After signing up for a daily Ad Age newsletter I started getting the weekly Ad Age magazine for some promotional reason. Was roaming through it over breakfast this morning for their Super Bowl wrap up coverage, which was very interesting.
One thing stood out - Full Page ads for both Val Pak and Newspapers posted above (sorry they didn't all scan in, but you get the picture here).
We have 2 older type advertising media here. The Cox owned Val Pak direct mail service, which Cox is trying to sell along with a few newspapers. And one from the Newspaper Project, an industry alliance to help their cause.
2 media that are way behind radio in reaching the masses. While Val Pak is in many markets they don't have full coverage and still rely on the mail box - a tough delivery system. Newspapers are falling in their reach and while they claim 100 million readers here - radio reaches over 230 million people 12 plus in a week according to the latest Arbitron estimates (mostly done with diaries - imagine what it will be with PPM in the top 30 markets).
Looking at a number of Ad Age issues I only caught 3 radio ads or campaigns in the last 6 months. 1 came from SBS - Spanish Broadcasting - with a small ad in a special Hispanic section Ad Age did. Another came from Entercom who ran a very nice full page ad that explained their properties and reach. The only RAB ad was for their 'radio coverage' of the Ad Week convention last September. It didn't talk about radio or any of our advantages, just that they had some kind of radio system set up to deliver podcasts and to broadcast live updates at the convention. Gee - that really helps sell the media, we can talk about the latest Google marketing system or maybe cover the conference on the latest way to reach people on the web.
While Ad Age may not be the best vehicle to promote our potential to market stuff to our huge audience what kind of effort are we really making here? It's one thing to offer lots of sales training and come up with a few buttons that say Radio Heard Here. It's another to rebuild the image of Radio as a media that reaches nearly the whole country on a local level with very affordable programs.
We need to 'fly the flag' a lot more for our industry. If you look through Ad Age's articles only one showed up on some form of radio - Did Mel Pay Too Much For Howard. Even Ad Age seems to have forgotten all about our Cinderella story. Maybe it's time to hitch up the pumpkin coach, get all dressed up and hit the ball. I bet if we spent just 1/2 of the money spent in Washington trying to push for more consolidation on some public relations and selling our advantages we could have weathered this storm a lot better. Radio could have the image as an efficient, huge reach, and economical way to market products. Just the tool to un-freeze the customer without killing your budget.
