What I Learned About Car Insurance

Filed in archive Did you know , Information About on March 2, 2010

My first real career was as a radio announcer. I followed that by becoming an automobile journalist. And followed that with a much longer profession as advertising agency copywriter. Eventually, as a freelancer, I put all three together to write and announce an ongoing series of radio commercials called "Tales of the Open Road." These 60-second spots consisted of a 30-second anecdote from automotive history, followed by a 30-second pitch for the sponsor. Listeners enjoyed the tales, then stayed for the advertiser's message because I wove one into the other and they were hooked before they knew it. My sponsor was a discount car insurance broker who specialised in the 55+ age bracket. Tales of the Open Road was a natural tie-in as his clients could relate to historic cars and events.

To be honest, I knew next to nothing about insurance before we began but I learned a lot during that three-year relationship. For example, sales were handled by phone, which saved everyone time, trouble, and money. I also learned the importance of getting a personalised car insurance policy at the right price, which is so much easier to do these days by using the power of the Internet. Unfortunately (for me) my Tales of the Open Road client was infatuated with the idea of using the city's number one morning man to deliver his message and when that esteemed announcer left the station, thus releasing him from a "no product endorsement" clause, he was in and I was out.

This was not the first time I'd used this technique on the radio. It began with a car dealer and was equally successful, but came to a halt when a new sales manager was hired. Another dealer picked it up for a while, intending it to be a cooperative arrangement with two others in his area. The import dealer agreed, the domestic car didn't, and once again I was the loser. Then came a luxury jewelery and watch store, of all things. That worked until the marketing manager was replaced. Moving to Vancouver I called the sports-only station and within 24 hours a salesman had found a dealer client. Two weeks later the nation-wide radio chain went out of business. Now you might think that I was jinxed but when I moved back to Toronto I tried again. A friend introduced me to the car insurance broker and I was back on the air.

After a two year run the gig finally ended and though it had been successful and earned good money I wouldn't do it again. I'm having too much fun writing blogs for the Net.