In Satellite Radio, All Celebrities Are Not Created Equal

It seems not all celebrities are created equal nor are all satellite radio services equal in their celebrity appeal either. While both XM and Sirius have signed celebrities in a bid to win listeners, recent research from celebrity appeal research company E-Poll shows dramatic differences in public opinion for each company's celebrity talent. According to recent E-Score celebrity ratings , XM's talent has far more universal appeal, while the talent at Sirius is much more polarizing.

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by Steve Hall    Apr-21-06    
Topic: Celebrity, Radio, Research



Kansas Radio Station Offers $20,000 For Listener-Created Commercial

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Kansas City radio station The Rock is holding a competition in which it has asked its listeners to created and submit a TV commercial for the radio station. The winner, who will walk away with $20,000, will be announced April 21. So far, the station has received hundreds of submissions. While some will call this a coup for consumer-generated media, others might tend to conclude there's a reason us right and left coasters live where we do.

by Steve Hall    Apr-19-06    
Topic: Commercials, Consumer Created, Good, Radio



PBR Sponsors NPR

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In what would appear to be a serious clash of brand personalities, Adrants reader Ryan tells us seemingly low brow beer Pabst Blue Ribbon is sponsoring seemingly high brow NPR on its show All Things Considered. One might assume this is just a dumb media buy. But if you think on it a bit, you'll realize a brand's personality is nothing more than what it's creators strive to make it. PBR is a beer that's lived in all corners of culture from blue collar to white collar, from hip to square. It would seem the folks behind PBR would like to take the brand in the direction NPR connotes and we think that's just fine.

by Steve Hall    Apr-18-06    
Topic: Brands, Opinion, Radio



News Corp. Launches Teen Stalker Awareness Campaign

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OK, that's it for all you teen-loving 30/40-something men. With the launch of a new stalker awareness campaign, News Corp. hopes to make MySpace teens completely aware of your shenanigans and boot you back to women your own age. Created by the Ad Council in 2005, the campaign will blanket Fox properties MySpace, Fox network, FX, National Geographic and Fuel TV. With the ever-imaginative tagline, "Don't believe the type," the ads point people to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's center website which then links to a page specific to the campaign. On that page are links to the PSAa, a game that aims to teach kids about the sketchiness on online profiles and an area with information for parents.

by Steve Hall    Apr-10-06    
Topic: Campaigns, Commercials, Games, Online, Radio, Television



McDonalds' McMornings A Let Down

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We were optimistic, though we're not sure why, the the McDonald's McMornings might be something special but the first thing we were greeted with was The Excuse Generator 3000, one of those lame, so five years ago, excuse letter generators for people without enough spine to stand up for themselves when their boss asks them why they were late to work. Of course that could all be due to some ingenious use of cookies automatically landing anyone coming to the site after, say, after 9A in a given time zone on that page.

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Self-Referential Church Ads Remove Stuffy Stigma With Humor

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Adrants reader John Brock sent us this amusing radio commercial, created as a joke by church member Mike McKenzie, for Birmingham, AL St. Andrew's Episcopal Church. The spot mirrors the tone and style of those monster truck "Suuuundaaaaaaay" commercials replacing the the usual auto-speak with church-speak. While it's not an official commercial for the church, it has been heard by church leadership who may decide to air it. There's also an airline version of the spot.

Church is stuffy. Life used to be stuffy. The two went hand in hand beautifully. Today, life isn't stuffy but church remains so. Just as the United Church of Christ, one of the most liberal mainstream churches, did with its "we accept all" gay-themed spot, the Episcopal Church, Catholic church without the pope and circumstance, could surely use some self-referential humor to attract jaded, modern Americans through the doors on Sunday.

by Steve Hall    Mar-22-06    
Topic: Good, Radio, Trends and Culture



Deflating Balls Illustrate Negative Effects of Steroid Use

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Last night Major League Baseball and the Partnership for a Drug Free America held a press conference to announce a new public service campaign against steroid use. The campaign will consist of television, radio and print work created by BBDO New York. The first spot broke last night and focuses on the harmful effects of steroid use including shrinking manhood as illustrated through deflating balls. Witty.

by Steve Hall    Mar-21-06    
Topic: Campaigns, Commercials, Magazine, Radio, Television



Radio Station Launches T & A College Ball Tournament

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Indianapolis radio station WFBQ has launched its own version of the NCAA tournament. Sponsored by Hardee's, Finlandia Vodka, Southern Comfort and Jack Daniels, WFBQ's version of the tournament throws basketball teams out and replaces them with hot models. Now, rather than tracking your team, you can track hotties.

Each division gets it's own set of models to select from. For someone who really doesn't give a crap about college basketball, this contest is way more fun.

by Steve Hall    Mar-15-06    
Topic: Good, Online, Promotions, Radio



Ruskin Slams Ad Industry At ANA Conference, Change Needed

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Perhaps it was all fire and brimstone or perhaps it really was the truth but Commercial Alert Executive Director Gary Ruskin Minced no words when he told ad execs at an Association of National Advertisers luncheon yesterday that "most Americans really despise what you do." He also told the audience what we all have known for a long time; we are not loved by people. Poll after poll ranks us right up there with car dealers in terms of trust. Citing yet another study, Ruskin said, "your industry is not yet as unpopular as the tobacco industry." It's not inconceivable that, with the increasing amount of ad-avoidance control people gain, that will happen quite soon.

He had no kind words to say about product placement or buzz marketing either and that's not surprising. The walls between advertising and content have long since disappeared because of media fragmentation which gave people more choice to avoid advertising and because of ad-avoidance platforms like pay-per-view, DVRs, bit torrent, file-sharing and the iPod. It's no surprise that marketers are grasping at straws to regain the control it once had over consumer eyeballs when a three network buy would reach every person in the country.

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by Steve Hall    Jan-26-06    
Topic: Industry Events, Online, Opinion, Radio, Television



Google Expands to Radio, Buys Radio Ad Management Company

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Cnet reports Google will acquire radio digital services provider dMarc for $1.13 billion. dMarc helps radio stations manage ad inventory, deliver song/artist/station text information over broadcast and help advertisers manage their radio campaigns. Pressumably, Google will us dMarc to deliver its AdWords text ads over the system dramatically extending the search giant's reach into another medium and to many more ear/eyeballs. Maybe the day will come when a media planner can "buy the world" at the touch of a button.

by Steve Hall    Jan-17-06    
Topic: Online, Radio