The Winter Olympics has ended, but the Louisiana Propane ad campaign that seemingly ran incessantly during the 16-day Vancouver Games won’t soon be forgotten. The five 30-second spots promoting propane as a clean, green “fuel for our future” were kitschy and amateurish. But they managed to achieve, whether in spite of or because of the dissonant country jingle memorably performed by a honky-tonk band, something all advertisers strive for: attention.
The campaign is all the buzz in local industry circles, and it has generated a fair number of comments on Web sites and blogs. But Randy Hayden isn’t complaining. Hayden is the president of Creative Communications and the mastermind behind the $300,000—yes, $300,000—ad blitz.
The campaign came about because of federal regulations that went into effect Jan. 1 and restricted the marketing activities of the national Propane Education & Research Council. Until then, PERC had produced campaigns used by statewide associations. Once those were no longer available, statewide groups had to come up with their own.
Louisiana’s Liquefied Petroleum Gas Commission already had a contract with Creative Communications for its media buys, so it contracted with the firm to produce the commercials. Hayden kept the work in-state, farming out production to Ed Ball and WBRZ Productions and local audio producer Jeff Blackwell. Music for the “Propane for Life” jingle was written and performed by a New Orleans country band, Gal Holiday and the Honky Tonk Revue.
“We were looking for someone with statewide appeal,” Hayden says. “We wanted someone that was a little bit country, but modern enough to pull off the message of green, clean, alternative fuel.”
About one-third of the $300,000 budget went to production, which included five spots, a two-minute music video and a public service announcement.
The other $200,000 went to the two-week, prime-time media buy, which Hayden concedes might have been overkill. In particular, viewers in the Baton Rouge market were treated to extra airings of the commercial because of a technical glitch that required WVLA-TV to provide “make goods” on the spots.
“Most of the comments we heard were positive,” Hayden says. “The only real negative comments we heard were overkill on the media buy, but overkill isn’t necessarily bad when you’re breaking out a new campaign.”
Sun sets on Sunny 103.3
If the “Propane for Life” jingle remains stuck in your head, perhaps you can dislodge it by tuning to the latest incarnation of Citadel Broadcasting’s perennial also-ran in the market, WCDV-FM [103.3]. The station recently switched to a 1990s hit format, or what it’s calling Music for Generation X, the children of the baby boomers now in their 30s and early 40s.
It’s a novel format, and no other station in the market is playing it. But will it do the trick for WCDV? The station’s share of the local market was less than 2% last year, according to radio analyst Mark Fratrick with BIA Financial Network, a consulting firm for the broadcasting and communication industries. That put the station previously known as Sunny about 15th of the 20 or so FM stations in the market.
The station has undergone four format changes in about as many years. It was country, then soft rock, then Diva then soft rock again. Now it’s trying a fifth format, and some people are questioning how long this one will last.
The more interesting question is whether format changes really do any good. Experts say it depends, though data suggests that stations with a consistent format perform better than stations that make frequent changes.
Consider the top-grossing stations in this market. In 2008, the latest year for which data is available, they were: WDGL-FM [98.1], which plays classic rock; KQXL-FM [106.5], which plans urban contemporary; WYNK-FM [101.5], which plays country; KRVE-FM [97.1], which plays light rock; and WJBO-AM [1150], which has a talk-radio format. Those stations have maintained a foothold in a competitive field by, among other things, keeping the same format.
And done so for a really long time. KRVE has played light rock for two decades. KQXL has played urban contemporary for more than a dozen years. WDGL has played classic rock for 15 years. But WYNK outshines them all: It’s been playing country music since 1968.
WCDV executives are confident they’ll achieve at least that much.
“This is definitely going to shake up the market,” Program Director Don Dupre says. “It’s fresh and new and already attracting a very good audience.”
