Southern Hospitality

Sunday, July 17, 2005

Sketch

Think you've gotten pretty good at avoiding those radio advertisements? Guess again.

Steve and Vikki, the morning tag team on Star 94-FM, are gabbing on-air about a comedian.

Out of the blue, Steve McCoy blurts, "Maybe you can suggest she could use a Swiffer WetJet at home."

Vikki Locke, on cue, tells radio land how she sponged up spilled soy sauce just last night. "With the Swiffer WetJet," she sing-songs, "it was so easy and fast to clean."

For 2ΒΈ minutes, which includes an amusing debate on how long dropped food can linger on a floor before it becomes inedible, they name the mopping gizmo a combined eight times. (That doesn't count unsolicited mentions from two callers.) McCoy recounts his sons' duels with the devices, light sabers that spray cleanser on the enemy.

Listeners, savvy and unsuspecting, have just been exposed to what might be considered stealth advertising. The WetJet maker paid the station for 60 seconds worth of yak time and compensated the disc jockeys. The runover 90 seconds? A freebie.

Steve and Vicki (strange for me to refer to them this way, but I grew up listening to them in the mornings) defend this practice, because as Vicki argues, "If I don't use it, or I don't like it, I don't do it." I don't think that justifies the practice though, because they are still being paid for an act that they would not do otherwise unless they were being prompted to do so. The fact that all of this is scripted, no matter how much the DJ is giving their true endorsement for a particular product, takes away from the random and conversational nature of talk and morning shows, which is a big reason why people listen to them in the first place.

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