The "voiced endorsement" is an intimate relationship between advertiser and radio personality. These endorsements put a deep impression into the listener's brain. Whenever I see Gold Bond Powder — usually on a low shelf in the drug store — I still hear the voice of Barry Farber, coming to me from 50 years ago, personally explaining this product I would never have noticed otherwise. I mean, I think I pick it out among all the other products because Barry Farber created and nurtured that consumer-product bond — that Gold Bond — all those many decades ago. I Googled to see if I could find an old Barry Farber Gold Bond endorsement, and what came up at the top of my results is my old blog post from last year, relating Rush Limbaugh to Barry Farber. In the comments, I write:
It's the kind of radio ad where the host starts talking about the product, and you might be fooled at first about whether it's an ad or not. It's like what Barry Farber used to do with Gold Bond Powder. Rush used to do it with mattresses and hot water heaters. It's a long-time traditional style of radio ad.Mattresses. You've got millions of people associating your mattresses with Rush Limbaugh — yes, what an image! but it's indelible — and then you kick him out of bed. All those people you met through your mattress-mate, they don't want to be your friends anymore. And you find out you didn't really have other friends, and then Rush won't take you back. It's a lonely life! An empty mattress!
***
Here's the Wikipedia article on Barry Farber, who is still alive, 80 years old.
After nearly failing Latin in the ninth grade, that summer Farber started reading a Mandarin Chinese language-learning book. A trip to Miami Beach, Florida to see his grandparents coincidentally put him in the midst of a large number of Chinese navy sailors in training there. His Chinese rapidly improved. Back in Greensboro, he took up Italian, Spanish, and French on his own before summer vacation was over. He started taking French and Spanish classes in his sophomore year and also learned Norwegian on his own while in high school....Have you ever studied a foreign language on your own, because you were interested in it and liked studying language? I have! I didn't make Farberesque progress, however. Some people enjoy memorizing things, and uploading foreign language vocabulary into your brain is an engaging project.
Barry Farber has knowledge of more than 25 languages... He has published a book titled How to Learn Any Language that details his method for self-study. It is based around a multi-track study of the language, the use of memory aids for vocabulary, and the utilization of "hidden moments" throughout the day.
Posts
73 comments:
Sleep Train and other companies shouldn't listen to leftwing astroturfers attempting to pretend they are actual customers boycotting their company.
Public service organizations don't want their PSA's airing on Limbaugh's show for free.
'nuf said!
As to when Rush replaces (rumors are he already has) every company who pulled their ads . . .
will it also garner a New York Times front page story?
This conservative has ranted on this very blog about Rush's blindness towards struggling Americans, and additional complaints I have against him.
But if the MSM doesn't report such things as above - allowing the truth to be told about the lameness and ineffeciveness of "the boycotts", well, it's just another reason for people to give up reading or beleieving anything from the MSM.
rush just turned leftist lemmons in to lemonade.
the commies just blew their wad, their boycott threats have lost whatever credibility they had. rush just made them their bitches. the guy knows his business, hate him or like him but he is a real pro at what he does.
you heard here first folks:
january 20 2013 rush is still on the on the air obama is out of work.
It's tough being a business in the US with its leftist-dominated culture.
The MSM, Hollywood, and nearly all schools/universities follow the PC religion. You cannot escape its purview.
Lefty religion demands that the sinner and heretic be shunned, with a public demonstration of that shunning from those businesses sucked into the latest Bad Thing by a Nonbeliever.
But the choir doesn't pay the bills. In fact, the choir doesn't give a shit about your business.
They just want to make sure you kneel.
Where is Alpha today?
I was sure he'd want to weigh in on this.
PS Don't look good for Carbonite, do it?
pogo all true what you said but at the end of the day money talks and bullshit walks. and rush just showed them where the money is. radio advertisers just had a major lesson taught to them. a lesson they soon won't forget.
Public service organizations don't want their PSA's airing on Limbaugh's show for free.
...and more heartbroken his listeners could not conceivably be.
Sleep Train made a decision that it didn't want its Brand associated with Rush
Rush's audience didn't like that, and shared their displeasure with both Rush and Sleep Train.
