A friend of mine, who is a successful radio guy, asked me what radio stations could he use for a recruiting ad for a business in Irvine, CA - a town in Orange County close to where I live.
Unfortunately, all the Orange County radio stations are now ethnic, Religion, or LA-market move-ins. Unlike my former home, Long Island, NY – which is eerily similar in many ways – Orange County is not a radio market, officially or unofficially.
My friend told me, that being the case, he might use an LA station.
As much as I want to put more dollars into radio, I had to question using an expensive, big-reach radio station to target a small part of its humungous signal area ... but I felt like a heretic in doing so.
In this particular case, I would probably make use of the targeting capabilities of Facebook advertising, or possibly make a deal with the Devil and use Cox Cable, whose Channel 3 is as close as we get to local media in this neck of the woods.
Anybody have any other suggestions or thoughts?
Jay -
"Always" leaves no room for the exception, which is, of course, your point. Good marketing practice almost always demands the type of discernment you argue for.
A couple years ago I was asked to help a candidate for state office place her radio advertising throughout the district, geographically one of the largest in the state. Priority was given to stations located in or near cities whose populations constitute a significant percentage of voters. There was never any question that these stations should be an important part of the buy, despite the fact that they're located in border communities (between Washington and Idaho), reaching a significant number of non-residents. There was no way to get around this. Our stations received an appropriate share of the buy; our competitors, simply by virtue of having more "sticks" in the market, received a larger share by comparison. My self-interest took a back seat to the client's best interests, and that's how it should be. However, a tiny portion of the district extends into the Spokane, WA market. There was no way we could afford to blanket that market with enough reach and frequency to influence the <5% of district residents in that market; at least 95% of the money spent would have reached people who couldn't vote for my client. So, we placed a little advertising on one or two (of the two dozen or so) stations there and called it good.
That said, I've often wondered about the Legal Notices that sometimes fill pages in the newspaper. Does anybody read them? Does the advertiser even care whether anyone reads them? Or is he simply fulfilling an obligation to post the notice in the "newspaper of record" so as to comply with the letter of the law, results (or lack of same) notwithstanding?
A firm running recruitment ads may be using radio to fulfill some legal compliance issues that are unrelated to the effectiveness of the ads from a marketing standpoint.
Hopefully others viewing your post will weigh in with their thoughts.
