KIRO Trying Desperate Marketing Ploy Disguised as a Survey

[kyliebastel]

The postal official came to Kylie's house today. Normally that gets Kylie a little hot 'n bothered! ACK! LOL! EMBARRASSED KISS SMILEY

But, today, it was a lady letter carrier and she gave Kylie this postcard:

http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/5121/impacth.jpg

The card was in an envelope from Impact Research of Newton Square, PA. It said they were conducting a survey on "radio listening preferences" in Seattle and I'd been assigned to listen to KIRO-FM and respond with this card.

What a desperate and transparent effort to get people to tune-in to their flagging FM station. As the Tattler reported on this "Impact Research" outfit two years ago in Chicago:

The scheme is very similar to ones used in the past in the very
same market by competitors Bonneville and Salem. Area consultants,
among them Courtney Thompson of Thompson Marketing and
Management, have spoken out, decrying the survey. Thompson says,
“”This type of deception is beyond bogus – it is a pure form of trickery,
designed to literally ‘dupe’ people into tuning in to a radio station that
they would never listen to and [believing] that they are a part of a ‘survey’
just like Arbitron. These deceptive programs are designed only to trick
the consumer into listening and writing down a station they would never
listen to, all in the hopes that they will have coincidental timing with an
Arbitron [ratings] survey in-home or find a way to have at least some
residual ‘memory’ from the consumer when a diary arrives in the future.”

Wanna bet 100% of the "assigned stations" of "survey selectees" were KIRO? LMAO!

MANDATORY RADIO-INFO DISCLAIMER | ATTENTION BLATHERWATCH - PLEASE DO NOT REPURPOSE KYLIES POST ON RADIO-INFO FOR YOUR LITTLE KIRO VENDETTA BLOG AND DECLARE IT TO BE YOUR CRACK INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING YOU WERE "FIRST TO BREAK." MANY THANKS IN ADVANCE. SMILEY KISS WINK

[HowardMBurgers]

This trick is nothing new.  Back when 1090 was a music station as KING, they used to have a room full of folks doing "call-out research" introducing themselves to people on the phone as "Radio Index".  KING used to buy a list of phone numbers from people who at one time participated in a survey of some sort or entered a contest.  The same goes with direct mail pieces too.  The station buys a list of addresses or what they call "hot zip codes" and sends out these promotional tools labeled as "surveys".

If it makes you feel less violated, the station actually does look at the comments.  In other words, if you can include reasonable constructive comments that don't involve the end of radio, there is a reasonable chance someone in the upper ranks of programming there will read it.

[dialtwister]

Question remains: 

WHAT do you 'get' in return??

[kyliebastel]

In other words, if you can include reasonable constructive comments that don't involve the end of radio ...

ACK! Sounds like Kylie's card is headed for the circular file then ...

My other comments about News Talk 97.3 FM are:

If you spent 5 minutes trying to be cognizant to your surroundings and advances in science outside the limited spectrum of awareness created by Talkers magazine, you might know that your radiowaves will all be repurposed for wireless energy transmission in the next 5-10 years and all over-the-air radio stations required to cycle down. Why are you even trying? You should be spending your energy looking at jobs training programs instead of sending out these little postcards that will see you through the sunset of this dying industry that has as much vitality left to it as does pay phone or typewriter manufacturing.

[HowardMBurgers]

Question remains: 

WHAT do you 'get' in return??

In reality I guess their undying gratitude, plus more 'surveys' in the future. (With the exception of Kylie of course who will be written off as a loon.)  No offense intended...

Really when you think about it, as a whole it's a pretty good deal for them.  They get you to sample a station that chances are you may not be a regular listener of and they get feedback of somebody who probably listened not just a percentage on a page from a ratings organization.

[AQH]

If you took the time to read the card and not over-sensationalize it as if they're tearing your limbs off, you'd see that there are no call letters in there, only calling it "News Talk 97.3."  No KIRO-FM, I find that interesting.

[kyliebastel]

Ever since I made this post there has been a News Talk 97.3FM SUV parked outside my house. I FIND THIS HIGHLY SUSPICIOUS. About an hour ago I stormed out of my house dressed only in my bloomers and hair curlers to find out what they wanted and they hauled ass like a bat outta hell. As of about 15 minutes ago they're back.

I'll keep you all up-to-date.

[jupiter2]

I got one of these too.

Harmless. Spending money for customer aquisition is at least "some" marketing. I think many of us would be grateful to see more dollars spent competing instead of cutting, no?

[kyliebastel]

If it's so harmless why doesn't KIRO just send a postcard that says "please listen to our radio station for one hour - we are so desperate and in such a state of imploding ruin that, even if you listen for just one hour, it will help us out" instead of misleading the public that they are participating in a survey and saying 'you have been selected to listen to KIRO by the radio research firm of blah blah blah' ...

The Chicago Tribune's expose on this deceptive marketing by Bonneville in Chicago was on the money and they were right to call them to the carpet.

If something's harmless you can tell the truth about it.

lying is never harmless

Mommy, why does KIRO lie?

[kyliebastel]

If it's so harmless why doesn't KIRO just send a postcard that says "please listen to our radio station for one hour - we are so desperate and in such a state of imploding ruin that, even if you listen for just one hour, it will help us out" instead of misleading the public that they are participating in a survey and saying 'you have been selected to listen to KIRO by the radio research firm of blah blah blah' ...

The Chicago Tribune's expose on this deceptive marketing by Bonneville in Chicago was on the money and they were right to call them to the carpet.

If something's harmless you can tell the truth about it.

lying is never harmless ... tricking people into actualizing your call-to-action is unethical in the extreme

Mommy, why does KIRO lie?

(Kylie's already forwarded her postcard to the FTC ... yes, that's a "T" in the middle, not a "C.")

MANDATORY RADIO-INFO DISCLAIMER | ATTENTION BLATHERWATCH - PLEASE DO NOT REPURPOSE KYLIES POST ON RADIO-INFO FOR YOUR LITTLE KIRO VENDETTA BLOG AND DECLARE IT TO BE YOUR CRACK INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING YOU WERE "FIRST TO BREAK." MANY THANKS IN ADVANCE. SMILEY KISS WINK