Sleep Train regrets its loss of sales, and only then its dumping Rush
Sleep Train wants its sales back, thus Rush
Rush doesn't want to continue to anger his audience by being the spokesman for a firm like Sleep Train AND if he were now to reindorse them, it would be apparent that he was only doing so for the bucks (thus weakening the Rush Brand)
Sleep Train, you F'd up. Deal with your marketing lesson. a Great HBS study in the making...
If Harvard would actually reference Rush :)
Down goes Frazier!
Does Sleep Train make the Sleep Number bed? Its not clear if they do, or if they are two separate companies. I've never heard Rush do an ad for Sleep Train but I've herad him do "reads" for Sleep Number countless times.
@cubanbob
Full agreement. They only control the media and schools (and a majority of the gubmint), but they don't control spending.
Hence the shitty Volt sales, ethanol/wind farm unprofitability, Dixie Chicks CD sales, and shitty Hollywood revenues from their propaganda.
Nobody wants to buy the shit they make, so the gubmint has to pay for it.
In the free market, you can't even get people to watch Like Lions For Lambs or Game Change for free.
What Drill Sgt said. You dont ignore an audience of some 20 million if you want to stay in business.
Shilo--perhaps NPR can fill the gap and make PSAs--dont see why Mr Limbaugh has to give up good advertising revenue to do PSAs.
The Rush Housekeeping Seal of Approval is not to be given away lightly.
That is what Rush specializes in: a trust relationship he has established with his listeners by not lying about politics...mistakes sometimes... but not lies.
Sleep Train is about to learn what a "dirt nap" is...at least in a business sense.
I told you this would happen and it happened in spades. Now sleep train is left holding the bag of the left over two fucking words. MORONS!!! You've killed your cash cow because you let political correctness infest your business and branding model. IDIOTS!!!
Sleep Train wants its sales back, thus Rush
You're trusting an article from The Blaze, dude. Notice they didn't publish the email?
"rush just turned leftist lemmons in to lemonade.
the commies just blew their wad, their boycott threats have lost whatever credibility they had. rush just made them their bitches. the guy knows his business, hate him or like him but he is a real pro at what he does."
You think so? Here's the message I think companies are getting:
"If we advertise on rush we reach a big market but sooner or later he says something atrocious causing us a huge PR nightmare, then when we condemn him the dittoheads throw a tantrum and we have an even bigger PR nightmare. The only safe bet is not to ever advertise on his show."
If you think that's a winning message for Rush I got some dead air to sell you...
If Sleep Train publicly apologizes for its intemperate act, isn't Rush, as someone who has apologized for his intemperate remarks, duty bound to take them back?....Boycotts don't work when they are applied against Cuba. Boycotts work when they are applied against Iran....If Rush is taken off the air, free speech prospers. If Bill Maher is silenced, the first amendment is diminished....I know it builds brand awareness, but are there any fans of Rush, so crazed by their love for him, that they would buy a mattress just on his say so? On the other hand, are there any Rush haters so driven by their animosity towards him that they wouldn't consider buying the mattress if it was cheaper or superior to the competing product?
Shilo--non profits dont like to take tainted money--their problem is, of course, their taint enough of it. (old joke in the non-profit sector)
Tlaloc: If that's the case, they wouldn't be wanting to go back.
The lesson is that they should go with Carbonite's first response: "This is all business, not an endorsement of what this guy says."
Sort of like what they do when getting advertising with left leaning personalities.
oops: their should read there
"Tlaloc said...
If you think that's a winning message for Rush I got some dead air to sell you..."
Maybe on Air America.
"Hence the shitty Volt sales..."
If the government can force us to buy insurance, can it force us to buy a Volt?
James said...
Does Sleep Train make the Sleep Number bed?
Believe so. I know Sleep Number was also said to have bailed.
WV "plazi" National Socialist in a swanky Gotham hotel.
Here's the message I think companies are getting:
"If we advertise on rush we reach a big market but sooner or later he says something atrocious causing us a huge PR nightmare, then when we condemn him the dittoheads throw a tantrum and we have an even bigger PR nightmare. The only safe bet is not to ever advertise on his show."
Hysterical.
Um, there was no "PR nightmare" at all.
There were a few loud & vocal leftists "boycotting" a bunch of products they never bought.
