Chris.FM

Radio...It's an inside job.

We're all agorophobes, afraid of the non-radio  world.

     It is interesting how little radio "borrows" from outside itself.  While programming 99X I was always curiously amazed how a such a large profitable medium, a large profitable company and a large profitable station refused to bring in outside experts in other fields.  Certainly we could have learned something about marketing from some of the local ad firms we worked with everyday.  As we designed billboard campaigns and television campaigns in-house, I was certain that there were competent professionals in the market that could have given us direction into better ways to communicate our message.  Technologically, Cingular, Apple, AOL, Dell, Gateway, Napster, etc... were all at our disposal to come in and discuss the reality of the next generation of technology.  Even the holy grail of marketing, Al Reis (of Reis and Trout) lives and works 30 minutes from the radio station.  I understand that the expense of these experts is considerable, but what is the larger sin, to pay someone tens of thousands to develop a campaign that succeeds in attracting an audience, or to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on campaigns that fail to move the needle?  What made the isolationism even more curious is that we have no problem hiring outside consultants to help us choose the right music to play even though this should be a programmers primary expertise, but we won't lay out the money to supplement a programmers decision making when issues of the brand message is on the line, something we are more in the dark about.  Radio needs to get ideas from new people...non-radio people and new industries...non-radio industries. 

Buzz words make my skin crawl

I read hollow quotes from programmers in trade magazines using all their favorite buzz words like, "We need to change our paradigms and do radio differently."  "Paradigm" is a great buzz word.  It is impossible not to sound like a creative maverick who is looking to the future when you use the word "paradigm".  Rarely do I see these stations doing anything the listener would perceive as new.    The truth is though that you cannot change your paradigm alone.  Outside influences have to do it for you.  You cannot voluntarily see the world from a different point of view.  Your personal point of view is the only one you have.  It can be changed, but not by waking up one morning and deciding, "today I'll see the world different."  Why?  Because our paradigm comes from a collection of memories and experiences.  Therefore, you must rely on outside influences and ideas to broaden your view of the world.  New ideas from non-radio disciplines.  Now, realistically most of us won't ever have the financial resources to hire all the outside thinkers we would like, but we can still broaden our world view by paying attention to things we normally wouldn't consider to have anything to do with radio.  What can we learn from watching a sports broadcast on television about how to keep people tuned in longer?  What did the theatre companies do to promote their newest blockbuster movie that our paradigms would never have allowed us to conceptualize?  Can we use it to learn another way to build cume?  With what world view did the makers and marketers of a new car approach their product launch?  Can we learn a new language to introduce our station to the listener that will have more meaning?  How does an insurance company speak to it's consumer when you call to renew your policy?  Can we learn from them how to train our staff to better communicate and demonstrate "customer service" to our listeners and clients?  If you watch for these clues, you will inevitably see products that resulted from a world view, a paradigm, different from your own.  A product, an idea or a joke that you think, "I couldn't have come up with that in a million years" or even "I wish I had thought of that first."  We should try to dissect these ideas and see if they have an applicable value to our radio stations.  Sometimes ideas can be directly lifted and used unchanged, other times just the kernel of an idea sparks a new way of doing things that revolutionizes some part of your radio station.  Regardless of how or if you apply the ideas you see in other industries, just by looking for them, recognizing something different, and trying to understand the purpose behind it, you will succeed in expanding you paradigm.  The outside influences will increase your base of possibilities to choose from as you examine your station.  You will understand more variations of choice than before and make designs that reflect your new diversity.  Your creativity is a pond of water (or in my case, a puddle).  It can evaporate with time unless you regularly refill it with the rains of outside inspiration.  My next career will not be Poet, but I think this crude metaphor successfully makes my point.

     I've been spending my time trying to find ideas to "borrow" from other media and industries.  I'll endeavor to share a few of those with you.  Some are small ideas that can be lifted, other are abstract ideas that will need to be wrestled with to find out how to apply the ideas successfully to radio.  Next up, I'll tackles some ideas I think are worth borrowing from the wide world of sports.

Pop Quiz - How does your Radio Brand stack up?

