Bad Ads

Common flaws in both promo and commercial copy:

1.  Trying to sell too many things, using…
2.  Too many words, and
3.  Little or no listener emotional involvement.

Fixing the quality of your radio station’s writing, and getting better results for your clients, is as simple as “1-2-3."

Bad Promos

No promotional announcement should ever be longer than thirty seconds.

Paint a picture.  Use theater of mind, metaphors and similes.

Start and end with your station brand name, but incorporate it authentically so that it doesn’t seem tacked on or “old school” radio in style.

Deliver a “promise” in the first sentence, pairing your brand name with it.  Make sure the target listener gets hooked by the “promise” before the brand is linked to it.

Use sound effects to enhance the mental picture.  Marketing is placing your product in the mind of the consumer so that they picture themselves using it.

Effective promos MUST sound superior to any commercial that will air before or after them.

There must be three to five versions of every promo to keep the working fresh and unpredictable.  Produce updates for each one that are time-dated (Sunday, tomorrow, today).

Use “reach” and “frequency” stats to calculate how many times to air one to be sure the majority of your target hears the message.  One they have, they’re going to mentally “tune out” if you overplay the message beyond that point.

The most effective promos are perishable.  Build fresh ones constantly and don’t recycle old ones unless you wait a VERY long time before doing so.

Admit It. They Are Right

When the most dissatisfied core country radio listeners complain that we seem to play the same songs over and over, they are not wrong.

The conventional wisdom says "if they're not complaining about repetition, you're not playing the hits often enough."  

It's time to question that and look at what's been happening.

Risks of Increased Song Repetition at Country Radio are Real

For the past several years, the Albright & O’Malley & Brenner annual Roadmap reports have identified that song repetition is country radio's heavy users No. 1 “dissatisfaction” issue. In fact, in CMA Insiders panel tests and Edison Research CRS studies also replicate results that seem to show that playing songs too often consistently far outpaces other concerns such as “too many commercials” or “irrelevant or too much DJ talk” for country radio heavy users.

A clear majority has shared this view every year over the last decade, with the proportion of thousands of Country listeners surveyed holding this opinion ranging between 54-62%. The January 2014 client exclusive report shows 58.8% cite song repetition as the top negative impression they have of Country radio.

Despite A&O&B’s clarion call to Country programmers to pull back on playing current singles too often and national research documenting decreases in time spent listening to radio (including Country radio), stations seem to be content to maintain business as usual. Perhaps PDs dismiss the risks, regarding such complaints as shop-worn issues that have always persisted in the minds of listeners and which run contrary to studies that indicate listeners want to hear the hits as much as possible.

How real is this consumer perception? The Stone Door Media Lab offered to examine the issue of repetition at Country radio, comparing spins at different chart milestones from August 2006 and January 2014. The Stone Door study’s results show that Country stations are playing currents far more than ever.

The spin frequency for charting Country singles is rising. Here’s proof:


And, it takes more spins than ever to achieve a No. 1, too – up 24% since mid-2006. The average number of weekly spins for No. 1 singles:
 

2013-2014                  48.32

2012-2013                  48.20

2011-2012                  45.37

2010-2011                  43.38

2009-2010                  42.13

2008-2009                  40.70

2007-2008                  38.87

2006-2007                  38.95

Even though A&O&B’s 2014 Roadmap report shows that nearly 72% of Country listeners are still “very satisfied” with their Country stations, these consumers are demonstrating a steadily growing appetite for alternative music discovery and entertainment options. Nearly a quarter (24.9%) cite a “pure play” online choice as a destination “where they go” when they leave their favorite Country station, instead of another Country station. That’s up from 20.4% in 2013.

As the saying goes, perception is reality. But in this case, reality supports perception.

Bottom line: Country radio needs to seriously consider this No. 1 negative. 

Tomorrow:  why is this happening?  Will cutting back on big current hit spins hurt PPM station ratings?

Now, The Bad News

At a CRS 2014 session Nielsen Audio revealed national country format trend data showing weekly cume among teens rose 8% and was up an impressive 15% among 18-24s helping country’s audience share grow 17% among teens (12-17 year-olds) and 16% with young adults (18-24), allowing the format to leapfrog past CHR in persons 18-24 and move from third to second among teens in diary markets.  At the same time, country’s share of 25-34 year-olds slipped 9% (still holding onto #1 in that demo).

The cume increases came largely as a result of new listenership, driven by population shifts.

We're fortunate that happened.  Here's why, thanks to another CRS prersentation, from Stone Door Media Lab's Jeff Green:

Larry Rosin, Roy H. Williams and Fred Jacobs have all fretted about a potential cause of this trend in recent blog posts and I can't disagree with any of their concerns:  the increasing de-localization of radio and extreme commercial loads.

This is important because normally it's far less expensive to improve time spent listening than it is to grow cume.

Country's core audience complains twice as much about music repetition as their reason for being dissatisfied/listening less than they do about "too many commercials," so country programmers have it in their power to turn our negative TSL trend around at almost no financial cost if we take listeners at their word and don't continue to virtually ignore their complaint.

To do so will mean letting go of some old habits and traditional wisdoms.

All next week, I'll offer my reasoning and proposed strategies. 

Watch this space.