The Three-Tiered Bullseye

Anyone who’s completed a sales training with Chris Lytle or his team can tell you where a business gains from being “top of mind:”

• The folks in the center of the target are in the market for what you have to sell right now.  
• The second ring of the target “might” be in the market for it, but need a reason to get serious about it now or you have to wait for their need to become more urgent.  Maybe they need it but don’t know they do and all they require is an explanation of why it’s important.
• The ones in the outer ring might as well have the audio turned down on their radio.  They don’t care and won’t have any use for it for the foreseeable future.

Exercise: 

1.  What sales phrase in the lead sentence of your pitch or commercial would you use to activate the people in your bullseye?

2.  The ones in the second ring?

3.  Listen to as many commercials on your radio station as possible and sort out the ones that seem to be talking to the people in the outer ring.

4.  Rewrite to make them more effective.

Sit Down, Kid, And Let Me Tell You How Much Better It Used To Be

Once upon a time, radio “programmed” commercial breaks. 

• Best spot first, second best last, worst ones in the middle of the cluster.
• Never put the same voice back to back in a cluster.
• Longest first, shortest last.
• Tags last and only one per cluster.
• Live reads first and only one per cluster.

I considered these things very important and felt that I could quickly recognize "a great radio station" because they executed it all so cleanly and consistently.

Then, almost three decades ago, digital traffic systems came in and made changing anything about the way commercials laid out either very difficult or completely impossible.

By and large, radio stopped "programming" clusters.

Ratings never changed at all.

That was one of the many times I have re-learned to embrace change, and focus on recognizing the things which matter from the ones that really don’t.

You Go First

Sean Ross (Why The Audience Now Wants Shorter Breaks) initiated not just a great conversation last week but the savvy and experienced folks adding comments since that time simply can't be ignored!

However, I'm not yet convinced.

Back when John Hayes ran Corus and Canada was just starting with PPM, with the help of the brilliant Bob Michaels (I STILL miss him so much - a smart researcher and a wonderful communicator!), all Corus stations were mandated to do six two minute breaks and promote that they go back to the music faster than anyone else.

Finally, after more than a year of disappointing ratings all of the Corus music stations went to two six minute breaks per hour and the ratings improved almost immediately across the board.

In Canada, BBM doesn't use "five minutes equals a quarter hour" as Nielsen Audio does, so it's absolutely a "most minutes" wins game and all of the Canadian country stations we work with are doing exceedingly well right now sticking with the "hour glass" or "bow tie" approach, so I'm welcoming anyone else who wants to take the Edison Researcher's advice and "go first."

My sense is that this is a case of perception vs actual habits.

TV commercials are all run at the same times so that viewers then are forced to choose their favorite shows based on the content not the commercial load and I believe that the same is true with radio when the measurement is PPM.

The major consolidated US group owners have shown me by their actions in PPM that it's possible for one station to play at least one minute more commercial time than a direct competitor and still win by carefully placing their clusters to maximize the time measured by the PPM, which like your cell phone "knows what time it is," so a few seconds can be the same as a minute depending where a tune-in or tune-out happens.  Thanks to Nielsen Audio's editing rules, that minute in the right place can be credited as a full quarter hour (or also cost you one if it's improperly placed).

Perception still drives expectations, which does make listeners go to one station "first" over another, but when at that station "time matters" much more than perceptions, I maintain.  Great content drives usage in the moment much more than the image that if I am patient I'll hear more of what I want in the long term.

Each "stop" causes a huge loss in the "switcher" audience and the more times per hour that happens the stronger that image of "it's worth waiting for something terrific" must be, my current experience still indicates.

How about you?  Ready to go first?

There Ought To Be A Law

There are some things that our advertisers do that are illegal and then there are others that should be.

In both situations, it's the listener who gets punished when programmers fail to police these instances even before a fine comes the radio station's way.

Things every creative director needs to be on the lookout for every day:

1.  End dates for copy.  Nothing sounds less "live and local" than a spot for a Thanksgiving Day Sale on the day after the holiday.

2.  Updates.  Every time-dated spot or promo must have a "tomorrow" and "today" version.  Would anyone tell a friend "sale ends November 20th" ON November 20th?

3.  Sirens.  No, it's not illegal to broadcast one on radio, but has anyone not been in a vehicle when one came on, felt deceived after pulling over to the side of the road, realizing they could have caused an accident?  Surely, there's a more original and creative way to command attention than this hackneyed gimmick.  Let's protect the ears and traffic safety of our listener and offer to make something better for the brand, gratis.

