Brand Busting

Then, the entire concept of the station’s being an ‘easy place to relax’ is often blown by a burst of raucous advertising. I am assaulted by shrieking declamatory exhortations from a couple of home furnishing or accessory chains. This so-called ‘easy place to relax’ ceases to exist on a station whose advertising content is biased more towards retail, than brand.

One of those advertisers prides himself on running highly successful ‘category killer’ stores.

Gerry, the only category you’re killing for me is that of relaxation! You appear to be running commercial sound tracks designed for airing on more down-market TV stations, on a station totally unsuited to that ultra hard-sell approach. Those for your wife’s chain are no better.

It is a paradox that your retail group’s current profitability is very strong, but I would suggest that this is not due purely to its presence on the station in question, but to campaigns on those which appeal to a different demographic.

On that basis, advertising on an easy place to relax probably does no harm except to make a bigger dint in your budget, and a massive annoyance to listeners who were duped into believing that they had found a haven of more music and less, or at least calmer, talk.

There is certainly a place for a gross hard-sell advertising manner. I noticed that approach work effectively in my initial media days in radio, then later in television.

When I moved into advertising, I produced some of the most offensive and complained-about television retail food commercials ever, but knew the demographic my agency was targeting - not a discerning, affluent, cultural elite, but what one Sydney radio presenter refers to as “struggle street”, folk for whom every dollar they spent had to give the maximum outcome and return – better value for money.

The driving pointers of this campaign were price, and product sourcing – amazingly low prices for strong food and drink brands, often loss-leaders, at numerous readily-visited locations and stores. Our client enjoyed massive sales because of the agency owner’s advertising savvy and sheer bravado, and was a winner in that notoriously competitive and difficult marketplace. His participants’ cash registers proved the correctness of the sales strategy after every burst of this humorously offensive advertising.

But this kind of promotion was always placed skilfully within or around popular TV programmes nationally which suited that style, never in upmarket, quality shows where it would have been completely out of place.

The reason for my writing is to draw attention to the corporate danger of suggesting one image, yet creating the opposite: the conscious decision to downgrade the characteristic of a brand.  

It causes me to ask when, or if, that station’s management would ever have the guts to decide whether they want their image to remain solidly credible by refusing to broadcast advertising which does not reflect the station’s style, or else fall prey, gullibly, to the advertising revenue bait dangled at them.

Programming sensitivity and promotional believability crumbles further when, after a break which sometimes contains recorded rushed bellowed busking, the presenter switches to full smarm, and invites the listeners warmly to continue enjoying “your easy place to relax”.

To be fair, a vast amount of this station’s advertising is just that - gentle and friendly, believable in keeping with the brand, and probably produced in-house to suit the format, but this just raises a greater credibility gap when those screamers bust the branding.

I wonder if the cliché “horses for courses” has ever entered the corporate mind of this broadcaster? If not, then it’s time to saddle up, and ride off into the field of image credibility.