Radio Advertising: I Sell Air

Unless you're going through a mid-life crisis, it's really not as bad as Billy Crystal suggests:



Thanks for reading!
Dave

David Philp
Account Executive
WMTR-AM/WDHA-FM
Greater Media Broadcasting
55 Horsehill Rd.
Cedar Knolls, NJ 07927
ofc: 973-538-1250 x1377
e: dphilp@greatermedianj.com
fax: 973-538-3060

Want To Learn About Advertising On The Radio?

If you're interested in advertising or marketing your (insert your whatever here), then the opportunity of a lifetime is here for you! Okay, it's not an opportunity of a lifetime. You'll have better opportunities in life, like having kids or making kids or getting married or hitting your first Major League home run or watching your kid hit his first Major League home run while you sit next to that person you married so many years ago. So, yes, perspective is important. With that in mind, the opportunity of your professional lifetime looms very near.

"Why, David?" you say, intent on getting an exciting answer.

Here's why, I tell you, here's why. We're (WDHA-FM and WMTR-AM) gonna be hosting a presentation three different days in October, the 19th, 20th and 21st in Parsippany. In this multi-media presentation, we're going to discuss advertising - what works, what doesn't work, and how you can do better.

"What's in it for me?" you ask again, clearly not seeing that you'll learn something and be a better person, possibly changing world history, because of this.

I'll answer your question, but only because you asked. All right, first, you're going to see me. That's worthy of a good night's sleep anytime. Second, you'll be exposed to new ideas. Third, there will be an opportunity to purchase advertising at drastically reduced rates. Drastically. Fourth, you'll be entered to win $10,000 in advertising on DHA or MTR. And fifth, you'll get a gift certificate to a local restaurant.

That's 5 things that are "in it" for you. Isn't that a lot? It's like we're throwing a party for you. Just you. Because we care.

So, interested? If so, call me. We can talk more, exchange emails, start a relationship that lasts for years. Hey, if I'm lucky, maybe you'll invite me to Junior's first big league game.

SONG OF THE WEEK

I was never a huge Alice In Chains fan, but I was always a big fan of "No Excuses." It makes sense today because there are no excuses why you don't come on out in October and learn all about how you can improve your business. Sound swell? Awesome. I'm staring at the phone right now.



Thanks for reading!
Dave

David Philp
Account Executive
WMTR-AM/WDHA-FM
Greater Media Broadcasting
55 Horsehill Rd.
Cedar Knolls, NJ 07927
ofc: 973-538-1250 x1377
e: dphilp@greatermedianj.com
fax: 973-538-3060

Sussex Skyhawks & Parkinson's Awareness Night

I'm pals on Facebook and a big linker on LinkedIn with Joe Coscia, a young 36-year old dude who found out last year he had Parkinson's. Click HERE to read his story. Joe is not taking this lying down. He's doing something about it, which is inspiring to people like me. Maybe people like you. He's organized a night out with the Sussex Skyhawks in August, NJ the evening of August 16th. I'm going to give you all of the info now, pasted directly from the Sussex Skyhawks website. I'd put it in my own words, but they already did it.

SKYHAWKS TO HOST PARKINSON'S DISEASE AWARENESS NIGHT

Augusta, N.J. - July 28, 2010 - The Sussex Skyhawks have joined forces with Team Fox - The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research to create a very special night at the ballpark this summer. Monday, August 16th's game versus the Worcester Tornadoes is now Parkinson's Disease Awareness Night.

The Skyhawks have been working hand-in-hand with Wantage resident Joseph Coscia to help plan the night. Coscia, who was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease over a year ago, is looking forward to the upcoming event.

“I am very excited over the partnership the Skyhawks and myself have built to bring Parkinson's awareness to the forefront. It will be a great night of fun, baseball, and awareness.”

If you would like to order tickets for this great night, contact the Skyhawks at 973.300.1000.

So call the Skyhawks, order some tickets, and help out.



