Supply Side is a series of occasional articles about companies you don’t know, or things you don’t know about companies you do. This Q&A is with Chris Davis, managing founder of Paladin AdSolutions.
What does your company do?
We specialize in innovative advertising solutions. Our new product, RadioAd.com, connects radio listeners with radio advertisers through an easy-to-use Web site – it brings together the best of the Internet and broadcast worlds.
The Internet provides a static medium for retaining information; but it struggles to reach out to consumers. The broadcast world reaches millions of people every day, but struggles with information retention or recall. By bringing these worlds together we’re providing a unique service to broadcasters, advertisers and consumers.
Describe the experience for the listener.
Listeners use RadioAd.com to find and replay radio ads. This eliminates the frustration associated with trying to remember a phone number or Web site that they heard.
The site uses a unique set of search criteria to help the listener find the advertisement they’re looking for quickly and easily – rather than employing general search techniques used on other Web sites.
To find an ad, the listener enters their area code, then selects the station, category and keywords associated with the ad. RadioAd.com displays the ad(s), including the phone number and Web address for the advertiser.
The address, RadioAd.com, is also unique. Some stations have been trying to use their own sites to connect listeners with advertisers. Unfortunately this magnifies the problem for listeners by adding another challenging web address to the list of items they’re trying to remember. We provide the single Web address for all stations.
The word picture is perfect: “What were you listening to?” The radio. “What are you trying to find?” A radio ad. Go to RadioAd.com and you’ll find it.
What does it cost a station?
We are partnering with stations and ad agencies as resellers of this service. The stations on our Advisory Board are offering this to their advertisers as a value-added service. For these stations, RadioAd.com represents a new revenue stream.
Some stations offer it as a premium service for their high-end advertisers, others prefer to offer it to all advertisers while adjusting their rates in recognition of the extra value.
RadioAd.com is a turnkey service. All you have to do is turn the key and it’s operational. When a station posts an ad, it is immediately available to the listeners.
Radio managers and engineers should also know that it’s easy to maintain and they’re in control of the advertising content. RadioAd.com has been designed to operate with little administration and allow the stations to choose which ads they list, how long they list them and what content is displayed for each ad.
Info:Paladin AdSolutions LLC
17715 NE 141st St. Redmond, WA 98052 (425) 558-1859
www.paladinadsolutions.com
There are no setup fees, software development costs or additional equipment required. RadioAd.com is hosted and maintained by our engineers, saving the station time.
What’s the background of the founders?
Rory Wilson is the creative genius. He’s been involved in the advertising and marketing arena for over 15 years and has run his own business for 10. I’d describe him as entrepreneurial and innovative.
Steve Walker provides technical guidance. During his 34-year career he’s been responsible for management, business development, conceptual design, software development, engineering, product R&D, recruiting/staffing and sales and marketing. He has a great deal of experience in executive management for development of programs – such as a patent-pending online recruiting system, e-commerce solutions and the development of advanced sonar technology for use in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
I have eight years of software development and sales experience. Recently, I’ve been working with companies to implement best practices to improve software quality and reliability.