Guess which group is larger:
A. Rush's audience
B. The leftwing "boycotters"
And since the example here is of a company wanting to go back to Rush's show for advertising, we know that "A" is larger.
But you carry on in those delusions.
With interchangeable products, like mattresses/toothpaste, people will usually go for the lowest cost.
However, if a company goes out of its way to piss off a customer, the customer may be willing to pay extra to punish that company.
Because people are not always rational actors in an economy. This is why good will should be spent sparingly. I find it odd that people think that boycotting Rush makes sense, but then wonder what sort of nut cases would dare boycott businesses boycotting Rush, as though boycotts were some sort of strange tool only legitimately able to be used by one side in a debate.
pogo but for the stupidity and whorishness of rino's like orin hatch hollywood would be on their the republicans. now if mittens who will probably be the next president wouldvupon taking office take a page from the left and wage jihad against hollywood the dynamic would change in a heart beat.
lets see just for starters the irs goes after hollywood for all of it's fradulent financials. the doj goes after the cable companies as monopolies and sues to have them unbundle.
congress strips them of the special copyright law excemptions not available to others and tightens the originality requirements and amplifies the fair use doctrine.
congress imposes a hefty gross receipts like there was tax on movie tickets, rentals, downloads ( like in the fifties) and does the same with the music industries.
congress imposes a hefty gross receiptsctax on over the air broadcasters as a royalty for the use of the public's property.
hollywood would form a line from la to nyc just blow mittens.
These little lessons in free markets and capitalism are very instructive--thats why NPR needs government subsidies and Mr Limbaugh seems to be doing OK.
Bueller?
Well, there's an old advertising maxim (and it's conventional wisdom in politics, too) that says if a customer takes the time to write a letter or call, you can bet that there are 10 other people who feel the same way but didn't call.
Presumably Sleep Train got enough calls or e-mails to realize not that they'd stepped in it so much, but that perhaps the response they got was indicative of a great many more pissed off people. Hence the attempted return.
YMMV
Um, there was no "PR nightmare" at all.
I worked in PR for many years. Most "PR nightmares" are prompted by activist groups, maybe 70 percent from the left and 30 percent from the right (very unscientific).
Most activist groups' core skill is creating PR nightmares for their enemies. Saul Alinsky was about nothing else.
It seems like the point of Media Matters is to send rapid signals to left activist groups when a host like Limbaugh or Imus presents them an opportunity to break out their high horse.
Sometimes the best PR advice to a company involved in a PR Nightmare (especially on a secondary level like these mattress and cloud computing companies) is to put out a holding statement that preserves the ability to take action later, but not now.
I think what Rush did stinks to high heaven. I think he's a woman-hater. I think his string is near the end, when you compare his broadcasts from 20 years ago to now. He's about as "entertaining" as a dental drill.
BUT... if I had a company advertising on his show, I would have done whatever I could to avoid taking a stand until I could see how this played out. Sleep Train's PR people mis-served them -- perhaps because they were liberals themselves, as most PR people are, and assumed they and their friends' reactions were the same as Rush's listeners or Sleep Train customers.
Someone remind me of how Air America did? clearly did not understand markets
Meade: like tainted money, the problem with skanks leaning up against lampposts, there taint enough of them (I kid)
"Sleep Train". I get sluttiness from this name.
Sleep Train... Sleep Around Train... Slut Train. Like a slinky skanky train leaning against a lampost, hiking up its skirt, whistling, blowing its horn. Its horny horn. Its porny horny horn.
El Rushbo will be better off without that train of many numbers. He'll find a new train, a good train. A nice old-fashioned conservative true train.
Christopher in MA said...
Well, there's an old advertising maxim (and it's conventional wisdom in politics, too) that says if a customer takes the time to write a letter or call, you can bet that there are 10 other people who feel the same way but didn't call.
The TV nets always assume it's 1000.
Markets are cruel things--as, I believe, they are where people spend their money for the things they want to have...mattresses, skanks, chevy volts, or any number of other things.
Milton Freidman's Capitalism and Freedom should be required reading.
I'd say that Rush and his audiences have gone to the mattresses. Like the Corleones, don't bet against them.
cubanbob wrote:
[J]anuary 20 2013 rush is still on the on the air obama is out of work.
