AirCheck Case Study #101

When the Melbourne Grand Prix had to urgently drop its radio spots with the tagline "Melbourne Fires Up" one cart slipped through. AirCheck monitoring prevented serious embarrassment.

Fortunately, both the client and radio station were AirCheck clients and kept investigating until the mystery was solved. 

In February 2009 the organisers of the Melbourne Grand Prix quickly needed to pull all their radio advertising with the tagline "Melbourne Fires Up" due to the tragic Black Saturday bushfires. All the radio networks readily complied. One errant cart number slipped through on one station.

The client rang the agency, who rang the station, who checked and rang back and said they'd checked all their logs, and the correct cart numbers had gone to air.

The client was adamant, so the agency finally rang AudioNET. An independent AirCheck revealed the client was right -  the wrong commercial was being broadcast.

The agency rang the station, the station realised why their own check hadn't revealed the error, and corrected it immediately.

Why was the station adamant the correct commercial was going to air?  There were two reasons. The first, was that the log said the new, correct commercial had been scheduled for broadcast. And the second was, when they checked the audio off the log, they heard the correct commercial.

However, two commercials had been carted on the same cart number: the old incorrect commercial, and the new, correct commercial. So every time the station checked, staff heard the correct spot. Then when it went to air, the client heard the incorrect spot.

Fortunately both the client and the station kept investigating until the mystery was resolved.