2014 "Facts Of Life"

Country radio must fight for Gen X's time if we hope to continue to grow at the amazing rate we have done in the last five years in the coming decade.

Generation X and Millennials are related (parents and their children) but you don't reach them both in the same ways.

The three generational cultures that we serve today are all aging, altering their priorities.

Change is accelerated for 18-34, but 35-44 tastes appear to be more stable as social network trends indicate.

Linking all of 2014 generational cohorts:  "immersive experiences"

Gen X feels more stress.

They worry that their "high hopes/tough relaity" lives won't be as good as their parents.

Many are moving downtown and most country format historical hot zips are in the suburbs.  We have some geo-targeting mining to do.

The Workplace is changing, requiring fresh at work listening tactics.

They were more materialistic as teens than their children are today.

Listener expectations are not one size fits all.

What are you planning to do in 2014 to hold onto the young females who came our way in the last five years while increasing loyalty with 35-49 men and women as well?

AM Listeners Are From Mars

... And, it sounds like New York and Chicago's newest radio stations are thinking that their FM listeners will be from Venus.

Both Arbitron and BBM offer some very helpful national perspective on why, even though we all love to cheer on a direct confrontation, it may be that everyone can coexist.

Here are three pages from BBM/Canada's 2010-2011 National Radio Data book which show how different the target audiences available on the two bands are today:



(click each chart to enlarge it in a separate browser window)

Two very nice things about radio warfare:

1, No one can take your audience away from you. You have to give it away.

2. No one dies, unless somebody ends up shooting themself in the foot.

Driving The Trend

The growing size of the 15-29 demo cell in the coming years, Generation Y, will have more demographic muscle than any other single 25-54 cell (their grandparents - Post War Baby Boomers - will be straddling three different cells).

Five years ago, when the Boomers were all 40-54, THAT was where all the action was.

Watch 22-34 in the next few years!

Look for some new ways to speak their language in the next year.

The country demo was easily defined just five years ago. The largest and most desirable target was comprised of a single group of listeners who shared common core music preference. In the past two years, things have started changing again and driving the new artist evolution is demography.

Next year, that trend will continue.

What has emerged is a new group of non-ethnic teens and 25 to 34 year olds who just love country music.

Just as adult contemporary is now seeing a division between old and young around the age of 39 to 42, so too goes the country audience in 2011 and beyond. It's a trend that we haven't completely felt the full impact of and it even has a counter trend/bit of a backlash in the form of some new retro sounds appealing to 45+ as well, like the new Alan Jackson and Sunny Sweeney, among others.

Is country about to fragment, with two equally-sized potential audiences, one skewing younger and newer, with the other older and more familiarity and variety-based?

Historically, it has been very possible for a market leader to prevent significant fragmentation from any new competition in markets where the mainstream leader has made the adjustment to the new rules of "today's country" and aggressively practiced relationship marketing to their traditional core and social networking with the newcomers at the same time.

Will history repeat itself?

Now There's More Than One "Target"

Age and sex are just the beginning of the things you must know about your audience in order to compete effectively.

Today, you better know where your audience lives, brand preferences - whether its your radio station OR your client's brand, product consumption, lifestyle data, shopping habits, psychographics, use of other media - not just what other radio stations they listen to.

• What is cable penetration in your market?
• Satellite radio?
• How many have smart phones? Which ones?
• Percentage of households by age cell which no longer have land line telephone service?
• Download/streaming preferences? (music discovery priorities)
  
• What part of your survey area has more than average/less than average penetration for country and other forms of music?
• Where do your listeners use you at work?
  
• What other stations do they also use, by daypart and by listening location?
  

The more you know about ALL these things, the more 'on target' your programming and marketing can be.

Another Sign It's 1988 Or 1998 All Over Again For Country Music Radio

I voted this morning in RBR/Harker Research's latest opinion poll and realized that for many of us the best prize of 2010 hasn't been about money at all.

It's been concert tickets targeting Boomers and X'ers on one hand and Millennial girls on the other: Garth Brooks in Las Vegas for our upper demos and Taylor Swift's arena show for teens and their parents.

One demo isn't all that interested in the prize that the other one is extremely rabid about.

Hopefully, someone is working in a garage right now with a band, an amp or two, perfecting some exciting new sounds and songs that will bridge that gap for us, soon.

Good Manners

Tim Manners writes and edits one of my favorite daily marketing email idea sheets, Cool News, for Reveries Magazine, so he lives and exemplifies the term "relevance" every day for me.

His new book on "Making Stuff That Matters" comes out in five weeks, but as a friend of A&O's here's a jump start on Chapter One of "Relevance" (click to read it all)

"...brands frequently sell themselves short by failing to see their consumers as we see ourselves. More often than not we are more similar than we are different from one another when it comes to what we expect from our brands. "

A Gentle Reminder From Your Calendar

The baby boomers have been starting to hit "retirement age" this year.

On January 1, 1946, an 18 year period known as the post-war baby boom began. In 1946, 3.4 million children were born in the U.S. 78 million babies were born from 1946 to 1964: so, 10,000 people will turn 62 each day for the next ten years. There are 68 million people who are 62+ today, 44 million are 31 to 42 and 72 million are under 31.

PREDICTION: Today's teens and tomorrow's senior citizens are the biggest demo targets of 2008. Common threads that reach both: fun, lifestyle and family.

The smaller in number, but acquisitive age, demos in between feel ignored and misunderstood. Musical preference and attitude differences greatly outnumber similarities. Fragmentation and niche marketing will continue to proliferate, but - thus far - country music radio continues to be at its most successful when targeted 'mainstream.'

Luckily, for country today at a time when our artist base is getting narrower not broader and real 'hit' songs are fewer and farther between, there is more polarity between men and women than there is between younger and older target listeners.

One big change: a song from before 1994 has to have received a lot of airplay in the last five years to still work for you as a cume and TSL magnet if you hope to attract 25-34.

The Other Side of Moms

A series of research studies finds that marketers are missing the mark — big time — in reaching today’s moms.

by Gigi Carroll. (download PDF)

Think Attitude, Not Age

MediaPost:

"...age is not a concept relevant to understanding baby boomers. Indeed, the active rejection of a traditional concept of aging is more reflective of what motivates boomers. The nullification of anything strictly tied to age typifies boomers. This is reflective of an underlying sense of youthfulness that has long been the defining generational essence of boomers. But age nullification is not about reverting to adolescence. Rather, it's about refusing to let age and its restrictive stereotypes hold back or repress a spirited, continually evolving approach to life. Age nullification means a felt sense of permission to do anything one is interested in and capable of without worrying about age appropriateness. Age is not a barrier that defines or restricts alternatives. Age is not a source of embarrassment. Age is simply not relevant. Boomers just take it for granted that age doesn't apply."

-- J. Walker Smith, president of Yankelovich, Inc.