At least 50% of this is certainly true. 46 days later I expect to be $1000 richer when shiloh pays up.
Shiloh backed the Barzinis.
"Like the Corleones, don't bet against them."
-- Wait, I thought the Corleones lose everything in the end. Or are we just talking about the first part?
edutcher said...
James said...
Does Sleep Train make the Sleep Number bed?
Believe so. I know Sleep Number was also said to have bailed.
They're a regional chain of matress retailers in California.
Cut 'em some slack people! What matress retailer wants to piss off the slut and prostitute demographic?
garage mahal said...You're trusting an article from The Blaze, dude.
Not so fast there ... dude.
shiloh said...
Public service organizations don't want their PSA's airing on Limbaugh's show for free.
'nuf said!
3/9/12 10:09 AM
it might be a stretch for you to consider but rush isn't in the business to give away free airtime and probably still has all of his air time slots sold. now i don't know about you but if i owned the station unless required to i wouldn't give away free air time unless it had some beneficial effect for me. i know its hard to conceive but businesses are in the business of making money and freebies are only given if the customer would generate even more revenue if given it. what psa is going give rush more business? i would love to know.
Here's an exercise:
The Susan G. Komen foundation recently was browbeaten into re-activating the funding for Planned Parenthood. Compare and contrast this with the Rush Limbaugh Radio Show and it's advertisers decisions to pull out and then change their mind?
Quaestor said...
cubanbob wrote:
[J]anuary 20 2013 rush is still on the on the air obama is out of work.
At least 50% of this is certainly true. 46 days later I expect to be $1000 richer when shiloh pays up.
3/9/12 12:03 PM
Better get him to post a cash bond or find a fool who you can lay the bet off on. Just don't plan on spending the money yet.
it might be a stretch for you to consider but rush isn't in the business to give away free airtime and probably still has all of his air time slots sold. now i don't know about you but if i owned the station unless required to i wouldn't give away free air time unless it had some beneficial effect for me. i know its hard to conceive but businesses are in the business of making money and freebies are only given if the customer would generate even more revenue if given it. what psa is going give rush more business? i would love to know.
My understanding is that the FCC requires broadcasters to regularly broadcast PSAs as part of their programming.
"My understanding is that the FCC requires broadcasters to regularly broadcast PSAs as part of their programming."
-- I think we mean different things here. When I hear what you say they have to run, I think the emergency drills, etc. When I hear PSA, I think "Drugs are bad kids" type messages.
Joe Dirt said...
Here's an exercise:
The Susan G. Komen foundation recently was browbeaten into re-activating the funding for Planned Parenthood. Compare and contrast this with the Rush Limbaugh Radio Show and it's advertisers decisions to pull out and then change their mind?
3/9/12 12:31 PM
Lets see when their financial year for this year ends first. Maybe Kommen will suffer maybe not if progressives open their wallets. However even if it were true that Komen suffered initially from the right and left backlash and was finally made whole by giving in to the left it only points that boycotts can work both ways, not only in the left's direction.
And Rush isn't in the public sector so one may not apply to the other. Now if a republican congress were to cutoff government funding to abortion providers I wonder if progressives could be brow beaten in to coming up with the difference.
Don't look good for Carbonite, do it?
Carbonite has lost about 10% of it's value since last Monday (the first trading day after they baled). Observe the volume spike on Tuesday.
@Meade
"Sleep Train... Sleep Around Train... Slut Train. Like a slinky skanky train leaning against a lampost, hiking up its skirt, whistling, blowing its horn. Its horny horn. Its porny horny horn."
Sounds like it's been a long winter in Madison, eh?
You gotta feel bad for the employees of these companies. They just got used by the left in the left's eternal quixotic bid to silence Rush, and thrown away when their usefulness expired.
Reminds me of Cindy Sheehan.
Now we shall look at EMC Corporation, parennt company of Carbonite's chief competitor here.
They also had a volume spike on Tuesday but about three hours later.
Roger J. said...
Milton Freidman's Capitalism and Freedom should be required reading.
Highly rec amended. I would add Thomas Sowell's 'Basic Economics' as well
Break up in haste, repent at leisure!
@Rusty Close up those extra spaces. I don't want to have to delete, but I don't like people appropriating blank space like that.