Your Brand is not Your Logo

It's also not your slogan, or music quantifier, or the station for X and Y in the morning.  Your logo is a symbol of what your Brand represents.  When I talk about your station Brand, I'm talking about your radio station's personality, product quality, product promises(spoken and implied) that you've made to your listeners and clients (we are "family friendly" or "trend setting", etc...)  That's how you define your Brand, your logo and slogan are just handles for listeners to easily identify you.  Because of it's strength, Nike is the most consistent brand example I see used, so I won't buck the system.  The Nike brand isn't the swoosh.  That is the symbol that represents the Brand.  Nike's Brand is the "Just Do It" personality, go for it, try anything, you are more athletic than you think.  Nike's Brand is quality and performance enhancing shoes of such a high caliber that they are worn by the most famous athletes in every sport.  These are the ideals and emotions hope to convey when a consumer sees the swoosh on the rack in Sports Authority.  I'll use Audi as another example of how a logo or a slogan isn't the brand.  I used to see the 4 ring Audi slogan representing German Engineering, reliability, luxury, status, etc...  now that I own an Audi my perceptions have changed.  Each time I have to take my car in to address a recall situation or some part fails because of poor quality or craftsmanship the Audi brand diminishes in my mind.  Audi broke the promises of their brand.  The logo is still the same, the slogans haven't changed, but my perception of the brand has done a 180.  You'll often find that a failing brand corrects their past indiscretions but that their logo still conjures up images of their past Brand Experience.  These companies change their slogans and logos, not because this so that the new logo will represent the new brand ideals and promises.  Your logo is just a symbol, you slogan is just a clever way to reinforce what you think is your most important brand promise, neither are your Brand.  Radio needs to consider the strength of our Brands just as auto manufacturers, shoe companies and fast food chains must.  We have to understand the scope of perfecting our brand instead of thinking of the symbols

Is there a Litmus Test to measure the Brand strength of our stations?

I don't know that there is 100% reliable scientific measurement that will answer our Brand Strength questions, but there are tools aplenty to help us constantly think about our brand, the brand promises we've made, the qualities we represent and how our brand is perceived by our listeners and clients.  I wanted to share one I ran across on the Web at AllAboutBranding.com.  The 30 Question Brand Assessment Test.  It is a great exercise for any station, especially because it doesn't differentiate between a Car company or an Alternative Radio station.  There are some questions that really pop out for radio however.  Here are a few examples of questions that a Program Director, Brand Manager, Promotions/Marketing Director should always be considering:

1.

We actively investigate what is important to our customers, using research, face to face interviews, questionnaires, suggestion boxes, etc.?

6.

Our customers can state quite clearly and simply what is important about our brand to them, and why they think it is different?

10.

We understand in our own minds what differentiates our brand from our competitors?

30.

If our brand did not exist, the vast majority of our customers would notice our absence and really miss having us in their lives?

There isn't a single question of the 30 that doesn't apply in some profound way to radio, even questions that on the surface may appear to mismatched.  The question about having to discount prices in our to keep our customers (listeners).  Do you have to continually stunt (discount prices) to keep listeners?  If so, what are you missing from your brand formula?  The four questions cited were the most powerful brand questions for me?  Regardless of budget, do you find ways to talk to the market, and specifically your listeners about your station?  Do you know what they want?  Of that, what can you provide that is unique, valuable and defensible?  Do you and your staff know what makes your Brand unique in the market?  Can you audience tell you what is unique and do the two ideals jive?  Question 30 is a measure of brand passion.  I think this question is especially relevant for stations with direct competitors.  If you are a Hot AC station competing against a similarly formatted music station, would your audience be just as satisfied with your competitor if you vanished tomorrow or would you be irreplaceable?  Don't consider this question thinking of your station as a music jukebox that anyone can replicate, but as a complete Brand.  Are you distinct, unique, valuable and memorable enough that you would be missed?

Take the Questionnaire.  The exercise will jog the way you approach your brand.  It will help you get out of the habit of thinking you are a logo and a slogan.  Your station and brand can represent so much more to the audience.  I aspire for my radio station's to reach that status.

