Got a blog tip? Contact us

« How far have we come, baby? | Main | "Brandjacking" Coke in India »

You Hear (Stuff about Radio Conglomerates) Here First

Continuing on the radio news beat, I'm posting the feature article from this week's Stuart Elliott "In Advertising" e-column after the jump. (Read a complete sample and sign up here.)

At the risk of sounding like a shill for the Times, Elliott's column is consistently informative and, often, unintentionally hilarious. The chuckles come from two sources. First, Elliott's style. He is a shameless pun user, and he takes giddy delight in chronicling campaigns he enjoys. A recent email, featuring a recap of some new 2(x)ist underwear ads, actually caused cold sweat and drool to puddle on my monitor. Calm down, Stu.

The other highlight is the oddball "Ask Stuart Elliott," in which reader-submitted questions tend to reveal too much information about the readers' lives. (I've pasted this week's edition after the jump also.)

A few years ago, readers bombarded Elliott with questions about a Lamacil anti-fungal ad. The animated fungi characters reportedly made children cry. Then there was the reader who asked about another underwear ad (!) featuring a football player shouting "We must protect this house!" She claimed her kids became obsessed with the ad and ran around the house screaming "We must protect this house!" Ah, the Stuart Elliotts of tomorrow.

Enjoy.

*********************

Stuart Elliott/In Advertising from NYTimes.com
Tuesday, June 7, 2005
-----------------------------------------------

1. Campaign Spotlight: Commercial Radio Fights Back

A medium now castigated by critics for not being as well done as it once was is fighting back with a double-barreled campaign aimed at its core younger-adult audience.

The medium is radio, which has been under fire from former fans who charge that play lists have become restrictively narrow and commercial loads have grown ridiculously large. Many of the complainants are voting with their ears, switching to the Sirius and XM satellite radio services, streaming audio on the Internet or Apple Computer's iPods, which offers the ability to be your own deejay, as well as the delight of discovery through random "shuffle" play.

The National Association of Broadcasters, a trade association that represents the owners of 13,000 local radio stations across the country, is sponsoring the campaign, with billings estimated at $28 million. DeVito/Verdi in New York is creating the campaign's radio commercials and print advertisements.

The double-barreled nature of the campaign comes in the form of separate themes for the radio spots and the print ads. The former proclaim: "Radio. You hear it here first." The latter declare: "Tons of artists. Zillions of songs. And oh yeah, it's free. Radio."

The campaign began in February with six commercials and was quickly expanded to more than two score, in 15-, 30- and 60- second versions. The print ads started running in May issues of five music magazines read by younger consumers: Blender, Rolling Stone, The Source, Spin and Vibe.

"We have not done a good job of tooting our own horn as an industry and promoting the medium in the face of these attacks," says David J. Field, the chairman of the association's radio marketing committee. He is also the president and chief executive at Entercom Communications in Bala Cynwyd, Pa., the fourth largest radio broadcaster

Radio is "exciting and healthy," he adds, "but cast in a negative spotlight by our critics and foes."

The campaign "starts with the fact that free local radio is a business that still reaches the same 96 percent of Americans as we did 15 years ago," Mr. Field says.

While "there has been some modest erosion of listening levels," he adds, the downturn has been less severe than suffered by other media, like newspapers.

DeVito/Verdi was selected last September after a competition among what Mr. Field describes as "a significant number of creative shops." What the committee liked so much was DeVito/Verdi's concept that the campaign be focused on music programming and centered on the artists.

"It's terrific, straight from the artists' mouths," Mr. Field says, "and speaks to radio's importance in the artists' world, the role radio plays in championing them early in their careers."

The six initial spots featured Ashanti, Hoobastank, Alicia Keys, Avril Lavigne, Ludacris and Nelly. Each follows the same format, presenting the singer or a member of a group speaking in an informal, often humorous manner, some offering puns based on titles of their hits.

For instance, Nelly says, "Even before it got 'Hot in Herre,' you heard me, Nelly, on the radio." Lucacris says, "Before you even heard my name, Ludacris, you heard me on the radio." A member of Hoobastank says, "Before you knew our name meant absolutely, positively, nothing, you heard us, Hoobastank, on the radio." Each spot ends with an announcer enthusing: "Radio. You hear it here first."

The artists who joined the campaign after the initial spots are varied in their performance styles and genres. Among them are: Hall and Oates, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Brad Paisley, Lee Ann Rimes, Slash, Rob Thomas, 3 Doors Down, Vanessa Williams and Lee Ann Womack.

Mr. Thomas, in his spot, says: "Before the Grammys, before FedEx broke my Grammys, before I wrote for Mick or Willie, or Carlos and I got so 'Smooth,' you heard me, Rob Thomas, on the radio." His reference is to his hit duet with Carlos Santana.

