Talkback radio advertising



  • So I am on my way to the airport at 5AM on a Saturday at the start of a business trip, and I am listening to the local news talk radio station. Which (for those of you outside the US) is a station that during the day plays Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage and other such commentators of a "conservative" nature (1)(2).

    Then on comes this ad that sounds like the typical positive upbeat message used to sell personal wealth seminars, or weight loss supplements or personal lifestyle products. Except that its for a code analytics firm called New Relic (whose website is just as shiny as their adverts sounded). The advert even had a special "code word" that when used when you signed up, would will get you free access to their professional product for 30 days. And that if I signed up within 5 minutes (really at 5AM?) I'd get a free T-Shirt.

    From their site (and quoted in their radio ad):

    New Relic gets you immediate code-level visibility to build faster software, create better products, and delight your customers.

    I've never heard of this company before (but thats no surprise as I am not looking for their services) but it was a real WTF moment as to why they are advertising at 5AM on a local news/talk station for a product that only a people in a certain sector of business would be remotely interested in, and not the ones who would be up at that time of the morning on a Saturday. On the other hand I was suckered into actually looking at their website to see what the company actually did.


    (1) I won't say these people are batshit crazy, as their bank accounts certainly proclaim the success of what they deliberately do. However I will say that the characters they portray are pretty unhinged, and for any given segment of their shows you can play (and easily win) a form of buzzword bingo based on spotting the logical fallacies of their editorializing.

    (2)What also makes me shake my head is that on weekends the local station plays an edited, repeated version of some of these shows as if it was being done live, but without any acknowledgement that it is a repeat.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

     [url="http://omg2.thedailywtf.com/"]*cough*[/url]



  • @Lorne Kates said:

     cough

    Woo-hoo .. bonus WTF on my part!


  • ♿ (Parody)

    I'm sure ads at that time are dirt cheap. Those hours often feature investment / legal / real estate sorts of shows when they aren't running repeats of stuff from earlier in the week. They might figure they'll catch some guy in middle management / small business who might have some say in this sort of thing.



  • I keep seeing New Relic ads in strange places (and I run 2 different ad blockers, go figure). Pro-capitalists would call it smart, I call it desperate. The only thing I learned is they provide services to people who want charts. Big charts, small charts, coloured charts, boring charts, red charts, green charts; charts of all sizes and colours. I have no idea what they actually do, and since I have no use for charts I have no desire to find out.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @aapis said:

    I keep seeing New Relic ads in strange places (and I run 2 different ad blockers, go figure). Pro-capitalists would call it smart, I call it desperate.

    Why would "pro-capitalists" call that smart (I wonder if this was the sort of logical fallacy the OP mentioned)? Ad servers seem to know when you visit various pages. I followed a link to the web design company in Lorne's thread (still waiting for him to reply to the owner, who showed up and replied) and then saw an ad for them on a blog (which is not at all tech related). If you spend time on TDWTF, some ad algorithm somewhere has probably tagged you as the sort of person to whom New Relic wants to show their ad.



  • I've used New Relic in the past, and it's a decent software suite if you use it correctly. I liked having a screen showing all our servers with their current load/response time/etc. I do find it very strange that they're advertising on talk radio.



  • "Data helps me make my case when I actually don't have one."

    Our analysis software will let you create a scenario that allows you to keep your job, even if you really are the reason the company is suffering.

    "Data helped me steer the company in a totally stupid direction."

    You can slice the data in any way you want to come up with conclusions that support exactly the statement you are pitching.

    "Data helped me grow my empire, I mean, budget."

    The more data you collect, the more hardware you need to store it, the more people you need to maintain it, the more money you can demand to manage those people, the more... you see where we're going here.



  • @mott555 said:

    I've used New Relic in the past, and it's a decent software suite if you use it correctly. I liked having a screen showing all our servers with their current load/response time/etc. I do find it very strange that they're advertising on talk radio.
    As per Boomzilla, advertising at that time of day is probably pretty cheap, however they seem to have a pretty impressive list of customers on their website, so I can't see why they need to cheap out on advertising. Especially as this puts them in the same forum as a whole bunch of questionable products.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @boomzilla said:

    I followed a link to the web design company in Lorne's thread (still waiting for him to reply to the owner, who showed up and replied)
     

    <font size="72">YOUR LONG WAIT IS OVER, FRIEND!</font>



  • @boomzilla said:

    Why would "pro-capitalists" call that smart (I wonder if this was the sort of logical fallacy the OP mentioned)?

    Because more ads in more places, in theory, equals more money, equals YAY CAPITALISM. I see it as trying to force your terrible product in front of a larger audience who probably doesn't want it. The more advertising you are required to do, the worse your product is.



  • The issue is that radio ad spots are often sold in blocks. And often talk radio stations are subsidiaries of much larger corporations with very varied demographics.