30 Questions to Access the Strength of your Brand.

Radio...Creating a PR Campaign for the Entire Medium

Mark Ramsey runs a company called Mercury Radio Research.  I read his blog everyday.  I find his ideas challenging, multi-dimensional, imaginative, and unique among the radio profession.  All in all, I respect the heck outta this guy.  Recently, he's been discussing the strategy radio has employed to attack our bad press and the positive momentum of rivals like XM and Sirius.  Here is the back story:

From Radio Ink:

Radio Industry To Launch Campaign To Promote Over-The-Air Radio

Over the next six weeks, radio stations from virtually all major radio groups will air a series of spots featuring superstar artists as well as new and emerging acts, explaining how it was radio—not iPods or the Internet—that gave them their first break. The tag line used in all spots, which will be aired primarily on Urban and other alternative stations, is: “Radio: You Hear It Here First.” Stations programming to listeners on other formats, including Country and News/Talk, are expected to air the campaign when customized spots are developed.

Thus far radio groups have committed $28 million air time to run the 30-second spots, featuring such artists as Nellie, Ludacris, Ashanti, Avril Lavigne, Hoobastank, and others. Up-and-coming artists include John Legend, the Ditty Bops, and the Bravery.

Where's the Magic?

There's is something missing (maybe a lot missing) from the current PR campaign.  I wrote Mark an e-mail last week and he posted it on his website.  Here's the transcript of my e-mail:

Subject: Where's the Magic,

It is the reason I went into radio and I have always felt that there was something magical, romantic and glamorous about radio. Reading your response to the RBR piece today struck a nerve. Radio was never those things to me because it was free. If we are going to mount a national campaign to make radio matter, shouldn't we try to re-spark the audience's imagination about the medium? Free doesn't accomplish that goal, nor does a few pop-stars saying "you heard it first".

Radio has a romantic history, and I feel that a successful PR campaign should tap into an emotional vein that ignites the magical feeling people had about radio for so long. When the movie Industry felt threatened by VHS they mounted an emotional marketing appeal that really emphasized the magic of movie making and the essential nature of seeing a movie on the big screen. There is nothing endearing about Avril saying you heard it here first or you heard it here free. What if Avril said, "I set out to make music because I one day I wanted to hear my music on the radio just like the artists I grew up listening to Madonna, Alanis, etc..." It better defines the medium as relevant and important and it emotionally invests Avril in radio.

The current campaign requires no real personal connection for the spokes person, so they are just hollow talking heads. I am playing the PR game in my own head to find a way to capture those original ideals and emotions I had about radio and create a meaningful campaign.

Thanks,

Chris Williams
www.chriswilliams.biz

Check out Mark's blog http://www.radiomarketingnexus.com/

Watch Your Language

The following account is true and accurate.  I literally took notes so no one would be able to accuse me of making up or exaggerating my description of the following station's quarter hour...it really was this odd!

Do you measure the effectiveness of the words you use in you station imaging to reinforce your brand?

Driving through Arizona and New Mexico last month I entertained myself scanning the dial to hear the indigenous sounds of Southwest radio.  Here is the transcript of a quarter hour I was "blessed" to hear:

     (Male VO one) Get Down Funky Town kind of radio station.

     (Male VO two) Can we say that?

     (Song) Motley Crue - "If I Die Tomorrow"

     (Song) Jason Mraz - "Curb Side Song"

     (Male VO) The Most dangerous stuff we can get into...

     (Female VO) Nobody can say they didn't ask for it!

     (Song) Bowling for Soup "Almost"

     (Song) Whitney Houston "Run to You"

I'm going to stay focused on the disconnected imaging messages and not let myself become distracted by the obvious schizophrenic music choice of Motley Crue on my example pop station.  There is a very clear implied message of "danger" in the drops and promos used on this pop station.  "Can we say that?", "Don't say we didn't warn you!" give a listener the idea that they are going to hear the unexpected.  The brand message (aka personality) interpreted from the imaging alone implies a station that is cutting edge, surprising, dangerous, aggressive, shocking etc...  The brand message (aka personality) implied in the pop music selections reinforce a station focused on popularity, pop favorites, familiarity, and predictability.  These two messages paint distinctly different visions of a station's personality.  Either the imaging correctly reflects the station's personality and the music needs to change, or vice versa.

