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Someone pitching the idea to sell radio to 65+ demo

Certainly it works and even commercials on music stations work. If they didn't you can bet it would have charged long before now.

No matter the fancy paperwork or justification used, it all gets back to results. Results were either better, worse or the same as campaigns in the past and it's those results that determine if that ad agency has a solid customer or not.

One thing not mentioned so far: length of life. If you jump back to the 1950s and 1960s, people generally did not live as long as today. The same can be said of the 1970s, 1980s and each future decade. The fact is we simply live longer. Age 50 meant you had few years left 60-70 years ago. 50 is much more mid-life now. While the 50+ has been considered 'too old' and still is, it might be easing in coming years as the numbers increase simply due to population trends and length of life.
 
Even without seeing the YouTube video posted at the top of this thread, I would almost say FUHGEDDABOUT IT!!! The money's not there - and really, what radio stations would do a 65+ demo? Madison Avenue is looking for 40 and UNDER - their claim is that the money is with that generation. Particularly now with all the different electronic modes that advertisers can use with a 40 and under demographic; they can't do that with 65-and-over and expect to make the BIG bucks, baby! Precisely the reason that you don't see the "golden oldie" stations that you used to back about 20 or even 10 years ago - even our NYC "oldies" outlet has now eliminated 60's music and gone primarily 80's with some 90's input (OY!) and the occasional 70's song - and the sad thing is, in the case of that station anyway, the demo has DROPPED (25-49?).....and the few over 40's (like me) have to basically contend with Internet outlets and the occasional smaller-market oldies station (ok, I'll get off my pulpit now :D )
 
andreajesus said:
Even without seeing the YouTube video posted at the top of this thread, I would almost say FUHGEDDABOUT IT!!! The money's not there - and really, what radio stations would do a 65+ demo? Madison Avenue is looking for 40 and UNDER - their claim is that the money is with that generation. Particularly now with all the different electronic modes that advertisers can use with a 40 and under demographic; they can't do that with 65-and-over and expect to make the BIG bucks, baby! Precisely the reason that you don't see the "golden oldie" stations that you used to back about 20 or even 10 years ago - even our NYC "oldies" outlet has now eliminated 60's music and gone primarily 80's with some 90's input (OY!) and the occasional 70's song - and the sad thing is, in the case of that station anyway, the demo has DROPPED (25-49?).....and the few over 40's (like me) have to basically contend with Internet outlets and the occasional smaller-market oldies station (ok, I'll get off my pulpit now :D )
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It's not quite as bad as you paint it. The target for CBS-FM is 35-64, although the agency accounts only are looking for the 25-54 part in most cases.

70% of the CBS-FM audience is over 45. There are half as many 35-44 listeners as 45-54 ones, and the median age is about 58.
 
TheBigA said:
Of course they do. That's why companies advertise. The ad breaks are just as long (if not longer) on talk stations as music stations. The difference is that people listen longer on talk stations, they pay attention to what is said, and they are likely to be persuaded by the words said by their favorite talk show host.
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I have noticed the trend over the last few years that many commercials are imbedded in the talk radio programming itself. The stopsets were so timely on most talk shows.. usually :18-;23; ;29:30-:35; :47-:54, TOTH :58:30-:06. So a listener was able to tune away and come back without missing content. NOW the hosts do a live read of the commercial in the middle a segment, but I can usually tell when they are about to do just that. Oh well
 
TheBigA said:
It's something Paul Harvey did as well back in the day, for basically the same reason.
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Actually everybody did it back in the day, Paul Harvey was just the last to integrate commercials into programming (until recently). Programs had sponsors (from which the show got its name), who owned the show and their ad agencies produced the show. The common practice was a cowcatcher and hitchhike to start and end the show, with an integrated middle commercial delivered by program talent and often integrated into the plot.
 
Oscar Madison said:
Actually everybody did it back in the day, Paul Harvey was just the last to integrate commercials into programming (until recently). Programs had sponsors (from which the show got its name), who owned the show and their ad agencies produced the show. The common practice was a cowcatcher and hitchhike to start and end the show, with an integrated middle commercial delivered by program talent and often integrated into the plot.
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The same model was used for sponsorship of the earlier TV series and shows. But as "demographics" replaced "households" as the key buzzword among marketers, advertisers wanted to improve reach, something a single show could not achieve. So spot TV became the predominant ad buy, just as it had on independent radio stations... and did in the last years of old-line network radio.
 
