On Easter Sunday evening I was driving in the car, while listening to sports radio. It was just about 8p.m. and a Sunday night baseball broadcast came on from Milwaukee. The announcer who began the Milawaukee Brewers' program was Bob Uecker, of "Major League" (the late 1980's baseball film) fame. Generally, I mentally tune out the introductory portion of any radio sports broadcast, because of the poor content that is offered at this time, but the presence of this prominent baseball personality caused my ears to perk up. Uecker began to set up the broadcast, and then went into presenting the organizations who were its sponsors. This somewhat cheesy form of advertising is very common in local sports radio coverage. Though it is a nuisance, the pain generally does not last very long, as there are usually just one or two companies that get mentioned. This occasion, however, was quite unusual, as 15 - 20 different sponsors were rhymed-off in succession.
In the past, perhaps I would not have thought too much about hearing a long stretch of advertisers referred to at the start of a baseball game. I have been studying Marketing for a number of months, though, and am now more critical of the use of advertising. The thought that crossed my mind was, "If you paid me 20 bucks to recite the names of half of the companies mentioned, I couldn't do it." So, if you couldn't pay someone to keep the names of these companies in their head for a matter of seconds, why would any company pay money in the hope that average listeners would remember the names of their business after the 3 hour sporting event had been completed. This thought made me start thinking. How many obviously useless marketing expenditures take place everyday, even at this time when companies are supposed to be watching their balance sheets?
No doubt, the baseball game sponsors paid relatively little money to have Mr. Ueker refer to their company. So, this is a cheap form of advertising. Furthermore, we are in a recession, so choosing cheap advertising is good, right? Well, as far as I am concerned, choosing to buy this ad space, no matter how little it costs, amounts to throwing money out the window. Just because something is cheap does not mean you should buy it. These companies would have been better off saving the money they spent on these ads, and either contributing it to other, more productive marketing ventures, or using it for some other company purpose. It's like when you go to Wal Mart and you see a whole bunch of DVD's on sale for five dollars, and you buy four of them, for a total of twenty dollars. You think to yourself, wow, I saved 5 dollars a piece (assuming full price is 10 dollars) on these DVD's. If a year down the road those DVD's are all still in their plastic wrap, you didn't save any money, you wasted twenty dollars. On the other hand, assume you had found two ten dollar (full price) DVD's that you were truly interested and purchased them. If a year down the road you had watched each DVD a few times, enjoying the entertainment you received, you would have got value for your twenty dollar purchase.
It is true that it is difficult for many companies to find cash in their budget to fund large advertising initiatives in this economic climate. At the same time, companies still need to reach their target consumers. Under these conditions, marketers shouldn't be hunting in the "bargain bin" for marketing ideas, as this will only make their situation worse: they will afterwards have less money to work with, and still need to communicate with their target market in a strong way. What they should do is be open to new ideas, and evaluate their potential marketing choices on the value it will offer to the company.
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