Rusty needs to bring his/her knees together, metaphorically.
Matthew
"are there any fans of Rush, so crazed by their love for him, that they would buy a mattress just on his say so? On the other hand, are there any Rush haters so driven by their animosity towards him that they wouldn't consider buying the mattress if it was cheaper or superior to the competing product?"
In a word...yes.
Sorry---
William not Matthew.
Sleep Train's PR people mis-served them -- perhaps because they were liberals themselves, as most PR people are, and assumed they and their friends' reactions were the same as Rush's listeners or Sleep Train customers.
THIS is a very important point.
While Sleep Train is a chain of stores in California, it is a very big mistake to think that California is mostly liberals.
You can drive from one end of California to the other down the I-5 and I can guarantee you that not only will you be able to listen to Rush on dozens of AM stations, you will be in certifiably and reliably Republican and Conservative counties.
Even in the Bay area, once outside of Bezerkely and SF proper, the tone of politics is decidedly more conservative.
Sleep Train just pissed off a huge portion of their customer base.
Because, as stated, the PR guys and those workers who are domiciled in the liberal enclaves, live in a little bubble of their own making.
I bet they never discussed this with the guys who own and operate the franchise in the 'real world'.
@wyo sis: I bet their numbers approximate those of law school students who need financial subsidies of their birth control pills.
Quaestor sleeps w/the fishes ...
Continuing the Althouse inanity!
>
"but I don't like people appropriating blank space like that."
The many conservatives who actually do fill up the space w/vacuous babble notwithstanding.
I still hear the voice of Barry Farber..
It was while listening to Barry Farber that I came to realize I was a conservative.
Several years ago we went to our local Sleep Train to buy a Sleep Number bed. The salesman asked how we had heard about the store, and I said, on the Rush Limbaugh show. we didn't buy the bed because Rush said to, but I wanted to see if the guy would flinch when I said Rush's name (he didn't).
Heard on the Rush station this a.m. (with the earlier morning guys) that Sleep Train had been with Rush since his earliest Sacramento days. Sleep Train at the time had two stores in the Sacto area. The morning guys said they had heard that Rush felt such loyalty to Sleep Train that he had never raised their advertising rates.
Payback's a bitch.
I remember listening to Paul Harvey growing up, because my parents had him on. In my 20s I would sometimes listen to him on the car radio if I happened to be driving when he was on.
One day he told about an old concert hall that was reworked to improve the acoustics. After a long and glowing description of the improvement, he revealed that the redesign was done by Bose, one of his long-time sponsors.
I felt used. I never listened to him again.
Ignorance
I really get what you're saying. I feel the same way when Bill Mahr, Chris Matthews, Barak Obama, etc. speak. It's just one long endless commercial for social engineering.
So have you guys decided yet who is the biggest slut and the most debauched? I always thought I was up there. I've heard outrageous claims and most of the time listened to them and stood there quietly pleased with myself for being worse but sometimes surprised and learned something. But now that this came along and this new information about cost, now I don't feel so sanguinary about it. I mean sanguine. I take this woman's sluttish tales to be true and if cost is the measure she and her friends surpass me in our sluttish pursuits, tales she suggested by citing the cost of them. Gauche. I mean gosh. What action am I missing? I'm going to have to start saying 'yeah okay' a lot more often and probably drink a lot more too in order to catch up.
Awesome - a Barry Farber reference!
My much older half-brother was a electronic & ham radio expert and I remember many nights as a kid listing to genius of Farber (who helped teach me common sense for US & world events in the midst of nuclear FUD), the wacko of San Francisco Joe Pyne who hated everyone equally and passionately), and the wonder of story telling Jean Shepherd. Also that nut job Garner Ted Armstong - he used to scare the crap out me.
Radio once ruled my world and twas no happier than being 8 years old with the 9-volt transitor radio under my pillow tuning in WLAC Nashville Tennesse to Randy's Record Shop or a few years later to Jack Armstrong from WKYC Cleveland or from clear channel stations from all over the eastern & central US.
DX'ing rules!!
There's an old saying that goes something like "Now you've torn the blanket". At which point the two sides are NEVER going to get back together.