4.  "The first listener to get to (remote location) wins..."  Actually, this one could get you sued if someone causes a collision after speeding up to get your prize.

5.  Anything that contains "prize, chance and consideration."  But, you knew that. 

I wish we'd handle numbers 1 through 3 as strictly as we do that one by using the phrase "I can't let you do that."

Quality Is As Important As Quantity

Irritating commercials are becoming an increasing cause of listener tune-out. 

The quality of the commercials is more of a potential tune-out than the quantity.

Today, the greatest missed opportunity in radio is to produce spots that are clever, ear catching, compelling for listeners to hear and compelling enough to move product for the client. 

When it comes to local “in house” spot production we turn out a lot of “average” spots. A trend as winning operators consolidate is to have a full time production person who does nothing but sharpen the production images for all of the companies properties. 

If I were a General Manager, I would invest more in a Creative/Production department.  I would want to have better spots to lead off my spotsets and create demand in my station’s creative department.

 

Be known for great production.  Your TSL will go up (ratings) and make your station in demand for production (revenues)!

Best In Class

I love this job.  One reason:  I listen to a lot of radio which exposes me to lots of mediocrity, of course, but now and than something really stands out.

Like:

• This Killam Properties ad (click Killam Properties.mp3 to listen to it) on XL-96/Moncton.
• I'd bet that hundreds of us saw this item on Taste Of Country.com.  But only the creative folks at WZZK/Birmingham ran right into production and got this promo (WZZK-Luke Bryan.mp3) on the air.

Brilliance is taking the things everyone has access to and doing something extraordinary with it.

Radio Advertiser? Don't Waste Your Money.

Heard at The Conclave:  Tim Burt maintains that only one percent of all radio ads really work to convince and get results.

His tips to use with your clients to be certain that they get more than they expect from their investment:

1. As you refine their message ("a radio commercial is a business card, not a brochure") ask them "why shouldn't I go to your competition."
2. Challenge them to think about their spot as if they had :15-:30 seconds to talk to the crowd at the largest stadium in your town.  Would they say "open Friday night till 9 at our convenient location, stop in or call or visit our website"?
3. Have them take "the competitor script challenge."  Replace their direct competition's name in their ad and talk about whether their ad is the same as the guy across the street except for the brand name in it.  ("if you were lost in a forest, would you dress up like a tree?")

Make sure the communication contains ONE core, easily understood message, the element of surprise, an undeniable, irrefutable fact (results), exudes safety/trust and tells a story, ending with the principle of closure.

Your Heart And Your Skin On Too Many Commercial Units

Fire up your printer.  I am about to share a study with you that you're going to want to keep in your top desk drawer.

But, first, a quick tip of the hat to two academics, Dave Allan and Rob Potter.

Back in 1997, Dr. Allan published “Comparative Effectiveness of 30- Versus 60-Second Radio Commercials on Recall and Rate,” in the Journal of Radio Studies.

Two years later Dr. Potter replicated the findings using heart response and galvanic skin testing.

For example, here's what your heart looks like on too many commercial units:

Potter notes that general managers and sales managers in the wake of Clear Channel's "less is more" initiatives which started almost a decade ago now "may be tempted to double the number of commercial units while keeping the overall duration of their advertising breaks consistent." 

This study investigates the effects of such a decision on listener perceptions of advertising clutter and engagement to persuasive messages in the commercial breaks and the results document that the number of units matters.

To put it scientifically:  "Automatic orienting brings the listeners back to the task of processing the message, and because the message is new, they spend at least a brief amount of time processing it in order to make sense of it.  Therefore, it is expected that in the early portion of a commercial break, having more, and shorter commercials will increase cognitive effort spent on the processing of the advertising break. However, it also follows that each time a listener orients to the onset of a new commercial (recognized through the presence of an entirely new announcer, perhaps new music, and new semantic content) it increases an awareness of how many sequential commercials to which they were exposed.  As awareness that the number of sequential commercials is increasing and reaching a total that is quite high, media users may become more likely to tune out. If the physical ability to tune out is not available, listeners may mentally disengage from processing the persuasive messages."

The next time your boss comes into your office asking you to add units, toss this phrase back in their face "Lang’s Limited Capacity Model of Motivated Mediated Message Processing."

And, if that doesn't drive them away, click on this pdf of Potter's 2009 research and tell them not to come back until they've studied it thoroughly.

Finally, if they still don't get the point that adding units drives listeners away, you can show them what your skin response looks like on too many irritants ... like their harmful requests to add units!