What likely happened at this station, and many other stations that I hear this imaging disconnect, was a PD or Imaging Director heard a drop or wrote a line that they thought sounded great free of station context.  It then made it on air without being subjected to the mental filter that determines if the idea successfully acts as reinforcement of the station's personality.  I hear movie drops on stations all the time that have no meaning, tell no story and do nothing to define the station, but they sounded "neat".  Consider the context of your radio station as you are writing.  What personality traits are you trying to reinforce?  Dangerous edgy rock station? Mirror that with aggressive, in your face writing, production and delivery.  Pop music contemporary station?  Mirror that image with larger than life, pop culture referenced, imaging.  Both are over-simplified examples, but they attempt to show the mindset that should be applied to filtering through any imaging message.  Measure the language you use to promote your station and events and make sure that it fits the desired image and personality of your ideal station.   With such a crush on our inventory and such short opportunities to brand our stations before we get back to music we can't afford to waste words.

Be sure that you are efficient with your imaging and that every sweeper and drop helps accomplish the goal of clearly defining your station's personality.

Every element of a radio station should serve to reinforce the station's ideal personality (aka The Brand).  Music, imaging, website, events, appearance on the streets and the DJs.  If each is properly aligned they with restate and amplify each other.   

Marketing is not Advertising

First entry in a series about building a better station brand

When talking about a marketing strategy for your radio station, the most common assumption is that we are creating an advertising campaign, billboards, tv, etc... While advertising may be the end result of, and be improved by a concise marketing plan, the two words are not synonymous.

To create a complete marketing strategy, we have to get the brand right internally before we take it external. What role does your station play in the market? What needs do your listeners (or potential listeners) have? What do you provide that makes your station a better choice than any other? I hope you've heard and considered all these questions before. But did your answer steer you beyond a music library and a slogan that defined your music library?

Building a music library is one of the easier propositions for a radio station. Decide who you want to attract, men or women, young or old, rock or pop or country partisans, etc... The "art" of the music slogan has become a comical chase of the en vogue descriptive phrase. 'Soft' gives way to 'Lite', 'Alternative' gives way to "Modern Rock' then to 'New Rock', 'variety moves aside for 'Mix' until 'Variety' is it again....

Do listeners care?

Obviously, we have to tell listeners what type of music we play right? If other products marketed themselves like radio we would be forever watching commercials for Nike "athletic shoes", VW "we make cars that drive" and Lays "potato chips in a bag". What do these brands know that radio has yet to discover? Does a literal music slogan add any value to your brand? I submit that it labels such an obvious part of your brand that it, at best, goes unnoticed and at worst is condescending.

Nike - "Just Do It" - Nike doesn't make athletic shoes, they make shoes for people who ARE athletic. More importantly, Nike makes shoes for people who want to seem athletic.
VW - "Drivers Wanted" Who doesn't make a safe car, with good gas mileage that can reach 100,000
miles? VW's campaign says our customers cars don't just get them from A to B. For VW
drivers, the cars is a fashion extension of themselves and the driving experience is
something to enjoy in luxury.
Lays - "Betcha can't eat just one" - There is no need to say we make potato chips in the slogan, but
Lays instead speaks to a brand quality, "We make potato chips that taste good".

Radio has to aspire for something more than just our traditional sloganeering. In order to be more important to our listeners than a jukebox, we need to start defining ourselves as more than just a collection of songs. In order to connect with an audience better than anyone else on the dial, we have to invest our energies in more than fighting over words than mean nothing to our listeners.

Part two: Aspirational Marketing.

Aspirational Marketing

Second entry in a series about building better station brands.

How do we create radio that listeners feel loyal about and actively seek to associate with? How do we get listeners to feel connected to the degree that they wear our radio brand like a badge?

