What ad campaign has actually moved people to purchase?

[nojustice]

I never see this topic in here...but we are in the biz of selling. So you tell me...what spots actually motivate people to purchase something? Also do you think that often times promotions hurt regular spot flights because they do not promote the same message as the primary ads?

What makes people purchase? You tell me?

 

[lalumia]

I STILL buy Marcal paper napkins/towels cos they used to be advertisers on 77WABC Music Radio's Dan Ingram Show......IN THE 1960's when I was a kid....
no joke, I'm off to Waldbaum's now and will buy some more..

 

[DToTheJ]

I can tell you which ad campaign has moved to creep folks out - the "Kars 4 Kids" commercial with the kid singing, and then the older man joins in... sounds a little creepy to these ears...

 

[ericdxx]

Enlargement pills sales went through the roof after they were advertised on Air America.

 

[dmargalotti]

The main purpose of most advertising is to create name recognition, improve name recall/association, and reinforce product branding. If you like the ads for Marcal as someone referenced earlier, once you get to the store you may be included to look for that product. However if you see that Marcal costs significantly more than other brands with no added benefits, you will most likely pass on making the purchase. Does that mean the advertising failed or was not effective? Not really. The product in this case was not competitively priced. There are many things that influence and determine a persons buying decisions. Advertising plays a role but it is not the sole factor.

 

[TonySantiago]

I can tell you which ad campaign has moved to creep folks out - the "Kars 4 Kids" commercial with the kid singing, and then the older man joins in... sounds a little creepy to these ears...

Between that and the "Thicker is Better" ads that ran on Pulse 87 (FM) last year, that was a bit odd.

 

[nd2023]

And speaking of Pulse, every nightclub I went to in 2009 was a club that advertised on Pulse 87 and PartyFM. I only went to 2 clubs that didn't advertise on Channel Six, one of them ripped me off and played only hip hop and the other one was in Atlantic City.

 

[Brooklyndon]

The main purpose of most advertising is to create name recognition, improve name recall/association, and reinforce product branding.

Certainly some spots influence the consumer in the action stage of buying a product. McDonalds ads during lunch break come to mind - someone hops in their car, not sure where to go, and all of a sudden they here a McDonalds ad and are on their way to go buy a burger.

A major weakness of radio, however, is that, by and large, it is a non-rich medium that is far removed from the action stage of purchase. What it can do is make a listener aware of a product, move the product from the inert set to the considered set, and clever ads can even make the listener desire the product. But, outside of the isolated case of the undecided listener going to the drive-thru at lunch time, the radio will rarely be present during the behavior stage of the purchase lifecycle.

Multi-media stream technology obviously changes this model significantly.

 

[nojustice]

I do not see how Radio is so far out of range of the decision to purchase phase, when it is on the road everywhere the consumer goes. At least up to the parking lot. If you feel this way about radio, then how about tv? Consumers do much more on the go purchasing than MCdonalds or is that just me?

 

[Brooklyndon]

I do not see how Radio is so far out of range of the decision to purchase phase, when it is on the road everywhere the consumer goes. At least up to the parking lot. If you feel this way about radio, then how about tv? Consumers do much more on the go purchasing than MCdonalds or is that just me?

As far as the tv comment goes, media planning 101 tells you that tv is a rich medium in that it supports video and audio. But, by and large, yes, I feel TV has little influence on the action stage of consumption chain (save qvc and infomercials where you can dial a # and buy a product.)

As far as "is radio outside of the purchase phase." Its an interesting question. Radio can be on at the store where you are choosing between pepsi and coke. It can be on in the doctors office where you are about to have lasik or breast augmentation surgery; it can be there when money changes hands. But, usually, the best it can do is get the listener interested enough to buy, but cannot be present while the shopper buys. And, then, the question becomes, who should get credit for the sale? Should it be the medium that managed the communication of the value proposition and differention early on in the value chain, or should it be the channel in which the good was actually purchased? It's hard to pin a ROI number down to advertizing expenditures. Game theory says you have to run spots because its a prisoners dillema game, but,really, there is no NPV to advetising. But I digress.


Could you build a model to answer the subject line? Yes. Would it be very good? My intuition tells me no.

