Also in this report:

– Sacred cows make the best hamburgerŠand other lessons I’ve learned about radio p.20

– Radio bureau underg’es Renaissance p.20

– Denture specialists take a bit of public mind p.23

– Spotlight on radio creative p.24

It’s hard to imagine a more logical fit.

Comic Bob Newhart made his name decades ago with a series of enduringly funny standup routines in which he acted out wildly improbable telephone conversations with the likes of Abraham Lincoln and Sir Walter Raleigh.

So who better to be promoting Bell Mobility Cellular?

No one at all, says Rosanna Cavallero, the Toronto-based company’s director of marketing communications. Which is why the soft-spoken performer was signed last year for a series of 60-sec. radio spots.

Newhart appeared in a dozen ads in all. They began airing in Ontario in the summer of 1995, and ran for more than a year.

Jack Neary, creative director with Bell Mobility’s agency, Cossette Communication-Marketing in Toronto, says he warmed readily to the idea of using Newhart.

Besides being known for his telephone routines, the comedian has an endearing ‘universal victim’ quality that appeals to many listeners, Neary explains.

The spots that Newhart recorded for Bell Mobility portrayed him as a hapless Everyman caught in unlikely situations not entirely of his own making.

In one spot, for example, he played a Boy Scout troop leader using a cellular phone to call the mother of one of his charges – a pyromaniac.

In another, he was a caterer calling a bride’s mother to inform her that, on this day of days, there’s no food available for the wedding.

The most memorable spot, however, featured Newhart as a kennel owner, phoning vacationing pet owners to discuss the alarming behavior of their rottweiler, ‘Fluffy.’

That commercial took first-place honors at the 1996 Radio Impact Awards.

Cossette’s Chris McGroarty, copywriter on the spots, says he didn’t find it particularly difficult to write in the patented Newhart style. There was plenty of inspiration to be had by listening to the comic’s albums of the 1960s.

What was harder, he says, was keeping things simple. Newhart’s delivery is such that he’ll take 60 seconds to say something that others would in half the time.

While creative control rested ultimately with Newhart, the process was more collaborative than hierarchical.

McGroarty says that if two scripts were required, he would write five, show them all to the client for approval, and then ask Newhart to choose the pair he liked best.

What Bell Mobility wanted, says Cavallero, was creative that would break through a cluttered market to deliver a strong message about the company’s service, while also lending a human dimension to a high-tech business.

Neary concurs. Because telecommunications can seem cold, his client was seeking a personality with warmth and charm to convey the benefits of staying in touch.

Mobile communications is a confusing field, Neary adds, and consumers are more likely to sign on with a company that gives them a comfortable feeling.

The 12 spots that Newhart recorded were targeted at adults aged 18 to 49, with a slight skew towards men.

It is ‘quite possible’ that the comic will return to appear in more spots in 1997, Cavallero says.

Radio has always been important to Bell Mobility, she notes. The company has had considerable success with the medium, often using it in conjunction with newspapers (although not in the case of this most recent campaign).

‘tv is great for quick messages,’ Cavallero says, adding that on a cost-per-point basis, it is cheaper than radio.

On the other hand, she says, radio can generate awareness over a short time. And then, of course, there’s that ace in the hole: frequency.

Neary, for his part, calls radio a ‘great tactical retail medium,’ good for reaching large numbers of people.

And because of its ‘mobile nature,’ it’s quite appropriate for advertising a cellular phone service.

Moreover, he says, it offers ‘a chance to paint a very interesting, vivid picture in the mind of the listener, for not a lot of money’ – although used improperly, Neary says it can quickly become annoying.

Cavallero says that radio has traditionally played the lead role in Bell Mobility’s marketing mix. Of late, its dominance has diminished somewhat, but it still takes up a third or more of the company’s overall communications.

She describes the Newhart ads as a ‘tremendous success.’

Consumers, she says, reported that they looked forward to hearing them – not an everyday response to advertising, to say the least.