Radio Ad?

Matfinn

I was thinking about this idea today. Do you think it would be a good idea to have some sort of radio ad on local and national radio stations. The ad would go like this

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Would you like flatrate high speed internet access at a cost of only £20 a month? With this new service you can go online for unlimited amount of time, at blisteringly fast speeds, meaning you can get the most out of the internet at home for you and your kids, or you can increase your productivity at work nearly tenfold. You could open your business to the world markets, meaning your customers could be anywhere in the world, not just down the road. Would you like to have the power at your fingertips?? Affordable internet access has come to the masses, except for those living in Ireland. You live in Ireland?? Ah tough ****, this ad doesnt apply to you. Slán. Visit www.irelandoffline.com for more details.

We could have the ad on local radio stations and maybe one on RTE radio one, whom have a massive listnership

Any ideas?

Matt

b20uvkft6m5xwg

Nice idea Matt but repropose the suggestion in the context of....

£££ (or lack of)

Thats not saying with the help of our membership we could not forumulate a targeted media strategy. So far though a low(no:p) budget approach has been fairly successful, so I'd say if ppl were to contibute to such, they would want to see a corelation between cost and results, IMO.

Matfinn

Well about having to pa for the ads, maybe we could ask the radio stations to play it once for free. Wouldnt they do that? If you were to ask local stations like FM104 in Dublin, Highland Radio in Donegal, and even Clare FM for instance, could they play the ad once would they do it for free given the cause? Maybe approachine the big boys like RTE and 2fm could come later. Would you all be willing to throw in a quid towards a radio ad. We could collect the money at our next meet maybe?

Matt

yellum

Its a good idea. Some of these Anti-Corruption people / Anti-Mega Business groups started a brilliant media campaign that got a hell of a lot of attention during the last USA Presidential Election.

They called themselves "Billionaires for Bush (or Gore) "

They styled themselves as Billionaires who wanted either Bush or Gore to get in. They had great catchphrases such as " Because Inequality Is Not Growing Fast Enough " , " We're Bipartisan --We Buy Republicans AND Democrats " and " We're paying for America's free elections (so you don't have to) "



Did some really good media releases.

A very cool pic a mix of Bush and Gore


Theres an article about it here:

http://www.guerrillanews.com/truth_virus/

The satirical site is here: http://www.billionairesforbushorgore.com

They got a hell of a lot of coverage with it and the catchphrases they used caught on.

I'd also support some radio ads and would contribute money towards them.

billy the squid

well for the radio adverts and paying for them you can count me in

Matfinn

Do you think we could include Whitney Heustons my love is your love tune in the background for that radio ad? Eircom dont have copyright over that song, so we could use it legally. We would have to seek copyright of the song from her record company but I think for that extra touch it might be a nice idea. We might even be able to do a cover of the song, like 'my line is your line and your line is our line' ....... 'it would take an eternity to get dsl ' blah blah ..... -->

What do you think??

Matt

Dustaz

This is a good idea, but more than likely unfeasible

While Radio advertising is obviously not as expensive as TV advertising, its still pricey for a campaign (playing the ad once on clarefm is pointless). Add to that the HUMUNGOUS amount you would have to pay to use the Whitney track and its out of range for a body like Ireland Offline.

Even if the money could be found, it would be MUCH better spent advertising an event such as the blackout or the seminar. That way theres something tangible for your audience to grasp.

An alternative idea is to approach DJ's and Journalists with Ioffl's manifesto. If they are onside and give Ireland Offline a mention a few times, it would increase awareness no end. Advertising is only really publicity after all. This where the comittee comes in. This is something they already do (in answer to those "weh, why is there nothing happening!" posts )

I know Sinister Pete from PhantomFM reads these boards, so g'wan pete, give some publicity to the cause
Also, wasnt there a 2fm DJ posting here for a while?

b20uvkft6m5xwg

Thats an idea Dustaz!

Phantom have a huge listnership and they too know a thing or too about fighting beaucracy. We could always research the idea- A mate of mine and his band are paying for their new single to be promoted and they're broke so I must find out how much it costs. The other advantage is that Phantom do all the production of ads in house and they would prolly do a nice little informative piece for us. Also they are quite a tech savvy bunch who must know about the shít state of the net in Ireland.

PLUS...
They blacked out their Website on the Day!!
So maybe Pete and Paul Clarke might be able to oblige w/ a bit of ex-gratia promotion! We should look into it:)

exiztone2k

well if you need money, ill be glad to pay $20 along as everyone else does to pay for it run a few times, I think it would be a pretty good idea, it would also look good in the newspaper I might add =P

Fergus

If we were gonna raise funds for advertising, I'd be more inclined to go for something in print where you can state some facts with some detail.

We have to remember this is quite a technical issue in ways.. only a small proportion of the public know anything about modems, broadband or the difference between them. Even per-minute vs flat-rate can get eyes glazing over.

Also, the general public have low expectations of what the internet can deliver or is useful for [partly due to careful expectation management over the years by telco-owned ISPs]. Therefore, they don't see the point of being always on in the first place.

These sort of things are well nigh impossible to address in a 30 second radio ad.

The sort of publicity we have been getting in news articles to date has been pretty effective (elana/adam in particular take bow). You have to ask whether supplementing this with ads would make much difference.

b20uvkft6m5xwg

I agree with you there Fergus in terms of the limitations of the medium. I suppose the advantages of perhaps getting some relativley cheap yet wide advertising is clouding my realism on the situation. On a general point of principle I would not propose a national Radio advert due to the absurdity of the cost, but given Phantom are supporters it is something worth exploring...Of which I will ! (If only in summary:))

disConnected

I'd certainly throw in a couple of quid, let's say a tenner or so...
Who else would? Think! That's not even the price of four pints!!! Don't tell me you can't afford it.
Let's assume every member would throw in £10 (could this be done by a once off membership-fee?) we would have over 10k.
Should that not be enough for a small ads-campaign?

Baz_

Fergus points out some powerful points in that it is better to get something in print, something people can cut out and keep (if they are so inclined). This means as he said you can go into much more detail and explain things a lot better and people can read it again and again.

However if it were possible to get free advertisement (or at the very least cheap) then why not investigate that also. I'm sure that a radio ad would bring in a few people and then they can visit the website and read all the printed media they can lay their hands on. As well as a few sound clips, and then they can be even further incensed when the clips take an age to download;)

However if you were to advertise in a newspaper, you would have to choose with care which one.

just a couple of (im sure already thought of) points.

Baz_

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P.S. what about the other two radio stations whose forums are hosted here, you could approach them...
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Dustaz

Newspaper ads sounds like a lot better idea costwise, altho i think it would still be fairly costly for an organisation like Ioffl, i can look into it.
What i will say is that with any advertising campaign, it is important to have something to offer. Ioffl does not really offer a service, so it might be wise to hold off on these sort of ideas untill there is an event to publicise such as the seminar.
For example, When do you ever see ads for Political Parties? only when there is an election.

If you advertise Ioffl with no hook, people are left saying (excuse the paraphrase) "Wow, thats really interesting". If however there is some sort of event or service hooked onto it then they are more likely to remember it.

Still, its worth talking to those heros of free radio wan Phantom

Edit: Phantom do a show called Anorak Hour - Karma or what?:)

yellum

Why not do a test media campaign first, get some free ads in local papers or on radio stations. Fair enough if it doesn't get the mass coverage but if one person is educated and wants to do more to help than its a success.

This recruits and educates more people, its free and its also good experience in managing a media campaign, no matter how small the initial campaign is. It will allow IrelandOffline to polish their campaigns and let them know what works and what doesn't and what illicits the best responses.