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.