1 of 1- RadioActive
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Apparently NT1010's Commercial Traffic Dept. Doesn't Listen To NT1010
After the federal budget came out on Tuesday, one of the details highlighted was that the formerly announced "6% Beer Tax" had been lowered to 2%, likely in reaction to public and restaurant industry pressure. They discussed it quite thoroughly on CFRB's budget coverage, and then threw to a spot break.
And what was the first commercial listeners heard? That Bob & Doug McKenzie spot pleading with the feds not to raise the tax 6%. Clearly, this should have been pulled since it was no longer correct. But someone missed it. So you had the discussion about the tax being cut followed almost immediately by a spot arguing the tax isn't being cut.
I know they couldn't have known about it in advance, but someone in the traffic department wasn't paying attention and likely should have in case this happened - which was rumoured in advance. Normally, it wouldn't be such a big problem.
But on Tuesday, it felt like a glaring error.
It's enough to drive them to drink.
But, hey, at least it won't cost them as much.
- RadioAaron
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Re: Apparently NT1010's Commercial Traffic Dept. Doesn't Listen To NT1010
Even if someone in the traffic department heard it, it's not their job to unilaterally pull a commercial without the client's consent.
- Radiowiz
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Re: Apparently NT1010's Commercial Traffic Dept. Doesn't Listen To NT1010
RadioAaron wrote:
Even if someone in the traffic department heard it, it's not their job to unilaterally pull a commercial without the client's consent.
Translation: Bell did not want to have to refund the client for not airing an ad they paid to air.
RadioWiz & RadioQuiz are NOT the same person.
RadioWiz & THE Wiz are NOT the same person.
- RadioAaron
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Re: Apparently NT1010's Commercial Traffic Dept. Doesn't Listen To NT1010
Even if someone in the traffic department heard it, it's not their job to unilaterally pull a commercial without the client's consent.
Translation: Bell did not want to have to refund the client for not airing an ad they paid to air.
Sure? That's a pretty good reason to not impulsively delete commercials.
But it's not up to someone in a clerical role to assess the client's intent. The ad was just as irrelevant at 9am this morning as the budget has obviously already been determined.
For all we know, the client likes the juxtaposition of the news into their now "outdated" ad as it sounds like they can take credit for the announcement.
- RadioAaron
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Re: Apparently NT1010's Commercial Traffic Dept. Doesn't Listen To NT1010
And what was the first commercial listeners heard? That Bob & Doug McKenzie spot pleading with the feds not to raise the tax 6%. Clearly, this should have been pulled since it was no longer correct. But someone missed it. So you had the discussion about the tax being cut followed almost immediately by a spot arguing the tax isn't being cut.
I know they couldn't have known about it in advance, but someone in the traffic department wasn't paying attention and likely should have in case this happened - which was rumoured in advance. Normally, it wouldn't be such a big problem.
.I'm a Traffic Manager and that's not how it works.
As for listening to the station......no. Whoever does Traffic for 1010 is in Hamilton listening to whatever they want.
Or their desktop computer is in Hamilton and they're anywhere they want.
- RadioAaron
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Re: Apparently NT1010's Commercial Traffic Dept. Doesn't Listen To NT1010
In the end, this was probably a "the medium is the message" scenario, and the actual commercials were aimed at nobody, but rather were placed so the brewers could report to the shareholders that they'd spent money lobbying against the tax.
- betaylored
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Re: Apparently NT1010's Commercial Traffic Dept. Doesn't Listen To NT1010
Wonder how much they paid them to voice the spot and if it was in moolah or beer?
- Peter the K
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Re: Apparently NT1010's Commercial Traffic Dept. Doesn't Listen To NT1010
Perhaps the client asked for (and maybe even paid extra for) that spot to be aired during the talk about the budget expecting the 6% increase to be a fait accompli.
- RadioActive
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Re: Apparently NT1010's Commercial Traffic Dept. Doesn't Listen To NT1010
One last coda to this story. As mentioned, the feds cut their proposed beer tax from 6.3% to 2% in the federal budget. And the organizers of the campaign are adamant it wouldn't have happened without that radio spot starring Bob and Doug McKenzie.
"Convincing the Canadian comic duo of Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas to reprise their legendary beer-drinking characters, and even their catchphrases, to drum up opposition to the planned tax increase created a pressure movement beyond Helie’s expectations.
The radio spots attracted a steady stream of earned media — Bob and Doug hadn’t been seen together since 2017, for starters — and from there, the political tide seemed to suddenly turn in the industry’s favour.
MPs were...suddenly getting an earful about the excise tax."
A nice tribute to the power of radio and (SC)TV.
Battle of the bottle: How Canada’s alcohol industry got the Trudeau government to scale back a tax increase
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Thread Starter- RadioActive
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Re: Apparently NT1010's Commercial Traffic Dept. Doesn't Listen To NT1010
OK, they may have played this spot on Budget Day by mistake or design. But they just aired it again on Friday afternoon. It still says the tax is going up by 6% when we've known for days that it's not. That's just incompetent on either the station or the client or both. They knowingly aired wrong information. This time, there's no excuse.
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Thread Starter- AspectRatio
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Re: Apparently NT1010's Commercial Traffic Dept. Doesn't Listen To NT1010
Wonder how much they paid them to voice the spot and if it was in moolah or beer?
Apparently not enough - one of them (Moranis, I guess) is literally "phoning it in" in the spot. It is audibly a recording done over a phone line connection. Even 1010's "Moore in the Morning" remarked on this with John and Maureen Holloway when it first started airing.
In this day and age with smartphones able to record audio better than telephone audio quality direct to internal memory, much less support an external microphone or simple mixer setup, there's really no excuse for that. Or someone couldn't have come to Moranis with something like a Zoom handheld unit? Or he doesn't already have a modest podcast/radio interview setup at his laptop or desktop machine? Smacks of laziness and very incongruent for the listener when one participant (Dave Thomas) has superior audio and one is phoneline quality.