By Rick Stanton
The following sentence is shameless self-promotion: In my soon-to-be-available book titled “How to Sell a Chicken,” I mention how, once upon a time, the broadcast media used to be partners with ad agencies.
The television and radio stations worked to help agencies succeed, and more often than not, in Stanton & Everybody’s case, when direct accounts got too big for a media rep to handle, said rep would bring us or other agencies into play. Collaboration was the name of the game. What was best for the client going forward was what mattered most.
Then things changed. The media became the competition.
This began long before I retired, and it was, in no small way, directed by large ownership groups that basically said, “Screw the agencies. Go get every dime you can grab. The only thing that matters is our profits.”
As a result, trust went the way of common sense, manners and the Dodo.
One day, I got a call from the big boss at Barrier Motors.
He said, “Do you know a guy named ___?”
I replied, “Sure, he’s our radio rep from ___.”
Then I was told that he went around us and tried to get Barrier’s advertising business directly.
Seconds after our conversation ended, I called the station’s general manager and told him that if that ever happened again, I would NOT buy his station ever again for any of our clients. EVER. Thank goodness the folks at Barrier appreciated and respected our relationship with them enough to rat-out that turncoat rep.
These indiscretions (although there’s a better word for it) would continue and escalate to the point where it became one of the many reasons I began to hate the business and ultimately shut down our shop. The pie was the same size, but there were too many more buzzards to fend off.
Upon a recent visit to KOMO’s website, I was greeted by the following headline:. “KOMO is a full-service marketing resource…” No you’re not. You’re Sinclair being greedy and opportunistic.
Most TV produced by local television looks like it was shot on a porn set. And the radio ads seemingly always begin with “Hi, I’m so-and-so and I’m here for my friends at … ”
This is especially egregious on AM radio. After a six-minute pod of ads runs, with a handful of in-house-written spots, you can’t tell one advertiser from another, because they’re all friends of a local on-air “celebrity” … or did work on their house.
I feel sorry for anyone still in the agency business. It must feel like being in a gun fight with a knife.
It was bad enough when PR and graphic-design firms began masquerading as ad agencies and hijacked the branding business. And as bad as it got while I still was going to work, it’s off the cliff now.
The media need to stick to what they should be doing and that’s providing meaningful, relevant content that’s worth a client’s investment in the buy. And that includes providing advertising value to a viewer or listener. Not banal, poorly written and cheaply produced advertising messages.
Grrrrrr.