Thanks for reading!
Dave

David Philp
Account Executive
WMTR-AM/WDHA-FM
Greater Media Broadcasting
55 Horsehill Rd. Cedar Knolls, NJ 07927
ofc: 973-538-1250 x1377
e: dphilp@greatermedianj.com
fax: 973-538-3060

Born To Run

I recently received an email from Marissa Eckrote. She commented how she understood how I felt; how she lost her father, Bruce, in December, two and a half months before mine died. And she asked that I pass something along to you. So here it is:

She and her family have organized the 2010 Born To Run 5K Run/Walk that will be taking place on August 21st in Wayne, NJ. Go HERE to see the info and sign up. The race is in scenic Packanack Lake. Proceeds go to a Wayne resident suffering from leukemia, a high school scholarship in Bruce Eckrote's name, and to esophageal cancer research.



Thanks for reading!
Dave

David Philp
Account Executive
WMTR-AM/WDHA-FM
Greater Media Broadcasting
55 Horsehill Rd. Cedar Knolls, NJ 07927
ofc: 973-538-1250 x1377
e: dphilp@greatermedianj.com
fax: 973-538-3060

Do Like Mad Men Do

AMC's Mad Men just debuted its third season a week ago. It follows the life and career of an early-1960s ad exec named Don Draper (Jon Hamm) as he juggles the advertising world, a failing marriage, and one very secret...uh, secret.

Here's the thing: I have never seen the show. Not a single episode. Yet somehow, I was just able to list for you the show's name, it's network, its lead character (and his real life name, spelled correctly), and what the show was about. I even know what the secret is/was.

How do I know all this?

Simple. AMC has done an amazing job advertising and publicizing the show. They've spent money advertising, but they've also engaged the media to cover the show as if it was as big as the Super Bowl. They've mixed an advertising campaign at the masses, created a great website, put together a cool contest, invested time and thought into social networking, and sent Hamm and cast out for the short, poppy Entertainment Tonight interviews (like the old AM radio single from an album) as well as the longer-form, more extensive discussions on NPR. They've used all of this to create word of mouth (you and I talking to each other as well as a slew of show blogs) that has helped make Mad Men the most successful show ever on the network.

"So, uh, Dave, like what does this mean to me?" you say as you scratch your lower abdomen.

"It means plenty," I say with an accent derived from unknown origins. "Want me to be specific?"

"Did you say 'Pacific'?"

"No."

"Oh."

I'll continue, assuming it's okay with you. Here's the lesson we can all learn from AMC's Mad Men. Do it all. All, in this case, doesn't mean it has to cost you money. It does cost time, but if it's your business, you can find the time. Let's say you have a retail business, like a bike shop. You get into the store each day, sell to customers, fix bikes, deal with vendors, do a couple of errands at lunch, close out the register and lock up. Busy day. Did you consider taking 10 minutes from your day and thinking? Seriously. Walk away from the counter, let Tony or Tennille man the fort. Walk away from the busted Schwinns and take a 10-minute walk around the block or the parking lot. Then think. Ask yourself what you're doing. How do people know about me? About my shop? How do they find out? What are those other people doing in other businesses that I can apply to mine? What's my competition doing? What am I doing right? What am I doing wrong? What can I be doing better?

Ask yourself stuff like that every time you take your ten-minute walk. Don't feel guilty. This isn't a break. You're still working. But instead of the hands-on, tangible work you're used to, you're doing an intangible. You're thinking. You're looking at Mad Men and wondering what AMC is doing right. And you're thinking, I don't have a $5 million advertising budget, but I know Twitter is free and Facebook is free and it wouldn't cost me anything, besides embarrassment, if I stood on the sidewalk this Saturday in a tight Lance Armstrong outfit, bullhorn in my hand, telling the world that they should come into my store and see the greatest feat of all-time inside my shop, my little but awesome bike shop. And when they come in, have your staff dance to "Thriller" in bare feet. See? Great feet. A great song. A great idea. And it didn't cost you a cent. Just 10-minutes of thinking, kind of like what the Mad Men used to do.