Aspirational Marketing begins by defining the values that will result in your listeners achieving their ideal self-image. For the average listener of your station, is the ideal self-image patriotic, anti-authority, trend setting, popular, family first, sex first, intelligent, street smart, hard working/blue collar, wealthy, salt of the earth, philanthropic, eclectic, popular, part of the "in" crowd, outside the box, rebellious, law abiding, optimistic, skeptical, etc.? The answer won't be one, but a list of characteristics that create a unique qualitative profile.

Traditionally, radio has applied the Reis and Trout concept of owning a word in the listener's mind directly too the music. That's how we've arrived at an industry fighting for the format words like lite, soft, classic, variety, new, hits, hot, etc.... As good brand managers, we then devote ourselves to making sure that every promotion, piece of copy, DJ, et al. reinforced this word or slogan.

A slogan is not a brand.

Don't treat your slogan like it is your brand. A slogan is a marketing tool to succinctly give your brand some definition. Use you slogan to reinforce the marketing vision of your station. That gives an even greater importance to making sure that you are making a statement that will have impact.

A station noticed they could be first in the market to own the word "variety" and they claimed it, used it every time the mic. opened, and used it to define their brand. The next station seeing that someone already owned the word "variety" decided to create a new category and they pounced on the phrase, the "best mix of soft rock". While this is essentially the same as variety, they the created the new category of by specifying variety specializing in soft rock. It would appear this was the 22 Immutable Laws properly played, but there are a few problems:

1. The format distinctions are so narrow they really only help define a difference to industry insiders. Neither station owns a distinguishable image. 2. More importantly, the words being used to define the two brands are meaningless. If our goal is to own a position, word or idea in our listeners minds, we should strive to choose a position that has meaning to the consumer! The typical words radio uses to define our brands have no emotional value. Is the listener a better person because station one owns the word "variety" or that station two owns "mix/soft rock". No, so why should the listener care? Essentially, radio brands are being defined by words that are hollow to anyone outside our industry.

Define your brand with emotion

What are the aspirational values that defined the ideal self-image of you listener demographic? Come up with a short list, lets limit it to five for our exercise...now rank those five from most to least important. Lets say our list looks like this:

1. Family First
2. Patriotic
3 hard working
4 optimistic
5. popular

Now, what if you could be first in the market to own one of these values? Is you listener a better person if you brand is defined as family friendly? Of course, they feel like better parents. What about patriotic? Yes, they then see themselves as better Americans. In other words, if your radio brand is defined more by these aspirational concepts, words that have real meaning to you audience, your listeners will feel closer to their ideal self-image. That has tremendous emotional implications and the result is a much more valuable brand because it is defined by words and concepts that affect listeners emotionally. Now we can apply the basics of the 22 Immutable Laws, our brand should be first in the market to own the most important aspirational values of our listeners.

Footnote, practical application:
Now for those who are terrified of loosing all connection to the format slogans we've historically used to differentiate our music brands, there is room for compromise. Consider how to convert your music positioner or slogan to embrace an aspirational value of your audience. American Country, Soft Rock For the Family, Variety while you work, Alternative for the 'Out Crowd', etc.... Now as brand managers, we need to make sure that we invest all our energies on the aspirational values we've established. Every contest, promo, liner, Dj and even music should serve to reinforce the aspirational values you identify as listener priorities. The ultimate goal is not for a listener to regurgitate a slogan back in a focus group, but rather that these values define and become synonymous with your brand. The name of you station can mean more than a dial position; it will embody these values to your listening community.

part three: Connection: Radio as the means not the end.

Connection: Radio as the means not the end.

Third entry in a series about building better station brands.

To really apply Aspirational Marketing successfully, we will need to adjust the paradigms we currently hold about radio and the role we play. Once we've identified our audience's aspirational values, the values that will result in your listeners achieving their ideal self-image, our first reaction is to try assigning those values to the station brand. This response, while understandable, does not set our priorities in the proper order, namely by not putting the listener first and foremost. Radio should not try to be the ends, but the means by which the listener achieves connecting to their ideal self image.

