October 5, 2009

Old Dominion Freight Lines has a new advertising campaign that transports their employees into the business of each of their clients. The campaign's selling line is, "Your business is my business."

It goes through a series of examples, showing drivers and other employees understanding the nature of the cargo they are shipping just as if they are employees of the client. As a result of that understanding, they are better able to know how to handle the shipment. The sell line for each of the employees is, "Your business is my business."

That's what radio has tried to do in the old Customer Needs Analysis (CNA), but have the people who deliver the message really done it? Generally, the only people who get it done or even get close are air personalities who are being paid a premium for endorsing a product.

Those of us who have been in the business for a long time know that great client results happen every time the message is right for a good product. Ask yourself how many times spots produced in your station did a great job of communicating the reason a listener should make the effort to buy the client's product.

Take the first step and listen to locally produced spots and ask yourself how successful they are in driving business. I've found great commercials don't have to be award-winners (many award-winners don't sell anything but votes from judges).

If you start with the idea that the reason for the commercial is to sell the product and follow that train of thought through to the finished spot, you will have more satisfied customers. Oh, by the way, the spot also has to sound good and not be a tune-out. Some of the most successful spots are irritating and drive listeners away.

I'm amazed at what low priority is put on in-house production. It affects advertising dollars and ratings, but we can't seem to afford to do a decent job at the local level. This is another of those things you need to find a way to do in these challenging economic times. If you don't, the challenging economic times will last longer.