Ms. Rimes says, "Before it took 10 years to make it overnight, you heard me, Lee Ann Rimes, on the radio." Slash mentions his trademark top hat in his commercial. Ms. Williams makes a reference to "Save the Best for Last" and Hall and Oates work in the titles of two of their songs, "Maneater" and "Sara Smile."

"In doing our homework, we found the area of the most decline in listenership was music, and in teenagers and young adults who viewed radio as 'not cool,'" says Andrew Brief, director for account services at DeVito/Verdi.

"They were still listening, and listening quite a bit, but radio was not the box of choice, if you will," he adds. "That led us to the focus on music and the use of artists to say radio is still a cool medium, because these artists represent people the younger audience look up to."

Commercials are also being added with newer artists to underscore the idea that "the first place you hear them is on the radio," Mr. Brief says. Among them: Blue Merle, the Bravery, the Ditty Bops, the Kaiser Chiefs, John Legend, Anna Nalick, Sum 41 and Brooke Valentine.

The new-artists spots, which run 60 seconds, are introduced by an announcer who says that because radio "has always supported up-and-coming artists and connected you with new music," each singer or group is being given "the next 40 seconds to do whatever they want." In their spot, Sum 41 describes being on the radio "before being the official guest photographers of Playboy" and before appearing on "Saturday Night Live" with Ludacris. The Kaiser Chiefs, from Britain, talk about how they found the sandwiches in America to be "as big as shoeboxes."

And Ms. Nalick uses her time to play a recording of a phone call she made to her third-grade teacher to invite her to be in the audience when Ms. Nalick appeared on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno." (The teacher took Ms. Nalick up on the offer.)

Research shows the initial radio spots are already hitting the mark, Mr. Field says, with one in four young-adult listeners recalling hearing them, and their view of radio improving as a result.

The print ads make their point with parody, presenting mock charts and graphs to demonstrate the variety of artists played by radio stations. One ad shows a pie chart -actually a pizza! - to visualize the "chance of getting the munchies at 3 a.m. while listening to" various bands. The Grateful Dead leads, of course, at 35 percent, followed by Cypress Hill, 33 percent; Pink Floyd, 31 percent; and Hanson, 1 percent.

Another ad aims at dramatizing the "chance of getting lucky while listening to" different artists, whose names are alongside the bases on a baseball diamond. 'N Sync is on first base, the Commodores on second, Boyz II Men on third and Barry White at home plate.

Other ads use bar charts, some showing stereo speakers stacked atop each other to illustrate the "chance of your neighbors calling the cops" if you listen to various bands. The odds range from 98 percent for Megadeth, down to 8 percent for the Partridge Family.

2. Ask Stuart Elliott: Airbrushing Out the Action

A Reader Asks: A month or so ago, I saw on some TV program - can't remember which show, sorry - a story about a couple of TV spots that I believe were for DirecTV. The commercials took several games from the 2005 N.C.A.A. tournament and did things like airbrushing out the basketball or an entire hoop; they had to make adjustments frame by frame. At the time, they were still working on the commercials and did not say when they would run.

I was wondering if you have heard of the spots and if you know where I could go to view them. The short clips that were shown looked great and I hope I can see the entire spots.

Stuart Elliott: The commercials were indeed for DirecTV, dear reader, and the program that reported on them was "Dateline" on NBC, in April. Roy Elvove, a spokesman for the DirecTV agency, BBDO Worldwide in New York, says that the spots have completed their run and alas, they have not been posted anywhere "due to previous licensing agreements with the N.C.A.A."

The commercials were "limited to broadcast on DirecTV systems only, targeted to DirecTV subscribers," Mr. Elvove says, "and were part of DirecTV's N.C.A.A. basketball package promotion."

A Reader Asks: One of the more effective commercials I have seen is the one currently promoting the coal industry, featuring "Sixteen Tons," a song made famous by Tennessee Ernie Ford. I don't think the baritone singing is him. Could you tell us who is singing and the agency that made the commercial?

Stuart Elliott: Coincidentally, it is BBDO New York again that has also created this commercial, and Mr. Elvove, the spokesman, says that indeed the singer is Tennessee Ernie Ford.

The commercial is for a longtime BBDO New York client, General Electric. It is part of a new campaign, carrying the theme "ecomagination," about the company's environmental policies and products. The spot seeks to reintroduce coal, as it were, as an energy source, by touting G.E.'s coal gasification plants.

As for the effectiveness of the commercial, another reader recently wrote to complain about it. The reader disliked the appearance of models in the spot as coal miners, meant to be a metaphor for the idea that coal gasification produces energy in a more "beautiful" way.

The reader also disliked the use of "Sixteen Tons," likening it to "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" in that both songs are about "enslaved workers, singing for hope and eventual salvation from their current predicament."