    I was actually listening to one of my favorite podcasts (GiantBombcast) a while ago, and they mentioned running into the same problem. They are affiliated with CBS, and therefore with CBS radio, and a short promo for one of their spots ended up playing during a Rush Limbaugh spot. After which they continually recieve a bunch of mail asking why they advertise on Rush Limbaugh.

    So I could see someone buying a block with a primarily tech savvy audience like Howard Stern, or some other satellite radio talk show and getting included with ads for conservative talk radio. Which of course is weird when you are now in the same block as the "buy gold now" and "structured annuity" ads that appeal to a very NON tech savvy audience.



  • @Snooder said:

    So I could see someone buying a block with a primarily tech savvy audience like Howard Stern, or some other satellite radio talk show

    Isn't the whole point of satellite radio that it's ad-free?


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @Lorne Kates said:

    @boomzilla said:

    I followed a link to the web design company in Lorne's thread (still waiting for him to reply to the owner, who showed up and replied)
     

    <font size="72">YOUR LONG WAIT IS OVER, FRIEND!</font>

    <font size="1">Now if only she replies to your reply to her reply!</font>


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @aapis said:

    @boomzilla said:
    Why would "pro-capitalists" call that smart (I wonder if this was the sort of logical fallacy the OP mentioned)?

    Because more ads in more places, in theory, equals more money, equals YAY CAPITALISM. I see it as trying to force your terrible product in front of a larger audience who probably doesn't want it. The more advertising you are required to do, the worse your product is.

    Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @boomzilla said:

    @aapis said:
    @boomzilla said:
    Why would "pro-capitalists" call that smart (I wonder if this was the sort of logical fallacy the OP mentioned)?
    Because more ads in more places, in theory, equals more money, equals YAY CAPITALISM. I see it as trying to force your terrible product in front of a larger audience who probably doesn't want it. The more advertising you are required to do, the worse your product is.

    Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

     

    And with that, subscriptions are up 100%. Total ad dollars spent: $0.

    ...

    I don't know whose side I'm arguing now. =(



  • @boomzilla said:

    @Lorne Kates said:

    @boomzilla said:

    I followed a link to the web design company in Lorne's thread (still waiting for him to reply to the owner, who showed up and replied)
     

    <font size="72">YOUR LONG WAIT IS OVER, FRIEND!</font>

    <font size="1">Now if only she replies to your reply to her reply!</font>


    No, you hang up first!



  • @Lorne Kates said:

     cough

    Whenever I see the name New Relic, I'm reminded of that contest. Did they ever post the results to that contest?


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @toon said:

    @Lorne Kates said:
    cough

    Whenever I see the name New Relic, I'm reminded of that contest. Did they ever post the results to that contest?
    Yes, as a series of articles. The first one is here. Locating the others is left as an exercise for the student.



  • @OzPeter said:

    why they are advertising at 5AM on a local news/talk station for a product that only a people in a certain sector of business would be remotely interested in

    To be fair, they probably reach more people this way then they would say, advertising on CNN at primetime.

    @OzPeter said:
    What also makes me shake my head is that on weekends the local station plays an edited, repeated version of some of these shows as if it was being done live, but without any acknowledgement that it is a repeat.

    This is actually pretty common. Some of the SiriusXM non-political talk stations do the same thing. There is a station here that is FM and all talk, not political (mostly Howard Stern like programs), and they do the same thing.



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    @boomzilla said:

    @aapis said:
    @boomzilla said:
    Why would "pro-capitalists" call that smart (I wonder if this was the sort of logical fallacy the OP mentioned)?

    Because more ads in more places, in theory, equals more money, equals YAY CAPITALISM. I see it as trying to force your terrible product in front of a larger audience who probably doesn't want it. The more advertising you are required to do, the worse your product is.

    Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

     

    And with that, subscriptions are up 100%. Total ad dollars spent: $0.

    ...

    I don't know whose side I'm arguing now. =(

    I'm actually a viral marketing campaign.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @aapis said:

    @Lorne Kates said:

    @boomzilla said:

    @aapis said:
    @boomzilla said:
    Why would "pro-capitalists" call that smart (I wonder if this was the sort of logical fallacy the OP mentioned)?
    Because more ads in more places, in theory, equals more money, equals YAY CAPITALISM. I see it as trying to force your terrible product in front of a larger audience who probably doesn't want it. The more advertising you are required to do, the worse your product is.

    Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

     

    And with that, subscriptions are up 100%. Total ad dollars spent: $0.

    ...

    I don't know whose side I'm arguing now. =(

    ...
     

    ABTFY

     



  • ...

    @... said:

    @... said:
    @... said:
    @... said:
    @... said:
    @... said:
    ...

    ...

    ...

    ...

    ...

    ...

    FTABTFYFY


Log in to reply