, by permission, from Dr. Cynaumon’s recent seminar to radio station advertising executives.

Many of you may know me from the work I and my Adcology Agency have done for some fairly high-profile radio and television advertisers such as: The Phonics Game, Hooked on Phonics, CortiSlim and currently – SoniClear for acne control. I was asked to share with you today based on one primary distinctive to most of my colleagues in advertising game – I’m a shrink. But before you start to think that having a degree in psychology is some sort of unfair advantage that I have over any other radio station rep or advertising executive, that couldn’t be further from the truth. You most certainly do not need to be a psychologist to create winning advertising campaigns – which by definition is any campaign that earns a lot of money for the advertiser and stays on the air a long time. To create winning ads campaigns you must first change the way you experience any a product or service and this has to be done prior to writing and airing a commercial.

Failure to Psychologically Define the Product
Let’s start with the understanding that advertisers (and account executives at the agency and station level) sadly fail for a multitude of reasons. Even though we could agree that most of the ads we see and hear are poorly written, poorly produced, condescending and even downright insulting, those are still not the reason most advertisers don’t succeed long-term on radio and TV or in print. The real culprit for failure runs deeper – starting with psychologically defining the product or service. By this I mean that selling any product – from garden hoses to anti-aging creams – involves psychology. Even household staple products that everybody uses – like laundry soap – involves subtle psychology to create a niche and a desire to buy. Now imagine how much tougher it is to create a desire to buy when your product is something that consumers don’t even know they want yet!

Defining your product in the psychological sense means understanding every subtle nuance connected with your product. You might find the following very enlightening.
1. How do consumers experience and relate to your product? In other words, what and how do they feel when they see or use your product?
2. Does your advertising reenergize and reinforce the consumer’s experience, because if it doesn’t, you’re missing the mark.
3. Does your advertising message touch on the primary psychological prompts to buy? Primary psychological prompts to buy are related to fears and anxieties. In other words, if the consumer doesn’t buy your product, she will be missing something or feel left out or not part of the group because…
4. Does your advertising message psychologically differentiate your product over your competitors? Unless you’re the only product in your category, you better be able to communicate why yours’ is best in 10 words or less.
5. Is your message so psychologically compelling that consumers are in such a rush to order that they’re willing to risk a traffic accident dialing your 800 number on their cell phone?

Don’t feel embarrassed or alone if these are new ideas – even to the seasoned advertiser or account executive. You’re in a large club!

Do You Really Know Your Product!
Yes, of course you do, but knowing it and understanding it from the consumer’s perspective are two different worlds. You’d be shocked how many company presidents – along with their sales and marketing people – who believe (in good faith) that they understand their consumer, but have missed the boat completely. The reason for this is we can get too close to the product lose objectivity. It’s also common to mistakenly believe that everyone thinks and feels the same way about your product that you do. Wrong.

Still other heads of companies engage in focus groups – a near-total waste of money. Any psychologist will tell you that, any group of people (be it a jury, group therapy session, or a gathering of friends over coffee) will be completely influenced by group-think. Believing focus groups will reveal what consumers think and feel about your product will result in an amalgamation of thoughts – none of them truly helpful in developing a laser-precise marketing plan.

Psychological Prompts to Buy
I’ve found the best way to determine the psychological prompts leading consumers to purchase products can defined by separately interviewing as few as 5 to 10 satisfied customers. Asking questions that extract when they purchased, why they purchased, what did they hear, think or see that caused them to select your product are paramount to understanding and defining your message. Again, it doesn’t take a psychologist to ask good questions and listen.

Creating an Ad Out of What You’ve Learned
Okay, you’ve met with 5 to 10 satisfied customers and you’ve picked their brains clean! Now it’s time to distill what you learned into advertising copy. Here’s a hint… start with themes, words and emotions that you heard repeatedly. These are the cornerstones that will help you to create psychologically compelling ads. Continually go through the FIVE questions above so that you are always answering them based on your interviews. Now all you have to do is to boil it all down to a one-minute message. No sweat!

