AT&T "New York Only" ad

I've been hearing an ad over and over and over on various streams from Cumulus, iHeart and possibly others. The scenario is a guy looking for a parking space so he can park and run into an AT&T store to take advantage of some NY-only deal.

On one overnight show the 15-sec. version often runs 8 times in a row during a 2-minute period between the TOH news and the program start. Very annoying.

Apparently the ad is being targeted to NY listeners. Trouble is, I don't live anywhere near NY.

Would you rather hear Cars For Kids over & over?

wadio said:

On one overnight show the 15-sec. version often runs 8 times in a row during a 2-minute period between the TOH news and the program start. Very annoying.

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It's illustrative of the difficulties of selling national radio advertising these days. I've noticed a number of syndicated music and talk shows, especially weekend shows, will play the same 30" ad two or three times in an hour.

I often wonder if companies like Progressive and Home Depot are really paying for all those plays, or if the networks are giving them bonus plays or steep discounts. I used to hear a lot more direct response ads on network radio at off-prime hours, but that seems to have lessened.

In this case the same spot is played back-to-back, not over a one hour period.

I'm guessing the 2-minute break is supposed to be filled with rotating spots, but if there's only one spot, that's your rotation.

The real question though is, why am I hearing NYC targeted ads? I don't live in NYC and I'm sure the advertiser is paying for NYC ears.

Does anyone know how these geo-targeted ads work? I'm hearing them on streams from around the country and it seems to be a recent development. For awhile it was occasional ads for the CT Lottery, now a deluge of AT&T NY ads.

were you listening to a New York station and where are you located at.

wadio said:

The real question though is, why am I hearing NYC targeted ads? I don't live in NYC and I'm sure the advertiser is paying for NYC ears.

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It depends on the platform, but they're supposed to be directed by your ISP address.

Online ads are often directed by browsing history, searches, and cookies.

Will_H_69_9 said:

were you listening to a New York station and where are you located at.

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No, I've heard the ad on stations in DC, Texas Tennessee, and California. I'm in Connecticut.

wadio said:

No, I've heard the ad on stations in DC, Texas Tennessee, and California. I'm in Connecticut.

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Connecticut is right next to NY. There are a lot of commuters there. If you said Iowa, I might understand.

I travel a lot and my laptop will sometimes retain memory of the IP address I was using from a previous location. So my homepage will give me weather from a place I was at a few days earlier.

BTW, I think geo-targeting is a really good idea and, while I've been listening to streaming radio for many years, this is the first time I've heard it attempted. Although it doesn't seem to be working as planned, I'm hoping this might be a trial run that will be tweaked to work correctly.

A friend of mine who works in IT was telling me how excited a Realtor client of his is to be able to precisely target ads on Pandora to the exact audience they want to reach. I know a car dealer who feels the same way. Clearly this is the future of advertising, and the opportunity for radio is ripe for the taking.

The radio infrastructure is in place, most stations have streams, what they need to do is monetize those streams. There are always comments on these forums about the audience these stations "don't care" about - wrong demo, wrong location, etc. Instead of not caring, they should start targeting meaningful ads to selected listeners.

These ads should be AUDIO ONLY! People in cars shouldn't be watching a screen, and they should be able to easily hit presets to change stations instead of taking their eyes off the road to fumble with different apps for different radio groups, then try to find the right station within each app.

I hope we're seeing signs of radio not giving up what should be a huge opportunity.

TheBigA said:

Connecticut is right next to NY. There are a lot of commuters there. If you said Iowa, I might understand.

I travel a lot and my laptop will sometimes retain memory of the IP address I was using from a previous location. So my homepage will give me weather from a place I was at a few days earlier.

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My location is nowhere near NY. I haven't been to Manhattan in several years and since I seldom listen to NY radio stations anymore I feel no closer to NY than, say, Boston. If I'm buying a phone I'm not driving to NY!

I hear you, David. My point is that the targeting needs to be much more precise. The proof of that may be that advertisers aren't lining up to buy it. OTA ads are replaced mostly by PSAs or bumper music, not with inserted ads as with Pandora for example. I think this is an area radio needs to get ahead of in order to ultimately stay alive. Hopefully this is a start.

My guess is it's a geo coding error, or lack of geo coding whatsoever in the particular spot. I've heard this happen on my Live365 station at least once. I know Live365 partners with advertising server companies like AdWizz, etc. The out of my markey spot I kept hearing was for a pizza place named something like Gary's pizza. The end of the ad kept saying to visit their website to find a location near me. When I did that, there were no locations in my state. I guess I should have notified Live365 so they could check with their Ad providers.

R

I heard a lot of bad reviews about AT & T.
Connecticut is next to New York, so I think that if you try, you will succeed.