SPEAKING OF FEET

Last month, I wrote a sort of melancholy post about missing my dad. It had nothing to do with advertising. I just needed an outlet about how I felt. Not too long afterward, I received an email from Marissa Eckrote. She commented how she understood how I felt; how she lost her father, Bruce, in December, two and a half months before mine died. And she asked that I pass something along to you. She and her family have organized the 2010 Born To Run 5K Run/Walk that will be taking place on August 21st in Wayne, NJ. Go HERE to see the info and sign up. The race is in scenic Packanack Lake; a course I personally ran on an extremely hot and humid Saturday in July. Proceeds go to a Wayne resident suffering from leukemia, a high school scholarship in Bruce Eckrote's name, and to esophageal cancer research.

ROCKING THE PARK

I'd say I'd see you at the race, but WDHA is also sponsoring Rock The Park that afternoon at the PNC Arts Center. Creed is the headline act. If you're interested in participating, some key sponsorships are still available. Call me and we can haggle. It'll be a blast.

SONG OF THE DAY

This week's Song Of The Day is one I've heard a couple of times of the past few weeks on WMTR. It's "Reminiscing" by the Little River Band. Remember this song? Is it irony if you don't? I'll give you one piece of memory I just dragged out of my membrain: It was 1986. I was going to be the greatest rock n roll drummer/singer/songwriter you ever heard of. I took a voice lesson in Chatham with my voice teacher, Diane. And I sang this song in my lesson. It's not Vivaldi, it's not Steve Perry, it's not Sam Cooke, but for whatever reason, I wanted, on that day, to sing like Glenn Shorrock (the LRB's lead singer, which neither one of us knew until just now when I checked on Wikipedia - say, does your business have a Wikipedia site? Think about it.)


Thanks for reading!
Dave

David Philp
Account Executive
WMTR-AM/WDHA-FM
Greater Media Broadcasting
55 Horsehill Rd. Cedar Knolls, NJ 07927
ofc: 973-538-1250 x1377
e: dphilp@greatermedianj.com
fax: 973-538-3060

The Missing Thing

I haven't written anything here since February. There are a couple of reasons. The first is, I'm busier than last year. It seems people's desire to advertise on the radio is stronger this year than last year. People have taken my calls, accepted me into their shops and shoppes and stores and outlets and pick your favorite synonym for businesses. Last year wasn't so busy, so there was more time to write here, to reflect upon the slowness of it all.

There is another reason. My father died in February. I don't know if you've ever been through that type of loss. I sense many people have, either losing a parent or close grandparent or best friend. I had lost all of my grandparents before, but we were never close. I've always cried when my dogs died. Never with humans. Until my dad.

Lester Perry Philp, Jr. was a huge influence on me. He was funny. He wasn't as funny as me - this isn't a self-pat on my back, it's actually a compliment to him. He wasn't as funny as me because he was more mature than me. He knew when to stop. Sometimes he stopped too soon, lessening the impact of the humor. He'd miss opportunities for one-liners because of his maturity. That hurt his chances for the Laugh-Track Hall of Fame.

A roommate of mine from college got married a month ago. Like my dad, this guy was hilarious. I loved him in college for his incredible ability to make me laugh. He had "IT." It was a certain carelessness one needs to really be funny; careless as it pertains to what others may think of you. If you really want to make somebody laugh, you need to be ready to bomb and not care. I think because of getting rejected so much in high school by the opposite sex, I was in the perfect place to room with an incredibly funny person. His influence could rub off onto me, merge with my father's influence (and let's not forget an older brother's influence, he who had the perfect sense of humor when it came to getting thrown into garbage cans by bouncers at bachelor parties), and mold me into being a guy not afraid to attempt to make people laugh at any point in time, even if the attempt failed horrendously.

When my father died from lymphoma on February 17th, he took something of mine with him. It's hard to state exactly what it was. But it's four and a half months later and I know it's gone and it isn't coming back, like my dad. You wouldn't know it if you hung out with me for between 7 and 9 minutes. You'd think I was the same bubbly guy I was in high school and college and beyond. In most ways, I am. But that one piece of me, the piece I can't fully comprehend, isn't there now. It's like if I breathe in as deeply as possible, I can't go as deep as I could on February 16th.

On February 16th, I awoke at my regular 4:45AM time - didn't need an alarm, my body just did it - and went to my computer at home, writing stuff. I like to write. On February 16th, I wrote like I also did.