Limbaugh/El Rushbo etc is a blowhard and sometimes a buffoon. But he's an entertaining buffoon and I listen to him from time to time.
He went way overboard on Ms. Fluke--not that she didn't have somethimg coming with the bravura basket of bullshit that played boffo to Nancy Pelosi's minority committee. You could see her turn and smirk to supporters in the audience. Frankly I think it was an operation run out of the White House.
So Limbaugh lost his cool and got his fingers rapped a bit. He'll survive. Some of his "former" advertisers are going to take a hit. When my Carbonite subscription is up, I won't renew. There are other companies that provide the same service--without the posturing political drama.
Pop!
I remember listening to Joe Pyne when my dad was driving. I thought about him just the other day and wondered what he'd have to say about Ms Fluke. And, to keep in the theme, I remember Jean Shepherd as well. I'd rather listen to him than any one on the radio today. He was brilliant and I don't remember him saying slut even once.
Lets see when their financial year for this year ends first. Maybe Kommen will suffer maybe not if progressives open their wallets.
Kommen is probably going to be a bit harder to see in the long run whether they did better or worse by reinstating giving to PP.
I have always found them to be offensively sexist. WTF am I supposed to be so worried about breast cancer, when most of those pushing me to contribute don't give a flying whatever for the types of cancers that I am most likely to get. Given all the attention that it has gotten over time, it is probably one of the last cancers that needs your contribution.
But, now, I have another weapon - I can ask whomever is soliciting for The Cure, whether they were aware that some of their money was going to pay for abortions. (Remember, money is fungible, esp. for an organization like PP).
I think that John Stodder is right. Best thing to do in that type of situation is to just sit tight for a bit. Talk about how this is something that needs to be looked into, but the president is in Europe right now and the board won't be meeting for another month. Something like that. Just dither. And, in a week or two, the situation will be a lot more clear, one way or another.
The other thing that has to be kept in mind with this, is that although Rush is heard by 20 million or so a week, his reach is far greater than that. For example, I travel a bit, and so have his AM stations in a couple of cities pegged, but most often cannot hear him, even if I wanted to. If I listen to radio, it is most often XM. I had been thinking, at least vaguely, of subscribing to Carbonite, but no more.
Point here is that while 20 million may listen every week, quite a few more will consider dropping or not buying a product like this, if they appear to have sided with Bill Maher and Barack Obama over Rush.
What is going to be interesting over time, is how many people ultimately get wise to Media Mutters, etc. and their pranks. In this bruhaha, Carbonite, and maybe Sleep whatever, were the ones to take the bait and get hurt. Likely not Rush. So, how many more of these companies are going to flush their futures down the drain on the say-so of people like that? Should be interesting.
Something else, after sleeping on this.
There are certain types of products that sell better to conservatives, and types that sell better to liberals. Tying the target market to the best marketing vehicle is one of the things that marketers do.
So, why do we hear the types of ads that we do on conservative talk radio shows like Rush's? For Carbonite and Lifelock type products, I think that it comes down to what some have claimed to be the difference between conservatives and liberals - that conservatives are liberals whacked on the head by reality. Another way of looking at it is that conservatives are by their nature more self-reliant than liberals, who tend to be more dependent. So, which is more likely to use a product designed to protect against accidental computer failures? I think, obviously, the conservative who would do it to protect himself against that eventuality, as contrasted with the liberal, who would be more likely to just cry how cruel life was.
Which is to say that the liberals who panicked Carbonite to jump from Limbaugh are unlikely to ever use their products, and Carbonite,by panicking and dropping Rush, was cutting their noses off in spite of their faces.
I think that the Sleep Number demographics are a bit different. My guess is that their prime demographic is maybe 40-50 and older, with enough money to indulge in this luxury. Maybe a bit of self-reliance again, but I think that age is probably more of a factor. That sort of product is just not what I would expect to be a priority from the Occupy crowd. But, then, they didn't seem to be tied much to what the rest of us considered reality in the first place - remember the woman who lost here $5,000 computer?
The age aspect with these beds is that the older you get, the harder it seems for many to get a good night's sleep. The self-reliance aspect is the realization that lack of sleep may be rectified, at least to some extent, by acquiring the right type of bed. And, the money aspect is that the beds are not cheap.
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