DavidEduardo said:


The same model was used for sponsorship of the earlier TV series and shows. But as "demographics" replaced "households" as the key buzzword among marketers, advertisers wanted to improve reach, something a single show could not achieve. So spot TV became the predominant ad buy, just as it had on independent radio stations... and did in the last years of old-line network radio.
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Nielsen didn't start reporting demographics until the 69-70 season. Ad agencies started moving earlier from sponsorship to shared (or alternate) sponsorship to spot buys when the cost of network TV time became prohibitive and agency "geniuses" decided they'd rather have reach than frequency (as a result TV advertising became less effective).
 
Oscar Madison said:
Nielsen didn't start reporting demographics until the 69-70 season.
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That's why I said "As demographics replaced households". Nielsen added household demographics at the insistence of agencies and advertisers, who were learning to target buys against specific consumer groups.

Agencies had already realized that putting all of an advertiser budget in one show was exclusionary and that such practices reduced reach in an increasingly crowded media environment.

Ad agencies started moving earlier from sponsorship to shared (or alternate) sponsorship to spot buys when the cost of network TV time became prohibitive and agency "geniuses" decided they'd rather have reach than frequency (as a result TV advertising became less effective).
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I'm curious why you think that spot is less effective in reaching consumers. It's not a commonly held point of view.

The more common view is that frequency increased with spot TV, as it allowed hitting more viewers more times due to the broader shotgun approach as opposed to the sniper method of getting some people multiple times in a single weekly TV show.
 
DavidEduardo said:


I'm curious why you think that spot is less effective in reaching consumers. It's not a commonly held point of view.

The more common view is that frequency increased with spot TV, as it allowed hitting more viewers more times due to the broader shotgun approach as opposed to the sniper method of getting some people multiple times in a single weekly TV show.
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No, it's not advertising CW. But with sponsorship, the advertising message and brand imagery was deeply and memorably inculcated into the listening or viewing audience, linked to well liked - often beloved - personalities and characters and resulting in deep brand loyalty. It's been more than 50 years since sponsorship fell out of favor (well before Nielsen started reporting demographics) and there are people still making purchase decisions because of personalities or characters on black and white television.
 
Oscar Madison said:
No, it's not advertising CW. But with sponsorship, the advertising message and brand imagery was deeply and memorably inculcated into the listening or viewing audience, linked to well liked - often beloved - personalities and characters and resulting in deep brand loyalty. It's been more than 50 years since sponsorship fell out of favor (well before Nielsen started reporting demographics) and there are people still making purchase decisions because of personalities or characters on black and white television.
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Anyone who remembers sponsored b&w TV shows has got to be pushing 70 now.

I'd counter that perspective with my point about increased fragmentation in audiences, making a single show, once a week, a poor reach vehicle.

And the focus on demographics... more commonly discussed in that era as "household characteristics"... came from advertisers many years before Nielsen responded by stratifying its reports.

Looking on demographics by advertisers goes back to buying ads on the sports pages for automotive services and the like.
 
The era of black and white television ended with the 1964-65 season (51 years ago). And this thread is about selling to the 65+ demo. People "pushing 70" can sponsored old time radio programs. People pushing 60 can probably remember black and white television, since families commonly watched TV shows together.
With the obsession on demographics has come targeted brands and targeted products. 50 years ago products were targeted broadly; products were likely positioned for "everyone." At least everyone not "out of it."
This was the so called age of conformity and homogeneity. People fit in; people assimilated. No need for demographic targeting in such a world.
 
I can remember Don Wilson, the announcer on the old (1930's) Jack Benny program pushing Jello to the ladies to make their nails stronger and more beautiful. My sister bought into that sales pitch but then discarded it when results didn't match expectations.

Likewise, American automobiles used to be advertised to a specific demographic. Packards and Buicks for professionals. Caddy's and Lincoln's for the wealthy show-it-off set. Chevy's and Ford's for the "Average American Family". And Studebakers and Nash's for the economy-focused.

