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Let's Talk Underwriting

B

bturner

I see most stations like to 'sell' enhanced underwriting. I'm curious about the 'mentions' and 'billboard' or 'Mini Underwriting'.

The Mini or Billboard is restricted to 5 seconds or 10 words depending on the station. The mentions are simply the name of the business and contact info, usually a website, address or phone although one station offers either website address or physical address and phone number.

I'm rather intrigued by these spots. They have a quality that is unique. From my research I conclude saying who you are, what you do and how to get in touch is the best advertising money can buy.

By not offering detail, I discovered the lack of detaill actually enhances the business image because the listener, by hearing the business mentioned time and time again forms an opinion in their mind about the business. The listener concludes they must be successful and good at what the business does because they hear about the business regularly. Additionally, the mentions build instant recall so when the listener needs the product or service, they think of that business first.

The other option is the simple name mention (Weather is sponsored by First Bank and Trust). It seems the name mention does much the same. Even though no address, phone or website is mentioned, I havee been told quote 'nobody remembers phone numbers, websites and street addresses. People will look it up on the internet and get in touch'.

Naturally the business name has to say what you do. If you're Smith and Sins, that won't cut it, but Smith and Sons Appliance Warehouse and Service Center says something to me.

I once considered such name mentions as great bonuses for regular advertisers because they were 'easy' but now I realize their value.

My question is: do you offer this type of underwriting? Is it stand alone or along with enhanced spots? Do these spots seem to work as I have found? Are they good sellers or a tool to turn a no into a yes by gaining some dollars versus none?
 
The billboard, giving the name of the underwriter, is not really enhanced underwriting.

Station policies vary but on many stations, enhanced underwriting announcements sound like a commercial spot. They can run 30 seconds (or more). Sometimes the "sponsor" reads his own spot. They provide a detailed description of what the underwriter does or offers and extols reasons to think they do it well (length of time in business, numbers and types of clients, awards ...). They stop just short of an explicit call to action (all they will invite you to go to their website) and they avoid overt comparisons to competitors.

They may even include what are best described as infomercials. For example, a station does a news story on some medical treatment followed by an underwriting announcement for a hospital or pharmaceutical company which offers it. I'm not sure how many stations do this, but the station in my area routinely pulls out of Morning Edition for this sort of thing.
 
Oh yes, I'm familiar with enhanced underwriting and I know the 'Mini Underwriting' and Billboards are not enhanced. I'm just simply impressed with how effective they seem to be and how 'magical' a mere name mention heard over and over can be. 'Magical' in that the listener literally forms a mental image of the business without any input of information from the underwriting.

The thing I have noticed is most people have no 'decision-making' information available when they need a product or service where they do not have a track records with another business. When my CPA passed, I needed somebody to do my taxes. I went to a place I knew nothing about but I had seen their name over and over again for a couple of months. I assumed them to be successful and good at what they do. That was 3 years ago and I'm an annual visitor. I merely went to the first place I knew about. I had nothing but a business name.

These seem to be just as effective as 'enhanced' over time. Since most FCC fines are based on 'enhanced' underwriting crossing the proverbial line, I'm surprised more stations don't seem that interested in offering non-enhanced underwriting. Would it be the client's perception.

From a monetary aspect, I have made this observation. It seems the FCC views underwriting on a 'per unit' basis. A spot that includes 3 or 4 'Mini Underwriting' units, is perceived as a single unit, if you follow what I am saying (in commercial radio we might acknowledge 5 or 6 advertisers in a single promo that is considered a single spot although from a bookkeeping standpoint it is monetized by 5 or 6 clients so that the single unit meets or ideally exceeds the spot rate). We know the FCC has 'advised' underwriting should generally be not more than 20 seconds as a general guideline and a station generally should not exceed 6 per hour (don't know if that's a per hour or on, say, a weekly average as that is not noted and obviously undisclosed intentionally by the FCC). As I'm told, you could have, say, 6 Mini Underwriting units with, say 3 'Mini Underwriting' sponsors acknowledged within each unit. In other words, you have 18 financial contributors acknowledged in 6 units. It just seems a good way to garner more revenue, especially from the business community that might find the enhanced underwriting rate a bit too much for their budget. It appears those stations that offer such things as Billboards and Mini Underwriting seem to charge about 50%-60% of the enchanced underwriting per unit rate. In my way of thinking, if you have an Underwriting Representaive willing to stomp the streets seeing Mom and Pop businesses, you could be running 18 of these an hour neatly nestled into six 20 second units and pulling in 1.5 times the money over selling simply enhanced underwriting. That seems really attractive for Morning Edition and All Things Considered which seem to be frequently at or near sell-out.

I'm guessing the trick is convincing the potential supporter a 'mini undersriting' or 'billboard' is all they need. Or are we too insecure about what value we truly bring to the underwriter?
 
bturner, your premise assumes that awareness of a business or an organization (an underwriter) is all a consumer needs in order to make a decision to take action. Marketing lore suggests that awareness is just the first step in a process nicknamed "AIDA."

Awareness
Interest
Desire
Action

I'm aware (reach) of the bowling alley I pass ever day on the way to work--and I'm reminded of its existence twice daily (frequency), coming and going. And I'm even skilled enough in the sport--I used to bowl in a league--to make use of the bowling alley's services. I just don't want to. I lost interest around 20 years ago. (Wanna buy a ball & shoes)?

Then again, if the owner(s) of the bowling alley instituted a campaign reminding me why I enjoyed bowling in the first place, maybe they could reignite my interest. If they reminded me of some of the benefits of bowling--socialization, exercise, competition, nachos & beer--maybe they could spark my desire. And if they offered a very attractive pricing special, maybe they could prompt me to get up off my ass and take action.

