"Eric F. Richards" wrote in message
...
D Peter Maus wrote:

Eric...you seem to be missing the essential point. The advertisers
don't GET the metrics based on a model, the advertisers CREATE the
model, they create the metrics. They create the tool. Not the stations.
Not the consultants. The stations do what they do to make money with
the advertiser's tool.


Oh, I hear what you're saying -- I just don't believe my ears.

An advertiser wants to sell product -- nothing more. He doesn't care
about the media used to do that. He hires someone to do that work for
him, and this is where your so-called "radio expert" like Eduardo
comes in.

An advertiser does not hire me. An advertiser either hires an advertising
manager, who is thier employee, if htey are small. If they are big, they
have a marketing department who hires an ad agency. The Ad manager or the ad
agency simply looks at the audience data, selects the stations that reach
the age and sex targets they have at the best rate, and buys them.

And the media used, whether radio, TV, cable, outdoor, print, magazines,
direct mail or skywriting is determined at the highest levels of the
marketing department of a company, not by radio or other media sales people.
The ad campaign is designed for specific media, and each medium is selected
based on its effectiveness in the specific campaign. the advertiser cares
vitally about which medium or media is used.

You are blaming radio people for what is a marketing issue at the client end
and an ad agency issue in the intermediary stage for larger clients.

At RAB convention after RAB convention, it is stressed that radio has to be
easy to buy, or advertisers will not use it. The easiest way to buy raido is
the way it is done... a calculation of cost to reach each listener in the
local market.

That is it. No magic, no myster, no Oija board. Just a cuantification of
cost per listener and the exchange of money for a service.

Advertisers didn't create Arbitron -- so called "marketing experts"
did.

Advertisers created the need for Arbitron. the founders of Arbitron, which
began to measure radio in 1965, saw a need for what they were doing in
television in the radio business, consulted with many ad agencies, and
launched the service. Arbitron became the standard by selling itself to
advertisers, thus forcing radio to have to subscribe as it had become the
accepted currency. Radio had practically nothing to do with Arbitron
starting a radio service... advertisers did.

Fine. Radio *stations* didn't create the model, but the radio
*industry* -- which includes these so-called experts -- did.

Nope, we wer ehappy with Pulse and Hooper, which were much cheaper. Both
folded because staitons had to switch to Arbitron as that is what the
customers were buying from.

If Ace Hardware wants to buy time on the local station, the manager of
Ace doesn't go look up Arbitron figures -- he (rightfully) calls a
specialist -- an agency that deals with radio in the (wrongful)
expectation that they'll know what they are talking about.

The ACE account is handled by ACE's national agency, which subscribes to
Arbitron for radio buys. Funds are paid part by the corporation and part by
a pool of local Ace operators. (Ace is, essentially, a franchise or
coopperative)

In the small, unmeasured markets, coop money allows the Ace owner to buy
local radio within restrictions and be reimbursed for part of it.