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Airing on the Side of Sales Success
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Business New Haven
11/6/1995
By: Kevin Wheeler
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The story behind Bargain Airlines and how it got off the ground is one of those twisted, spell-binding plots much like the ones concocted by radio soap-opera writer Pedro Carmichael (played by Peter Falk) in the movie Tune in Tomorrow - risk, love, divorce and death.
Bargain Airlines is owned by Dave P. Bradford, a/k/a Captain Brad, and his wife, Vanessa, a/k/a Tess. Pushing 40, Captain Brad had spent almost ten years at Hamden radio station WELI (960 AM) as sales manager when he read the handwriting on the wall after new station management took over and began freely distributing pink slips to many 'ELI veterans. It was then that Bradford decided to start a direct-marketing firm to sell products and services over the airwaves.
While still at WELI, he pitched his idea to his counterpart at Bridgeport's WICC, Jeff Ketchum, who also happened to be his wife's ex-husband. Ketchum embraced the idea and helped Bradford to negotiate a one-year renewable contract with WICC and begin to line up trade items for the show. Bradford quit WELI on Friday, December 30, 1994, and took Bargain Airlines on the air two days later. The following Friday, Ketchum died from a freak accident.
Thus the new year didn't look exactly promising. Bradford had lost a friend and an ally, and a new set of players at WICC could make or break Bargain Airlines. At the same the U.S. Postal Service hiked postage rates some ten percent, rendering Bradford's business plan obsolete (next to sales commissions, postage is Bargain Airlines' second-highest business expense).
Yet even following that uncertain start, Bradford can now count 2,300 customers, more than 10,000 sales to date and in excess of 450 products to offer listeners.
The company name is a pun: Customers do get bargains, but they get them over air waves and telephone lines, not on airline tickets. As Bradford explains it, “Radio is immediate. It is portable - you can listen to it at work, in the car. As long as you are within the signal and near a phone, you can participate.”
Why do consumers buy products they can't see? Saving is sexy. So Captain Brad discounts steeply, typically from 40 to 50 percent.
He also discounts to give listeners a good reason to take the seven actions required to buy over the radio: they have to listen when he's on the air (10 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturdays, 2-5 p.m. Sundays), dial the number, ask for a product, write a check, address
an envelope, mail it and, lastly, go to the retailer to redeem the certificate.
Retailers give Bradford products in exchange for promotional consideration. The only thing that changes hands between Bargain Airlines and listeners, and between Bargain Airlines and retailers, is a gift certificate. Retailers authorize Bradford to sell a set number of certificates for an agreed-upon amount. Bradford believes that direct marketing via radio is valuable to businesses that can't, or don't think they can, afford to advertise.
Bargain Airlines offers certificates for restaurants, but you can also buy business cards, golf lessons, door-to-door airport limousine service, tax preparation and more. Bradford listens to the market; if listeners don't buy a product, he knows that either he's not offering a good enough deal or there's insufficient interest.
Bradford says he splits revenues with the station “about evenly.” And the radio station can make profits on clients who previously weren't considered “qualified” radio prospects. WICC sales people function as independent contractors and earn commissions off the retailers they bring to the show. By contract, Bradford doesn't call on the sales staff's clients without their approval.
Bradford is now in the process of renewing his contract with WICC, and by early next year hopes to form a limited partnership to take Bargain Airlines to every major market in the U.S. - making Bargain Airlines a continental trailblazer.
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