I wasn't going to see my father that night. You see, he wasn't supposed to die. That's what the doctors had been drumming into our heads. "We still think he'll get through this," they said. So me, always being the optimist, finished the work day close to home. It would have been a pain to trek all the way back down to Morristown to see my dad when I could just see him on Wednesday.

My brother called me around 7:30 that night. He said Dad hadn't been awake all day. Things didn't seem right. I should probably go.

I turned to my wife and said I had to go. I drove down to Morristown Hospital, got there around 8:15 or so. He was still asleep. I talked to him a bit, told him how if this had been a movie, I'd tell him how I forgave him for all the crap he did to me as a kid. But then I laughed and said this wasn't a movie and he'd never done anything crappy to me in my life. He'd been a great dad. This isn't Monday Morning Quarterbacking or respecting he who has passed into the netherworld. My dad was really and wholly a great dad. We always got along. He always made me laugh. I always wanted to make him laugh. It was fine between he and I, between my brother and he, between my mother and he. I come from a good family. Good parents. "Dad," I said, "you did well."

A weird thing happened then. His mouth started moving. His eyes were closed, he was still on his back, but his mouth was moving, like it was silently making sentences.

I watched, unsure what was going on. He'd lost so much weight and most of his hair. The skin on his hands was dry, chapped, but improving after weeks of sores brought on by the goddamned chemo that didn't do anything but cause him side-effect after side-effect. But his mouth was moving. Maybe he was hearing me. Maybe he was waking up.

A nurse came in and checked his vitals. She asked how things were going. I told her his mouth was moving and she said that was good.

I wish I remembered how long it took, but he did awaken. I asked him to open his eyes and he did for a few moments. I held his hand and asked him to squeeze. He did.

The pastor from my church, Jeff Campbell, came by around then. My wife had called him, she being unsure what her role should be as her husband's father was potentially dying and she was home unable to do anything to help. Jeff and I helped raise my dad's bed so he could sit up. We turned on the TV. We started talking. Granted, my father wasn't a very good conversationalist at the moment because of the tremendous pain his mouth was giving him. Just another wonderful side-effect of the chemo's "therapy."

I asked him if he was in any pain. He said, "No, why do you ask?" You didn't know him, most likely, so you wouldn't realize that he was making a joke. "Hey, Dad, what's going on?" I could have said any day of any year between, say, 1982 and 2009. He'd say, "Fine. Why do you ask?" He'd get you with the "Why do you ask?" part. Sales people call that a "pattern interrupt." It throws you off. Shock jocks would call that a shock tactic. It's unexpected. Comics would call it a way to be funny, or at least introduce humor into the act. As my father lay on his bed, dying, his mouth covered in sores, the cells in his brain at that very moment betraying him exponentially, as all of this bad stuff was going on, he made a joke. His Joke. He still had it.

Pastor Jeff and I left around 10PM. He was still awake, but tiring. As I walked out of the room, I said, "I love you." He looked back. Didn't say anything. Just looked. I have no idea what he was thinking. Maybe he wasn't thinking anything at all and was slowly falling back to sleep. I'll ask him in heaven one day, if I remember. Then I'll report back to you.

I called my brother and told him things were looking up. I visited Mom, told her things were looking up.

My wife woke me up about 1:15AM on February 17th. Mom had just left a message. My dad had gone for an MRI of his brain and come out having problems breathing. They didn't think he was going to make it another 24 hours.

I slipped on some jeans and a long-sleeved Cape May shirt. He loved Cape May. I don't recall if I put the shirt on because of that; I think it was somewhere in my thoughts. I said goodbye, jumped into my car, and, miraculously, made every green light between Wayne and Morristown. I composed his eulogy in my head. It was a half-hour eulogy. I'd have to edit some when it came to his funeral.

I ran through the hospital, waited impatiently for the elevator to slowly come down, the doors to slowly open then slowly close, and then slowly crawl up to the 4th floor, Franklin Wing, room #422. I ran into the room.

My brother was already there. Mom was there. Dad was there, of course, breathing hard and fast.

By mid-morning, they'd put some morphine into his IV to help slow his breathing. At 5:01 that afternoon, he'd taken his last breath. And he'd taken a part of me with him.

