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You are an account manager at a company that purchases media ads for clients. Your job requires you to purchase ad time months in advance, in order to gain a price advantage in the local market for your clients. One of your major clients is Fleetwood Sport, a regional chain that sells a wide variety of sporting goods. Fleetwood’s products include team sports equipment, camping and fishing gear, golf and tennis equipment, and active apparel. In December, you bought advance local ad spots scheduled for May and June on a popular radio station. When you bought the ads, the radio station told you that the time slot for those ads would feature a new radio host who would be starting early in the new year. You had your doubts about the new host, who had been known as “controversial” in his previous job in another city, but the client had insisted that the host was “terrific” and would likely get higher ratings. After much thought, you bought the ads. The plan was to use the time slot to launch a new spring campaign for Fleetwood’s outdoor equipment collection, including high-tech camping, biking, and rock climbing gear. Now it is April, and the client is eager to hear about the ratings of the new radio host. You have just seen the latest ratings and are distressed to find that in almost every category the audiences for your ad’s time slot are well below your expectations. The exception is the over-50 demographic, where ratings are significantly higher than you expected. Your ads have not aired yet, but you know that Fleetwood is expecting better overall ratings than those earned in April by this time slot.
Task:
Compose a message informing the client of the poor ratings and recommend a course of action.
INDIRECT ORGANIZATION
follows this pattern:
1. Begin with a buffer.
2. Provide supporting
explanation or reasons.
3. STATE THE BAD NEWS
CLEARLY.
4. Conclude with goodwill.
. Response will minimize the space devoted to the bad news without trivializing it or withholding any important information. Response clearly describes a variety of actions recommended as creative solutions.
The response may also point out that a controversial host may take time to catch on with a new audience, and so ratings may still improve before the ads run. • Some kind of creative solution or upside, such as: • Pointing out a “silver lining” in the situation—the better-than-expected ratings for the over-50 demographic might be used to the client’s advantage by scrapping the spring high-tech equipment campaign and instead focusing on spring items for the over-50 crowd (such as golf and tennis equipment).
These concessions/benefits might include such things as discounts for future ads, creating some kind of “special sponsor” status for the client (“this portion of our show is brought to you by Fleetwood Sport”), or providing some other kind of promotion that will provide extra market exposure for the client. The best responses are likely to show creativity in finding some non-obvious benefit.