 

[nd2023]

If you listen to a station often enough, the ads get ingrained in your mind subconsciously. I still remember the number for the Bailout Group is 800-775-0019, Kelly Lynn Daniels of Prolixus likes it Thick AND Wide, Major World has over 3000 quality new and pre owned cars in Long Island City, Ultrabar in Teaneck has a world famous patio, every word to the Rye Playland jingle, Queens College boasts about its Inspiration Opportunity and Discovery, Galaxy Visions and their promise to take your old website and update it (Niko did the voice for that spot), Tony Roma's, Palace Hair Salon in Franklin Square, Elite Palace, Guaranteed Consumer Funding will ship a brand new computer right to me for $29.95 a month with no credit check so I won't be turned down, Masterbeat.com is the one-stop shop for music downloads, and a whole lot more ads including almost every club that advertised often. The ads I remember most are the ones that advertised most often, and I didn't make any effort to specifically remember every ad.

I didn't listen to any Pulse 87.7 airchecks recently, or look at the client list, this is all unaided response to whatever comes to my mind when I think of Pulse 87 advertisers. Pulse went bankrupt 5 months ago, and I still remember specific details of their ads. The more the advertisers spent, the more impressions get ingrained in the listener's minds. I've tried to patronize as many advertisers as I can, for example Elite Palace will be my top choice for my wedding venue if it's still around 5 or so years from now, I buy my dance music from Masterbeat, I've eaten at Tony Roma's, I will shop for a car at Major World. Part of what made Pulse 87 so special for me was the local ads from small businesses that don't advertise elsewhere. Those ads did pay the bills for Pulse, but didn't pay the debt Mega Media had from before it signed on.

After Pulse died, I stopped listening to the radio as much as I used to, the Internet stations I listened to were commercial free. Just today for example, I was forced to listen to 92.3 Now for 3 hours straight, I do not remember a single commercial. But I'm sure if I listen to Now for 3 hours every single day, or even 1 hour a day, I will remember the ads.

 

[Brooklyndon]

The more the advertisers spent, the more impressions get ingrained in the listener's minds.

If the spot is medium specific maybe, but 30 seconds of a spot for a movie which is just track of a tv commercial will leave most of the message unsent. The bottom line is that good ads create interest and desire, and the more they are played perhaps the more people they reach. But bad ads are just wastes of money. And, due to the limitations of radio as an audio only medium, it is much harder to make a good ad.

 

[lalumia]

I thought by buying Marcal paper products that I was helping Dan Ingram, my favorite DJ, in the 60s...after all, he played new Supremes singles before anyone else on 77WABC..lol....how great being a naive kid in the 60s, mom would send me to the supermarket and I'd buy the brands on WABC..
Ingram was gone by 1980,but I've bought Marcal products ever since..they definately got their money's worth out of those ads

 

[dmargalotti]

And, due to the limitations of radio as an audio only medium, it is much harder to make a good ad.

I would disagree with that statement. It's those very limitations that make radio able to create good ads. Mind you I'm not saying all radio ads today or even most radio ads today are great...but the medium certainly has that potential. Alfred Hitchcock learned long ago that what your mind fills in to the blanks of what you can't see is way more frightening than those images that you actually can see. Go back and watch the shower scene from Psycho...you never see the knife plunging into Janet Lee. You see her, you see the knife, you see the knife moving toward her, you HEAR the sound of flesh being pierced by the knife, but you never SEE it. It's what you imaged seeing that made that scene one of the scariest in Hollywood history.

Similarly radio has the ability to engage a listener much more than TV because it requires you to be actively involved. Great radio ads stimulate the brain by evoking mental images based on what you hear. That very act of being actively involved makes great radio ads more effective and makes it possible for them to be recalled and remembered long after they're gone.

 

[Brooklyndon]

Great radio ads stimulate the brain by evoking mental images based on what you hear. That very act of being actively involved makes great radio ads more effective and makes it possible for them to be recalled and remembered long after they're gone.

Perhaps so. But durable goods really have to be seen for the reciever to truely get the entire message. Consumables fair better on the radio, but were someone to finally invent "smell-o-vision," I would expect to see all the food product ad dollars move in that direction. Services are also a mixed bag, if the end good is an intengible product, like a bank account, then radio can be as competitive as other mass media, but if there end good is a tangle roduct, like a paved driveway, then a visual/audio medium would be a better choice.

As far as what makes a "good" spot, Budweiser's Real Men of Genius, which has been running for 10 years now, does a good job in managing the consumption chain post-purchase, but, I suspect, very rarely, would inspire the listener, then and there, to drop everything and buy a six-pack.