There are many SMEs in Turkey, 3.5m these were the businesses that Karnaval was not targetting. Ali Abhary, Executive Chairman, Karnaval Media Group, Turkey, spoke about how Karnaval have been engaging small businesses. Radio advertising is reserved for big business was the thinking in the small businesses. Karnaval Business Partner was launched to service these small businesses. South Africa and Turkey broadcast advertising comes from large advertisers only and the business comes from media agencies. Karnaval wanted to make radio fast, accesible, and harness the power of radio for SMEs. Advertising was an old boys club due to jargon so how do you break through this? SMEs were daunted and so affordable packages were created which were understandable with free copyrighting and production services even voice over artists were provided. The starter package costs 10k TL, 15 sec spot, 18 spots for 10 days on certain stations. The next level package would be 500 spots over 21 days – this is a sales booster or a discount. There is then a “Prestige Package” more station, 1000 spots, DJ editorial talk and pick from a roster of celebrities to do the voice over to do you spot – this is a brand creater slot. The payment options for these packages had to be simple and to do this you can pay with cash, check and credit card (which also includes installment payment). Payment is up front due to the bad debt rate and this problem is solved. 3.5m listeners per day on terrestrial station and so this was the perfect sales channel for promoting this service. Also attending certain trade fairs to promote this service. Finally there is a very small TV campaign on business channels. To track the customers a new CRM was set up and a toll free call centre was also created to deal with new customer enquires. All this work has led to the 2,200 new advertisers! The most popular package is the starter pack with the ‘Prestige’ pack getting the best feed back in terms of return. 10% of overall revenues is coming from this revenue stream with a target of 25% of revenues in the next few years, this also helps to revenue proof their radio business against recession.
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