Don't feel badly. We gain in life and we lose in death. My memories of that day, of how my dad looked and felt, are already fading. Not fast, but they're fading, morphing, changing. The day was sunny, but I can imagine telling my kids in 30 years that there was a wild snowstorm going on and I'd had to walk to the hospital from Wayne in my bare feet.

There is a lesson somewhere in this. I'm not sure what it is. My mom is making it, like an alcoholic makes it from one day to another without taking a drink. I know she's thinking of my dad with almost every breath and I know there's got to be a part of her, and we've never discussed this, that thinks about going to him right now. But she won't do that. She'll keep plugging away, getting used to it all, until the memories fade enough and the sunny day that her husband died was snowing and her youngest son had to walk to the hospital in his bare feet.



Thanks for reading!
Dave

David Philp
Account Executive
WMTR-AM/WDHA-FM
Greater Media Broadcasting
55 Horsehill Rd. Cedar Knolls, NJ 07927
ofc: 973-538-1250 x1377
e: dphilp@greatermedianj.com
fax: 973-538-3060

The Awesome WDHA February Ski Pass Giveaway!!!!

Want to become THE sponsor for an easy promotion on WDHA that would get you lots of 10-second promos over the next couple of weeks. It's still cold outside and this is built around winter and skiing. You can get almost 200 on-air promos over the next 2 weeks as well as becoming part of the WDHA website. It breaks out like this:

• 10 ten-second promos per day over 14 days; 140 total promos


• 54 ten-second promos next weekend, Friday-Sunday


• 194 total ten-second promos

Your banner and weblink on WDHA FM.com for the next 4 weeks

The value is $7,650 but the total investment is only $3,500.

Does it get better than this? I think not!

Otherwise, we can do a WDHA appearance at your place of business for only $500. That's five-hundred bucks for a van, the coolness of WDHA, and us telling North Jersey that we're a gonna be at your place from noon to 1:05 that day and they should get down there and meet you.

As a reminder, WDHA reaches 350,000 North Jersey listeners each week. The core listening audience is 25-54.

If you're interested, let me know right away. You can call me on my cell at 917-204-1929 or shoot me an email.

Thanks for reading!
Dave

David Philp
Account Executive
WMTR-AM/WDHA-FM
Greater Media Broadcasting
55 Horsehill Rd. Cedar Knolls, NJ 07927
ofc: 973-538-1250 x1377
e: dphilp@greatermedianj.com
fax: 973-538-3060

With Radio, A Good Defense Is A Good Offense

I did not write what you are about to read. I saw it on Greater Media's Intranet site and said to myself, "David, there's something in your teeth." As I pulled the fishbone out, I realized I should share what I just read with the masses. Since you are just a small, yet important, member of "the masses," I appreciate your appreciation of my sharing. The rest is pretty explanatory, maybe at times exploratory, but you reading is completely voluntary. So, without wasting any more of your precious time, here is what I'd like to share with you, explaining why radio still makes sense in this crazy world, even with so much more media at our disposal. Henceforth, my copy and paste effort for you at no charge.

In defense of radio and its effectiveness

The medium gets a bum rap from media and others

By Mary Beth Garber
Jan 19, 2010

In late December, Media Life ran an article headlined "Outlook for radio in 2010: More struggle" that painted a dour picture for the medium in the coming year, focusing largely on the lingering effects of the ad recession on revenues and other challenges, such as competition from the internet (link). The story generated an angry letter from Mary Beth Garber, president of the Southern California Broadcasters Association, a trade group representing radio stations. Garber challenged the article, arguing that it unfairly cast the medium in a negative light. In response, Media Life invited Garber to pen a guest column to set the record straight.


Unfortunately the Media Life article was but one of a number of pieces that have appeared about radio based on misguided assumptions and personal opinions passed off as facts.

Admittedly, I’m one of radio’s biggest supporters with very strong opinions about the medium. That’s why the content of this article is supported with real numbers published by the research companies that media professionals, reporters and analysts rely on every day.

Contrary to media industry myth, radio listening has been positively affected by new technology.

Today’s radio sounds better than ever due to digital and HD technology.

But just as important as sound are the new delivery systems that have reenergized radio’s reach. Unlike most other traditional media, radio was able to take its broadcast content and its advertising model intact to the internet.

