As promised, Ira Berger, Director of National Broadcast, The Richards Group, detailed some of the Motel 6 buy we recently broke the news on. Ira tells RBR-TVBR Motel 6 (owned by major French conglomerate Accor) evaluates everything every year. This year they looked at it, and “the efficiencies of network radio were such that they decided they would go in that direction. The light’s back on for network radio and Motel 6,” Berger said.
The buy is very specialized, they didn’t just go out and buy GRPs. This national network radio buy was aimed at resonating with core customers. It is aimed at Adults 25-54 and had delivery in key markets. :30 creative starts at the end of March. It’s flighted and will end in August. It does not run every week. Tom Bodett is in the creative, and smartly so – who can forget his famous words, “We’ll leave the light on for ‘ya.”
The placement is not in political talk for the most part—no controversial hosts such as Glenn Beck. This is a client directive. They buy is heavy in ESPN Radio talkers; Dan Patrick. No live, play-by-play.
RBR-TVBR observation: This isn’t likely the kind of money they were spending in network radio back in the day, but it’s still great stuff. In the 1980’s Motel 6 was spending like $15 million a year. What would that be in today’s dollars?! Their budget is less overall, so that money didn’t fly elsewhere—looks like network radio got the lion’s share.
