COMMERCE : City Uses Radio Ad to Lure Businesses

The results of a recent radio campaign to recruit businesses to the city are inconclusive, but officials say the on-air ads hit their mark.

“We’re working with two businesses now who heard the ad and are likely prospects of moving here,” said Judy Rambeau, the city’s public information officer, who is helping run a $206,000 advertising and marketing campaign to draw companies to the city.

The 60-second radio commercial, which ran this fall on KNX-AM 1070 and KFWB-AM 980, featured an endorsement by Bob Abell, who moved his company, A.N. Abell Auction Co., to Commerce after it was damaged in last year’s riots.

In the ad, Abell marveled that the city’s “permit process is so streamlined that we were back in full swing in just two weeks.”

That kind of customer satisfaction inspired dozens of other business owners to contact the city, including one who called from his car phone after hearing the commercial, Rambeau said.

City officials hope the marketing campaign will help reverse a trend that has seen 227 businesses leave the city or go out of operation since 1992.

“We didn’t expect a zillion people to call,” Rambeau said. “It’s more for name recognition over the long term.

“We’re very pleased with the response we’ve had to the ad. It was a good use of a private-sector marketing technique applied to the public sector.”