EndorsementRadio.com

What advertisers need is Dick. I’m talking about Dick Clark, naturally. Despite the depiction by Michael Moore, could there be any better personality endorsement than Dick Clark? He’s squeaky clean, America loves him, and you couldn’t imagine him lying if his life depended on it.

If I recall, he was doing some Columbia Record commercials 25-30 years ago; and I can only imagine that that he sold a jillion records (well, we know he sold a bajillion on American Bandstand).

I had the opportunity to talk to him during my second year at Leo Burnett (before it was Starcom Media) and he literally gave me an hour of his time…didn’t look at his watch once.

Who would even be a close approximation in radio these days? It wouldn’t be the rabid right or rabid left. Seacrest? Yeah, probably. But Seacrest would probably talk about anything if paid enough. You get the sense that Dick Clark would have only taken money if he believed in the product. Maybe Leo Laporte is comparable, but he isn’t famous enough. Probably not Imus, either

Above is a picture of me (on the far right) with DC back in ‘95 or 96. He looks ridiculously young. I look like Pudgy the SuperNerd. My past supervisors Jill Huseby and Rob…oooohhh, I can’t remember his last name. Anyone know?

Is there such thing as paid endorsement radio in politics? I know there are “free” radio endorsements all the time, like a Rush Limbaugh supporting Mitt Romney. But can politicians and political groups pay an endorser, as long as it’s identified as an advertisement, to do a spot?

Sounds illegal, somehow. Right?

One of our top endorsers today just lowered his talent fees, unprompted, by 15%. Among the seven signs of imminent world destruction, a station or talent lowering fees without the advertiser asking for it comes in at #2. Locasts are still first.

Can you believe that?

Could it be that the station and host which has long promised to be our partner is finally becoming a partner? Nahhhhh. Must be a clerical error.

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.

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

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.

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.

How Much Does It Cost – Watch more free videos