Connection is not just a buzz-word, it is a valuable tool.

How often do we in radio express our desire to "connect" with our listeners. This is a catch phrase that hasn't been applied with any real teeth because we discuss it in abstract, warm and fuzzy terms, but don't back it with any real plan of action. A stronger approach to connection is to use our stations to connect listeners with their aspirational values. That is what I mean by radio as a means, not as an end. If "family first" is a primary value of your audience, then what can you do to make sure you connect them with family friendly features and events? Become the unofficial-official home of every neighborhood festival and street fair year round. When you give away tickets, give away four packs for the family when you do give-aways. If you are giving away pairs of tickets for an adult night out, throw in cash to cover a sitter. Partner with sports teams, movie theatres, nice restaurants, etc.., and coordinate family nights when parents are encouraged to bring kids who would otherwise be a nuisance to other patrons. These are just a few examples of a radio station focusing it's energy on being a means not the end, connecting a listener to an aspirational value of family first. A hollow pronouncement of "safe for the whole family" is an example of a radio station focused on itself first. Don't define your brand, define the listener who uses your brand. Don't tell the listener how good you are, tell them how good they are and you are the connection to their ideal self image. Be "safe for the whole family" and follow it up by making those connections that make the listener the priority.

Define the consumer, the consumer defines the brand.

"I wanna be like Mike" was a brilliant aspirational campaign that defined the consumer, not the shoe. The shoe wearer wanted to be able to jump higher and run faster and play like the worlds greatest basketball player, Michael Jordan. Nike didn't define the shoe, it defined how the shoe could be a connection to greatness in the shape of Jordan. Nike was the means, not the end. Gatorade, "Is it in you?" Another great aspirational campaign that doesn't seek to define Gatorade as the best drink ever, but the best athletes drink Gatorade. It connects the sports consumer with better performance , greater heart, stamina and strength. "Is it in you?" Is the desire, work ethic, will to win, and heart of a champion in you? If you aspire toward all these values, Gatorade is your connection to the goal. Define the consumer, the consumer defines the brand.

The second important use for connection as a marketing tool is connecting listeners with the same aspirational values. No one understood this idea better than the alternative festivals in the 90's. The first years of Lollapalooza, it was such a powerful and successful brand because it connected people with the same ideas, philosophies, political ideology, musical tastes, age, fashion sense, etc... Lollapalooza did not act as the ends, but the means, the excuse for these people to come together. Once together a sub-culture formed with loyalties and a need for the brand to continue to reconnect this audience. Consider a station whose audience hold patriotism as an important aspirational value, you would be well served to regularly put together or attach yourself to events honoring US soldiers coming and going from tours of duty. If family values is a highly ranked value, each weekend identify a family friendly street fair or park festival where you audience came come and connect with each other. If trend setting is high on your audience list of values, regularly choose a concert that is a 'must see' and take ownership. Giving you listeners a place to connect with each makes your station a valuable cultural leader as you organize and publicize these events. The audience with come to rely on the station for the next place to connect with like minded people and a culture predicated on your brand forms.

In the wake of 9-11 one of the more powerful things I remember radio doing was connecting people who needed to mourn. It was a far more powerful choice to allow people to express their grief by bringing people together than using the trite song with sound-bite tribute played over and over. Radio was at a loss for how to fully embrace a tragedy of this magnitude on the air so instead they arranged fund raisers to connect people who wanted an outlet to donate. Radio publicized special religious services at churches and temples connecting those that wanted to mourn in a spiritual setting with houses of worship. Radio took a back seat, understood the power of connection in a real way and became the ends rather than the means.

Here is where our opportunity lies to create better radio brands. This is how we give ours brands greater meaning beyond the literal format definitions. This is how we re-engage our audience and make them more reliant on our station. This is how we get listeners to seek association with our station, by serving as middle man for the values that make them feel smarter, more attractive, funnier, a better human being. For each audience these aspirational values change, discover them and work to connect your audience to their ideal self image. Define the audience and they will define your brand. The closer bring your audience to ideal self image, the more important your brand becomes in continuing that self-image.