2013 Radio Mercury Award Winners

114 radio spots and campaigns made it to the finals of the 2013 Radio Mercury Awards, which honors outstanding radio created by advertising agencies, production companies, radio stations and students.

Entries were judged on their creativity, originality and effective communication of a brand’s message.

Click to listen to many of the winners and finalists

Target was named the marketer of the year by the Radio Mercury judges.  “We’ve been focused on the use of audio as a channel and how that can build up storytelling from our video components and our other experiential marketing and think about how that can extend a broader story and at the same time we’re very successful at using it to drive big traffic moments and high-frequency celebrations like Black Friday.”   - Target/Haworth Marketing + Media Director of Media Strategy Melissa Schoenke

Target spent $18.6 million on national radio in 2012 according to Kantar Media, and that figure is likely to grow in 2013 according to today's Inside Radio.

Barton F. Graf 9000 created the ad for Ragu pasta sauce which won the $50,000 grand prize.

Bill Cimino, chief creative officer, Y&R Midwest was chief judge for this year’s Radio Mercury Award and is a three-time winner himself for his work on the highly-decorated “Real Men of Genius” campaign for Bud Light on radio:  “There’s no other medium that if you have a bad idea that it is illuminated so fast.  You can’t hide behind pretty pictures and production values.  It’s theater of the mind and you know rather quickly if you have something special."

You Need A Station "Results Manager"

No one wants irritating, ineffective commercials on the air.

So, how do they get there?

If you agree with me that many of the spots your station airs cost time spent listening by causing tune-out and thus aren't effective in actually marketing anything (other than building brand name familiarity by associating the retailer or product for a repetitive negative memory), it's time to review the process which allows that to happen.

Theory:  sales person closes the deal and is told that the commercials will arrive via email, snail mail or ftp site. 

The lone person in the building all night, watching over all of the stations in the cluster is charged with doing the "dubs" based on a production order from traffic.

Quality control is most likely no one person's responsibility, other than - hopefully - the all nighter is cautioned to flag anything that might be illegal, such as one that contains "prize, chance and consideration."

It's time for a more specific policy designed to at least call someone's attention to what could be an offensive, poorly-produced, badly-written commercial.

1.  Have everyone who is charged with loading a spot into the system code each one with a letter grade from "A" to "F" and compare the scheduled run dates with the copy to be sure that it won't sound out-dated.

2.  Create a "customer results manager" position, hopefully one of your most detail-oriented and creative people, to review anything with a "C" grade or lower and also any copy that may require updates toward the end of its run.

3.  When your new "CRM" finds something that needs improvement, that person alerts the seller, who calls the client and asks "are you getting the expected results now that your commercials are running?"

4.  If the client says "yes," tell him about the need for an update and offer ideas to improve the impact and power of the message.  If the client is pleased with things as they are, I do not recommend rocking the boat, but if the advertiser is open to listening to alternative ideas from your creative team take the opening to impress 'em with your caring and follow-through.

They'll call it terrific, above and beyond, customer service.

Have your "CRM" create a discrepancy report with an overview of these actions to be reviewed by Brand Manager, Sales Manager and Market Manager.  You'll smile each time you hear their "new" commercial.  Ratings go up.

Better creative gets better results.  Once your client tells you that you improved her business, that's a perfect opportunity to ask for a hike in rate, don't you think?

More money for everybody!

N. O. E. S. L. W. S. T. M. S.

"Using 'commercial-free' verbiage is equal to saying 10-12 minutes of every hour of your station's product is worthless," says Jim Kirkland in Radio-Info.com.

Jim should look at our product from a listener and not just a media buyer perspective.

No doubt that our commercial time is worth a lot more than we normally manage to get paid for it, but there’s a reason why online streaming ads have to be :20 seconds or less and extremely engaging.

The future of media is moving to end user control and those buttons on their radio have always given them the power to avoid anything they don’t feel is worth the time.

Meanwhile, even the AAA confirms that the best bet is not to change stations while driving since even that, they infer, occasionally contributes to distracted driving.

OK, I'll stop now, after one final "No One Ever Said Life Was Supposed to Make Sense."

Three Things About Radio Commercials We Can Agree On

• Commercial free hours beat hours which contain irritating commercials hands down.
• Radio programmers make bad grocery store managers/media buyers, and the reverse is true too.
• Radio can always use more entertaining, creative commercials. (click to hear a bunch of them, presented their trophies and cash just last evening), including the big winner.