Today every computer, virtually every MP3 and iPod, and any cell phone capable of downloading apps is streaming radio’s over-the-air content.

Which helps explain why approximately nine out of 10 people of all age groups listen to radio each week, far more than any other medium except broadcast television (RADAR 103, December 2009).

And why the average person spends between about two and a half to three hours or more each day with broadcast radio (Nielsen, RADAR, Arbitron, Scarborough and The Media Audit).

In fact, people spend more time with broadcast radio than they spend with any other form of audio (Council for Research Excellence’s "Video Consumer Mapping – How U.S. Adults Use Radio and Other Forms of Audio," October 29, 2009).

Virtually all of that radio listening is done live, in real time. It's the only mass medium that can make that claim.

Let’s take a quick look at some of the technologies and devices that are being used by critics to attack radio’s relevancy in today’s media world.

The internet: The next time you think about moving your ad dollars out of radio and into the internet, check Nielsen or ComScore for their weekly internet ratings.

You’ll discover that in any given week, about 60 percent more people will listen to radio than will log onto the internet.

While at the same time, simply adding radio to an internet-only ad campaign can lift your unaided brand recall by 450 percent (www.Radioadlab.com).

Internet-only radio: A new analysis of Pandora (an internet-only radio site) by www.bridgeratings.com notes Pandora's 1.03 hours of listening is lower than that of local simulcast streams, which range from 1.7 hours to 3.6 hours. They also say Pandora suffers, just like iPods, from listener fatigue, sending users back to local radio (online or over the air). Over half the people who listen to any internet radio say they have listened to local radio content streaming.

MP3 players: Apple just recently add FM radio receivers to the Nano and Touch iPods because demand for radio listening is increasing. A Paragon study showed people ages 14-24 increased their radio listening 11 percent and decreased their MP3 listening 13 percent. Even more enlightening, Edison says about 60 percent of 18-64s don’t own MP3 players.

Satellite radio: Has had virtually no effect on radio usage. Satellite radio subscriptions peaked in 2008 at 18.8 million, then dropped in 2009 to 18.5 million. That’s only 7.7 percent of all adults in the country. A recent BridgeRatings study projected both subscriptions and interest will continue to fall in the coming years.

Radio listening is trending up, not down.

All media trends up and down over a period of time.

But to hear radio’s critics you’d think this dynamic medium was on a slide to oblivion.

The fact is nothing could be further from the truth.

Radio’s weekly reach, unlike that of print, has declined only modestly during the past several years from a high of 94.9 percent in Spring 2001 to 91 percent in Fall 2008.

But radio has, again unlike print, now reversed that downward trend and listening continues to rise.

RADAR 103 shows radio reaching 92.5 percent of people over the age of 12, more than 236 million people each week. A recent Bridge Ratings study even shows a resurgence of local radio (without online streaming or mobile listening added) by most listener segments. So imagine what they would be with these numbers added. (http://www.bridgeratings.com).

Young People Listen to Radio

All of which helps explain the fact that RADAR, Nielsen, Arbitron, Bridge Ratings and Scarborough say between 85 percent and 92 percent of teens and 18-34s use radio every week. Nielsen says 92 percent of 18-34s spend about three hours a day with radio.

Obviously there’s a big disconnect between reality and perception when it comes to radio.

Since the advent of television, radio has been the media industry’s favorite whipping boy.

And it’s not just somebody else’s fault. Sure all those reporters, planners and analysts are listening to their friends instead of trusting the numbers, and the truth is that part of that perception is radio’s own fault, because the radio industry has been slow and quiet in its own defense or to publicize its noteworthy achievements. It’s another fact that cannot be denied.

But the time of letting others define our future is over.

Enough is more than enough.

Radio is one of the two most powerful advertising vehicles on earth. Still. And for a long time to come.

Thanks for reading!
Dave

David Philp
Account Executive
WMTR-AM/WDHA-FM
Greater Media Broadcasting
55 Horsehill Rd. Cedar Knolls, NJ 07927
ofc: 973-538-1250 x1377
e: dphilp@greatermedianj.com
fax: 973-538-3060