Re: Boat Business Makes Bonehead Error
I went through something similar with a local radio station and a series of promotions about 10 years ago. We had two stations competing for our business, both did promo ads for review. The one station, the far larger of the two was clueless, they couldn't get the name right, couldn't get the phone number right, couldn't even get the address or dates right. I finally gave up and awarded the contract to the second station and one smaller station, who turned out to be the best deal overall. The problem was that the salesman couldn't or wouldn't take the time to listen, he was too busy on his cell phone during the first meeting or sales pitch, then their staff was even more clueless. After about 8 demo tapes, I gave up and told them to take a hike. No contract had been signed and never would be by me with that crew. The bad part is that they were the #1 in the area for ratings, but I found them absolutely impossible to deal with. We weren't talking about a few thousand bucks, but a years worth of ads to be run on 7 area stations they owned. None were stations I'd ever listen to myself but the younger crowd did. About a year into our contract with the smaller network, the larger station was bought out by the #2 station, and we began to have issues with ad content and accuracy with that company after that. They had merged and taken on the same people that couldn't get it right before. It got so bad I finally dumped the who idea and went with simple, shorter spots on a few smaller, more local stations. Dealing with idiots just wasn't worth my time.
I've been out of that business for 8 years now, and moved far from that area, but the last time I talked to anyone there, all but one of those stations are gone now or have changed programming completely. No one station there dominates the ratings these days, and I don't thing any of the original staff remains at any of those stations.
