Target Practice

Every morning on my short drive to work I listen to The First Word on Bloomberg Radio. If you are not familiar, the program follows a basic business and economic news format. There is minimal advertising, more public service announcements (PSA) than commercial adverts. Two of which caught my ear this morning.

The first was a PSA for Ambert Alerts by the Amber Alert Portal Consortium, encouraging listeners to sign up to receive Amber Alerts on their mobile phones. The message was one of emotional draw pleading “Help a child in need.”

Okay, I can see the relevance to the Bloomberg audience. Amber Alerts are important for everyone, business executive or otherwise.

But the second PSA — which, by the way, immediately followed the first one — was an initiative of Project Safe Neighborhoods by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Ad Council. The message: “Think before you commit a gun crime. Who would take care of your family?”

So in nearly the same breath, the Bloomberg Radio audience is recognized for being responsible enough to pro-actively participate in local Amber Alert searches yet simultaneously reckless with thoughts of committing a crime with a gun. My mind naturally started to wonder: ‘What kind of gun crime? Convenience store robbery? Holding someone hostage? Going on a shooting rampage at the office?’

Bloobmerg.com claims the highest concentration of C-level executives and the highest average income over other leading business and financial news sites. A good fit? Maybe, if the Ad Council did it’s homework correctly, but I cannot find any gun crime statistics broken down by income. And perhaps with Targeted Message Broadcasting the Ad Council specifically choose my geographic market (Cary, NC) for a reason. But generally speaking, if you read Freakonomics, you might argue that the Ad Council should choose Bloomberg Radio for warnings about the dangers of swimming pools.

-Melissa

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Tags: Ad Council, Amber Alert, Bloomberg, Freakonomics, Project Safe Neighborhoods, PSA, public service announcement, targeted marketing, Targeted Message Broadcasting

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