People had "stations" and were expected to dress, talk, act and spend according to their "station". Look at any late 1930's or 1940's pre or close post war movie to get an idea of what this was. Cigarette brands focused their marketing on specific demographics (women, youth, ethnic minorities etc.). The war broke many of these old traditions up and the global economy has done the rest. The rise of the anti-hero in movies helped diversify themes - no longer were there just the good and bad guys but all shades of grey. The world became much more complicated with geo-politics and "good" and "bad" wars.

When I was growing up kids didn't wear shorts to school. Boys wore long pants and girls always wore dresses except on special occasions such as Sadie Hawkins Day. TV show like "Leave It To Beaver" were specifically designed to show the rest of the world the pinnacle of modern that the USA had reached (dad's wore suits and mom's wore dresses and pearls and we never ate using our fingers). We all knew the real world was different but that was the image the country wanted to portray.
 
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landtuna said:
When I was growing up kids didn't wear shorts to school. Boys wore long pants and girls always wore dresses except on special occasions such as Sadie Hawkins Day. TV show like "Leave It To Beaver" were specifically designed to show the rest of the world the pinnacle of modern that the USA had reached (dad's wore suits and mom's wore dresses and pearls and we never ate using our fingers). We all knew the real world was different but that was the image the country wanted to portray.
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Shows like "Leave it to Beaver" were not particularly successful or even shown other than in some English speaking nations. The language and situations were to colloquial and American, and did not relate to TV viewers in most of the rest of the world.

In some nations, at the time when the show debuted, there was no or very limited commercial TV. The kind of show that did "translate" into other cultures were ones like "Perry Mason" and other procedural scripted dramas. Perry was seen in over 50 countries in in the world.

CBS and ABC and NBC and the tv show producers had no interest in the image of America overseas. They did like the money they could make on syndication, and they knew the kind of show that would work universally.

The top US shows internationally in the 70's and 80's were ones like Magnum P.I. and the "A" Team, not All in the Family and The Jeffersons. Both those hit action shows, if anything, portrayed violence and mayhem to the international viewer. But the biggest shows were culturally attuned to the market... that's why TV in Latin America ran regionally syndicated soap operas and not fantasy world sitcoms from the US.
 
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Oscar Madison said:
The era of black and white television ended with the 1964-65 season (51 years ago).
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No, that was when most content was pushed in color, but still few homes had color TVs. It would not be until the beginning of the 70's that color TVs overtook black and white ones in the home.

And this thread is about selling to the 65+ demo. People "pushing 70" can sponsored old time radio programs. People pushing 60 can probably remember black and white television, since families commonly watched TV shows together.
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I think the cut-off point is more determined by what kind of TV a person had in the home.
 
TheBigA said:
How quaint. Futurist Malcolm Gladwell points to Prego Spaghetti Sauce as one of the first targeted products. No more one-size fits all:

http://ed.ted.com/lessons/malcolm-gladwell-on-spaghetti-sauce

Although the Burger King "Have It Your Way" campaign probably predates this.
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"Have it your way" was from the mid-70's. Prior to that, Burger King emphasized the size of the Whopper ("It takes two handle a Whopper"), when Mickey D had yet to introduce the Big Mac.
 
DavidEduardo said:


No, that was when most content was pushed in color, but still few homes had color TVs. It would not be until the beginning of the 70's that color TVs overtook black and white ones in the home.



I think the cut-off point is more determined by what kind of TV a person had in the home.
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Regardless, shows were produced in color and color was strongly promoted. People knew shows were in color, even if they still had black and white sets. Shows filmed in color look different, even on black and white sets. The shows were later re-run in color. Many black and white shows (or seasons in which shows had been filmed in black and white) disappeared from syndication (yes, with a handful of exceptions).
 
Oscar Madison said:
"Have it your way" was from the mid-70's. Prior to that, Burger King emphasized the size of the Whopper ("It takes two handle a Whopper"), when Mickey D had yet to introduce the Big Mac.
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I believe the Big Mac was around at least as early as 1969 as I have a pic of myself at WEEL eating one in the brief period I was at that station
 
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"The Big Mac is a hamburger sold by international fast food restaurant chain McDonald's. It was introduced in the metropolitan area of Pittsburgh, United States, in 1967 and nationwide in 1968. It is one of the company's signature products."
 
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