Radio: Obamacare Enrollment Drive’s Secret Weapon

For months, the media story of how President Obama sold Obamacare to America has starred unconventional outlets like Funny or Die, unconventional pitches like this “Mom Jeans” message for Twitter, and unconventional sales reps like Kobe Bryant, Wil Wheaton, or the moms of Jonah Hill and Adam Levine.

But, according to Olivier Know at Yahoo News,  a look inside the Affordable Care Act’s all-out enrollment drive shows that — for all the talk about social media and unorthodox strategies — the Administration relied heavily in the final stretch on a century-old way to reach the public: Radio.

Valerie Jarrett

On Monday, senior Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett did her first radio interview at 8:30 am. By 6:30 pm, she was on her 21st, bringing her total over the past six weeks to 82.  Overall, top administration officials – and celebrity surrogates – have taken part in some 300 individual radio interviews, according to administration figures shared with Yahoo News.

Obama, first lady Michelle Obama, and Vice President Biden have done 20 radio interviews, many of them focusing on young Americans as well as African American and Hispanic communities in target markets with large uninsured populations.

They’ve been on Live With Ryan Seacrest, Univision’s Locura Deportiva and El Bueno, La Mala y el Feo, Steve Harvey, Rickey Smiley and Russ Parr. They’ve done regional radio shows like Power 96’s “Power in the Afternoon with Afrika” in Miami, with “ShoBoy” in the morning in Texas and Wills & Snyder in the Morning in Cleveland.

Top Obama aides including White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough and senior advisors Dan Pfeiffer and Phil Schiliro have called into more than 30 radio stations,

Where Jarrett targeted Sway In The Morning, or popular shows on Top 40, Hip-Hop, Gospel, Soul and R&B stations (and Iowa public radio and NPR Alaska), McDonough, Pfeiffer and Schiliro targeted syndicated or regional sports talk radio stations.

Athletes, actors, musicians, television personalities have pitched in. Kobe Bryant, Grant Hill, Kerry Washington, Jonelle Monae, Nia Long, Jurnee Smollett, Star Jones, Tatyana Ali, Nikki Reed, Aisha Tyler, and Pittsburgh Steelers Chairman Dan Rooney together have been on about 400 radio stations nationwide.

Cabinet secretaries have done more than 60 interviews with local radio stations in states like Alabama, Alaska, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and Wisconsin.

Why radio? Political communications strategists say part of the appeal is the essentially captive audience, whether it’s drive-time radio, or something to listen to on the construction site or in the office. People have an attachment to their drive-time choice and tend to trust it more than the bewildering array of news sources online or on television. And several strategists underlined that radio hosts are better than their cable TV news colleagues about letting a guest say what they want to say.

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