How a Phone Sex Line Got a Doctor’s Patients Calling

My mental alarm sounded at 3am… check it!

Artwork by Pete Gediman, Dark Mind Artworks

One of my best ad agency stories involves a urologist who was running a radio campaign to bring in new patients. To keep things fresh, the doctor had produced a series of commercials involving three women conversing about their bladder control over coffee. When he originally did the production with another ad agency, he recorded several versions back-to-back to have options down the road. The commercial consisted of 45-seconds of conversations by the ladies, followed by a 15-second close with a phone number recorded in the doctor’s voice.

The doctor hired me as a “direct response specialist” to negotiate the best rates for airtime and adjust the schedules, as needed, to deliver the most phone responses per campaign for his dollar. And of course, I was now responsible for distributing the recorded commercial to the radio station(s) to air during that campaign. Easy peasy.

There were five commercials, labeled “Coffee Break 1,2,3,4,5.” I listened to all five versions and the only difference I could hear was in the cadence of the ladies’ conversations, so I chose one that had not previously aired just to “freshen” it up a bit.

Already into the third day of the campaign on a prominent L.A. radio station, the response was dismal. I was convinced that we must be receiving poor commercial times, so I rode the station relentlessly, securing additional airtime at no charge in an attempt to increase the response level. But that didn’t seem to be helping.

That night, I was awakened at 3 A.M. by a voice in my head prompting me to check the phone number. I was well-aware that different phone numbers are used within the ad industry when sourcing media, but he was only on one station at a time, so sourcing never entered my mind. The numbers had looked identical.

At 8:00 I followed-up on my hunch. Lo and behold, the (800) number sequence in that particular commercial was different than the previous copy that had aired. So, drawing a deep breath, I dialed the number to make sure that one of his staff members answered the call. That’s when I heard, “Hello. You’ve reached 1–900-xxx-xxxx. You must be 18 years of age and have a valid ID to process this call.” I must have misdialed. I hung up and dialed again, pecking out each number deliberately. Damn! The same greeting. There was no mistake now that I had reached a “live phone sex” line.

I was astonished to say the least, considering that the number was recorded in the doctor’s own voice.

Think about that for a second. A urologist. Treating overactive bladders with pelvic stimulation. In his own voice. On a sex line.

Stop the bleeding! The first thing I did was call the radio station to have that copy pulled and replaced with the prior commercial. The phone response was back on track that afternoon.

The doctor’s staff missed a beat because I discovered that once a contract ends on an 800 number, it’s most often grabbed up by a third party who redirects it to a phone-sex service.

Now…what to say to the doctor. I mulled this over several different ways and decided to just take the direct route. So, I phoned him and said, “Doctor, I figured out why your phone’s not ringing. Fortunately, I had the insight to double check the phone number in the commercial this morning and it’s not an (800) number…it may be recorded as an (800) number, but when you dial it, it’s actually a (900) number.”

Five seconds of silence, and then, “You’re fired.”

This was more shocking than if I’d been the loser on The Apprentice!

I felt no guilt, but I COULD feel the doctor’s angst and shame. I may have lost a client, but the story has never stopped giving. Got a professional disaster that turned into your best party story? Tell me.