Pubcast Underwriting isn't supposed to include any such prompt--call--to action. But taking the viewer/listener through the first three steps in "AIDA"--creating awareness, generating interest, and triggering desire--is usually enough to stir up activity.

But mere awareness hasn't worked. I'm aware of the bowling alley--I see it twice a day. I just don't care about it.

Public TV has been slowly getting more adventurous with their "enhanced" underwriting over the past 30 years. The spots attached to "Downton Abbey" look/sound/feel like commercials to me--and it doesn't bother me a bit. Public radio needs to catch up. The last thing we should be doing is moving back toward name/location 5-second mentions.
 
Thank you for such a well thought out response. You make excellent points and this was exactly what I was looking for, an honest critique.

From working in commercial radio and writing so many 60s, I know much of what goes into the standard 60 second spot is 'dressing up' a simple message. I know I sometimes simply go to the business name I'm familiar with when I need something but that's usually because I know so little about the various businesses offering the service or product I need (ie: the washer or dryer breaks down, etc.).

That leads me to digging further: why do so many, on stations offering such undrwriting options chose these? Is it cost alone with the rationale that some 'marketing' is better than none for the smaller business? These options seem to be more popular outside major markets, so perhaps the market size is an indicator of why this option is chosen by so many at these stations.

At any rate, thank you for your thoughts. Bill 'Gutterball' 'Bowl in your own lane' Turner
 
Bill, I sold 8-second ("All Things Considered is made possible in part by a grant from name/slogan.") underwriting credits exclusively for NPR on the national level, years ago, and on the local level as a "Director of Underwriting," as well. I ultimately spent about 10 years involved in public TV & radio... and the other 35 years on the commercial side, mostly as a GM/Sales Manager (a situation that continues to this very day).

What I found is that public broadcasting organizations love the money that underwriting generates, but they are scared to death that if they cross an imaginary line of "too much" underwriting--too many spots or spots that are too long--the listeners/viewers will go away, as though the reason they watch/listen--and most importanltly contribute--is the "commercial-free" environment. They sincerely believe that advertising is slimy (slimey?) and that underwriting is damn-near as filthy--and that the stench will cause members to stop writing checks.

They hold onto this premise despite a pile of studies showing that the lack of commercials is way the hell down the list of priorities for the listener/viewer. "Downton Abbey" demonstrates this very starkly. The audience is enormous, and they don't care about the 30-second Ralph Lauren spots and the Viking River Cruise spots. They watch because they love the show!

And it's certainly not going to hurt membership.

Anyway, most pubcasters are just too scared to do what Congress gave them the right to do (see "Downton Abbey"). There is no constraint limiting spot length--they could run :60s if they wanted. Most "institutional" commercials qualify as underwriting spots. And all commercials from non-profits (think hospitals, universities, mutual insurance companies, music festivals) qualify.

But instead they schlep :05s & :10s and tell prospective clients that they're not allowed to do more. Shame.
 
I certainly agree with what you are saying. It is the programming that brings the listener to the station.

I don't think people (listeners) care. I think they'd be stumped if you asked them which was the commercial and which was the underwriting. It seems about the only spots people scream about are the poorly produced, ultra corny and screaming jock. I used to get requests for some well done commercials.

I did see a FCC statement cautioning a station on 'too many and too lengthy' underwriting. They suggested an average of 6 units an hour and seemed to feel if you exceeded 20 seconds it was difficult to not exceed the boundaries. I am assuming that '6 per hour' might be based on a daily or weekly average and intentionally not specified. Granted this station was running about 12 minutes an hour clustered in 4 or 5 fully produced, sometime multi-voiced spots that actually were within the vague guidelines of underwriting.

What you say about how Public Radio views underwriting tells me a lot. Very few really say much motre than 'we have a high income, well educated audience' and you get the 'halo effect'. Good reasons for sure but in dealing with selling commercials face to face, I learned to speak only that which mattered to them: is this a good deal; will it bring me results and is it affordable? You're really selling an investment to them and they want to know about the return. I know you know that.

I have heard 1 in 10 listeners will pay to listen and I think that's a pretty small number outside a major market, so I see underwriting as a top notch value to businesses looking to gain some more customers. In reality, if you think about it, underwriting is not much different than what beautiful music formats did. Most allowed only 7 units an hours and severely restricted content so the message did not disrupt the programming.
 
I had a lengthy conversation with a friend of mine at Sirius, and we compared their commercial free music channels with non-commercial radio. Their self-imposed rules at Sirius are far stricter than anything I dealt with in public radio. They won't even do a promotion if it smacks of a commercial. No promoting web sites, other than siriusxm.com. No product mentions. And all this is stated in the contract with their subscribers. My experience with public radio members is similar to amfmxm's. They are very protective of their listening experience. Some are realists, and understand we need to pay the bills, and quite often the membership money wasn't enough to cover all the expenses. We found that if we were selective with the kinds of underwriters we approached, the passion from our listeners would spill over to the sponsors in a quantifiable way.
 
FredLeonard, I'm dismayed at the "sponsored" stories you describe, where a story is run about a treatment, followed by underwriting for a client that offers it. To me, I would think the FCC would then consider the whole package (story + underwriting) as the actual unit of underwriting.

Regarding Sirius, I'm surprised they have rules about much of anything. As a current SXM customer and former (happier) XM customer, Sirius seems to have a very "commercial" sounding image on air, compared to XM. What's particularly jarring are some of the spots they run during NPR Now (and to a lesser extent, SXMPR) programming. These are often generic spots that, I suppose, could equally well play during Stern, or on a rock station. But they stick out like a sore thumb during public radio listening. These spots are also often much louder than their surrounding programming.

Here's hoping that the new SXM lineup (coming April 25, allegedly) has some interesting new additions.
 
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