Testing Your Psychological Prompts Theory
Once you get ad copy that you feel hits the mark – test it! Don’t make the mistake of sharing it with everyone for opinions because, the fact is, some will like it and some wont. You’ll start to doubt yourself and then you’re back to square one – too many cooks in the kitchen. If you based your ad copy on the right psychology, and not on personal opinions, ego, or group-think, then you have a better chance at success.

Deciding Where to Test
Before I take products to television or print, I like testing advertising messages on radio for a number of reasons. Radio is more fluid, dynamic and much easier to adjust on the fly. All advertising should be measurable and radio is the easiest to use for this! If you can’t measure how effective your ad is (dollars earned against dollars spent), then you have no business advertising yet. This is another reason that radio is a great medium for understanding, tailoring and refining ad messages. You can dedicate different 800 numbers or web addresses to different stations and creative differences and instantly measure which resonate best with consumers.

Many advertisers feel that, because much of radio is not nationally syndicated, it can’t be as successful for the advertiser as television. To the contrary, you can create a multi-million dollar smash success on local radio alone – plus radio will tell you how ready you are to start a television, print or mail campaign.

Summary
Hopefully I didn’t alienate any of you by allowing elements of psychobabble to filter into the world of advertising. This approach has served me well and it is the approach we use here at Ad•col•ogy, Inc. If you have specific questions, feel free to send me an email from our www.adcology.com website.

Ahhhhhhh. I heard through the grapevine of a grapevine that Jiffy Lube has ventured into Endorsement Radio because they’ve had negative press recently. I don’t know what that press is, and I’ve always had a pretty good experience there, but apparantly it’s been bad.

So they go into endorsement radio, I would think, in order to gain that trust factor back. If John and Ken on AM 640 are telling me that Jiffy Lube is the place to go and that I get a discount, I can see a lot of people giving it a try. And, if they’ve read the press, maybe the negative image is counteracted to some degree or even overcome.

My question is this. After the press goes away, and it undoubtedly will, does that mean JL is going to abandon endorsement radio and go back to boring produced spots requiring a frequency of 17 gazillion to get through to people?

I wonder.

I finally buckled down and got TiVo. Yes, it’s a amazing and no, I don’t know what I did without it. (By the way, that’s a great idea for a side blog…before getting any new technolgy where people say “i don’t know what I did without it”, write about what you’re doing without it. For example, before the microwave – and assuming the internet as we know it was around then – you could say “today i wanted to warm up a slice of pizza. i heated the oven for five minutes at 350 degrees, put the slice in there, let sit for 5 minutes, took it out and ate”. Or “i wanted some tea, so I took out the kettle and…”. Then it’s all recorded and you can say “wanna see what I did before the cellphone?”).

All that for this: like the hypocrite I am, I immediately started to zip through commercials. But I keep finding myself stopping and going back on certain ads because something caught my eye. More often than not, it’s a celebrity. Why? Because I’m familiar with them, have enjoyed their work, and want to see what they have to say. Like these new beer commercials with Burt Reynolds…I can’t just zip past those. Anything with Shatner I’m going to watch. God help me if Harrison Ford starts doing commercials.

That’s endorsement radio. While the mind zips through produced ad after ad, you stop and listen to the guy/gal that you hear ever day. Your attention level immediately piques and, even if the product has no relevance to you, you want to hear what he’s talking about (especially in political talk radio). So maybe it’s the case that a celebrity endorsement means even more? I’m not so sure about that. I think you need the visual. In radio, it’s the voices and the guys you DON’T see that are the stars. And your mind takes it all in. That’s the case with me, and apparently, with our customers.

Let’s see. How do I do this without hitting every advertising cliche in the book. It’s not going to be easy.

Stop me when you’ve heard enough: clutter, satellite radio, streaming radio, TiVo, three-thousand marketing messages every day, accountability, ROI, short attention spans, stress, fragmentation, clutter, fragmentation, clutter, fragmentation, clutter…you get the idea.

How does an advertiser, in an environment where everything is accountability and ROI, break through?

Friends, I think I may have the answer.

Endorsement Radio. Yes, endorsement radio.