Bad Publicity for a TV Host Might be Good for a Certain Radio Station

Melanie Martinez was the host of a TV show on the PBS Sprout channel. I have Dish Network, which doesn't offer this channel, but I gather it's a channel for young children. Martinez let her bosses know that a few years back she acted in a short video with an adult theme. It wasn't porn, but the video dealt with a topic that was sexual. Her bosses rewarded her honesty by immediately firing her and taking her show off the air.

You can watch the video here. Like I mentioned, nothing pornographic, so it's relatively safe for work. But, you might want to make sure your speakers aren't cranked.

The thing that stood out for me was the radio station logo that appears at the beginning of the video. A Google search for "Rock 103" turns up several stations with that nickname, and none of them seem to have the same logo as the one in the video. I can't decide wether or not this was a TV spot. My first thought was "no way." It's too dirty, first of all. And the only way it promotes the station is by, maybe, buliding image. What station has the money to spend on such an indirect way to build image, though? The website mentioned in the video doesn't exist anymore, but maybe at one time it redirected people to the station's website. That would actually be kind of brilliant, especially if they were running a big promotion at the time. And, if this was produced before Nipplegate, maybe it could have aired late at night in a blue state.

By the way, I can't say I blame PBS. Even though Sprout is a commercial free cable channel, and therefore isn't subject to the one-two punch of FCC and advertiser pressure, they still have to cover their asses. I can just imagine some election-year attacks on PBS over funding. "PBS employs adult video stars to host programs for children!! Children!! I'm for protecting the children, and therefore say funding for public broadcasting must be cut!"

I hope whichever Rock 103 created the video is capitalizing somehow. At the very least, they should be putting it on their website. Some phone calls to the local newspaper and TV stations might not hurt either. But, in this day and age of radio, they'd have to be real careful not cross that indecency line...wherever that is.

UPDATE: If you've already tried the above link to the video, then you know that the video had been removed from that link. However, do a search at YouTube for "Melanie Martinez" and you can find it. But, the version on there at last check does not have the radio station logo. Sigh. One of the pitfalls of linking to YouTube stuff, I guess. Here one minute, gone the next.

Oh, I See They're Already Doing that in Philly

Mere hours after I sent out the email I mentioned in this post I found this article on the Philadelphia Inquirer's website. Evidently, locally owned B101 in Philly is using an online method to allow listeners to judge spots. And it seems to be working.

What the writer doesn't mention is the tremendous value this has to even advertisers whose spots don't test well. The message is still getting out to the listener! Not only does the listener get a warm and fuzzy feeling and a sense of empowerment, but the advertiser is gettting someone who is carefully listening to the spot. It's win-win.

Considering Different Ways to Deliver Advertising

The following is an edited version of an email I sent to some higher ups in my local group. I'm keeping my fingers crossed...

Here's a thought provoking article on alternative ways to present TV advertising in a DVR world.

Substitute the word "radio" for "TV" in the article.

There's a lot more we could be doing with our websites to help our clients. A lot more than just putting up tile ads. I'm referring to things we could do right now, without having to wait until our interactive people get around to making it available to us.

That writer's idea of custom-tailored ads is huge. TiVo actually does something like this with their Advertiser Showcase. You opt in and select some advertising categories that you'd be interested in. If you're in the market for a car, for example, you'd select "cars" and then content from TiVo's automotive ad partners would be delivered to you. TiVo delivered some entertaining Ford spots with Penn and Teller. We could deliver our client's messages to our listeners in a similar way. Maybe by sending the spots via email. Or just sending text via email. Something cooler would be a system where a listener would log into our site and have the spots waiting in their account. We should look into what it would take on a technical level to do something like this.

The writer's idea of on-demand spots is a good one, but I don't think we have enough "water cooler" spots on the air to be able to do this. Another way to go might be to allow listeners to vote on their favorite or least favorite spots. They'd listen to the spot online and rate it by giving it a thumbs up/thumbs down or a green/red or a plus/minus. This would allow listeners to feel like they're giving input and might create a community atmosphere. They'd love to give a negative rating to some bad spots, I'm sure. As the votes came in, voters would listen to the top rated spots and probably even the lowest rated spots! We might even get some insight into the kind of advertising that would appeal to our listeners. Again, we should look into what this would take from a techincal standpoint.

Whenever we send out an email blast to promote something, our latest promotion for example, what does the client get? The sponsor got their logo in a couple of places and a link to a page about their store. Hell, the link only showed up in the email blast. It's not even on our site that I can see. Personally, I've gotten pretty good at ignoring banner and tile ads and I probably wouldn't click on a link for the sponsor anyway. Would it have more impact to embed (not sure if that's the right word) a :10-:15 audio spot that automatically plays when you go to the promotion's info page? Something like "Get your tailgating supplies from the full service deli at XXXXX! Sandwiches and deli trays made to order or let the experts whip one up for you at XXXXXX. 123 Main Street, Palookaville."

Podcasting has been talked about, I know. Is there something stopping us, though? Podcasting would give us the ability to deliver focused advertising to a specific audience. With our iTunes tie in, this would really work well. The biggest obstacle is coming up with material for the podcasts. Clearly it has to be something that would appeal to our listeners, but doesn't really have a place on our air. Here's an idea: a local music podcast. This would be easy to do. I'm thinking something short. A quick intro with some background info on the band. One of their songs. Wrap it up with a mention of some tour dates, and we're out. 5 or 6 minutes total length. Oh yeah, and of course some advertising!! We have to be careful here. Katie Couric's CBS news podcast had gotten some flak for including a :30 spot and only :60 of content. But, I think a :10-:15 spot right before the song would work. Live spots would probably be even better near the beginning and the end. I would think Guitar Center or XXXXX might be into it. If this worked out, we could expand it and include some artist interviews or some "exclusive" live or acoustic performances. A local music podcast would have appeal across the entire region, giving a Guitar Center a wider geographic exposure.

Other podcasting ideas? Something sports related…High School, University, NFL. Maybe a music news report.

The bottom line is finding a way to deliver our clients' messages on a personal level. It's something that Google has pretty much perfected, and old media like radio should take a cue from new media success stories. I think there are ways to do this on the air, too, but that's a topic for another day.