"What’s Happening?" Still Works

Reduce the clutter generated by sales value-added by making use of a weekly promo from sales inventory to group together a lot of smaller sales promotions on air.

These promos are :30 seconds in length, have a standard music bed behind them, run as a normal commercial unit, as read by your station’s “Fun Finder” personality under the umbrella of “here’s what’s happening at (brand name).

Place all sales events that appeal to the mass audience including remote broadcasts, personality appearances, concerts, et al.

These “sales promos” generally run once per daypart.  It’s tempting to bump them when you’re sold out, but don’t do it. 

If you promised it and got a “buy” as a result of that promise, you’ve got to deliver on ‘em and that’s another reason to count them as commercial inventory.  You can even affidavit them as long as you keep a good paper trail of everything you run.

If a client doesn’t want their mention included in a carry-all like this, of course, you’d be delighted to sell them their very own commercial to say whatever they like!

Singing In Unison With Mark Lapidus

Any radio column that concludes with the recommendation to begin practicing this simple but powerful phrase: “Starting January 2014, we will stop giving away advertising of any kind, online or mobile. Instead, we will use these precious assets to generate money for our radio station” gets a "second" from me.

The Radio World promotions writer last week created a list of long-overused vehicles for mentioning client names along with routine programming elements, but the title of the article - Put Ads In Their Proper Place - rings my chimes.

Radio has no shortage of places to drop the names of advertisers within the context of what we do and listeners turn up the volume to hear.

The key question is:  are you getting enough money for the ones you currently do?  If not, why wait until January to do the right thing?

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!

Questionable Advice

1. In the March 26th issue of Radio Ink magazine, the Director of Media and Digital Marketing for La Quinta Inn, Amy Bartle tells radio that our stopsets are too long.

We train our sellers to really understand the buyers' business needs before pitching our wares, but it always seems that media buyers are at the ready to tell us how to run our businesses.

They are only one set of our customers and if their suggestions to stop promoting long sets of content listeners love were taken, we'd deliver fewer sets of ears to hear their ads.

Suggestion: if you want to be the only commercial in a cluster, pay a higher rate and if you pay enough we'd be happy to make your spot the only one we play. But, of course, that would be wasteful, given radio's efficiency and research-proven ability to hold listeners through stopsets.

Focus on creating more engaging commercials and they'll be up to 40% more effective for the same money, no matter where they run.

You want to see clutter? Read your newspaper or watch TV.

Your spot on radio is at center stage when it's on and, unlike TV, most listeners don't skip it.

2. In comments filed with the FCC for its media ownership proceeding, NAB says the current caps, tiered by market size, as well as the AM/FM subcaps that limit how many stations of one service a group can own in a market can no longer be justified and no longer serve the agency’s diversity policy goals.

Small broadcasters have no representation in Washington other than the NAB and perhaps their state broadcasting association, whereas Clear Channel reportedly spends $700,000 annually on their four lobbying firms.

Did the NAB really need to provide stats from Clear Channel as part of their filing?

Certainly, the big guys exert powerful influence on NAB, but hopefully the thousands of small business local owners across America the organization also speaks for got a chance to share their views on further consolidation as well.

I am not necessarily against revisiting the ownership caps, especially when it comes to newspaper crossownership - since many local newspapers have been great stewards of their radio licenses over the entire history of our medium, often providing better local news and public affairs than anyone else in town - but I do wish the NAB's filing had included supportive comments from many of them, instead of CBS and Clear Channel.

The Space Heater In The Well House

Water to my home comes from a well, and several years ago during a winter cold snap the pipes from the well froze. So, of course, I "winterized" everything. Insulation on all pipes. Heaters in every location possible.

Thankfully, we've never had our pipes freeze again in spite of a few days each winter of bitter cold temperatures.

Yesterday, a lovely mid-70's summer day, I discovered that the space heater in my well house has been keeping the temperature in there in the mid-80's, driving up my utility bills, for at least the last 90 days, if not longer.

Do you have any "space heaters in your (programming) well house?"

• That 60's and 70's weekend music show which worked very well when 60's and 70's variety was important to your strategy, a decade ago?
• A value-added short form feature you agreed to run when a prospect dangled big bucks in front of sales, but the client no longer remembers that you run it to get his business?
• Morning show benchmarks which seemed like good ideas once upon a time, but haven't been freshened or tested in a very long time?

Summer started this week, so it's too late to encourage you to do "spring cleaning" of your features, contests, promotions, mentions and other programming elements.

Instead, like I did yesterday, maybe it's time for you to turn off a few "space heaters" that only cost resources and have outlived their usefulness.

How much clutter is too much clutter?

The more compelling the personality and the content, the more. The less personable and relatable the non-music programming on a music FM is, the better the station will do with less of it, as long is the goal is short term only. LONG term, developing strong entertainers who know how to use content as a magnet, the better the station will do. Listeners like it best when there is NO clutter. Limiting unwanted elements that make money has always been the greatest programming competitive challenge. Running any clutter of any kind which doesn't drive revenue or usage is foolhardy. - Thanks to Radio Ink's Ed Ryan for including my perspective in the discussion.

Ed: Should announcers back-announce and intro all songs, every hour throughout the day.

Yes. In fact, Mike O'Malley and I have been urging it for many, many years.

The first A&O client to make use of it was Clear Channel's KIXZ-FM, Spokane a decade ago, suggested by then Clear Channel VP Programming Rich Hawkins and PD Paul Neumann is still there, more than willing to testify that this baked in product attribute is still a big part of our secret sauce.

Citadel's Thunder Country Grand Rapids, Maverick Media's WAXX/Eau Claire, Midwest Family's BOB FM/Springfield and Morris' KBRJ/Anchorage are just a few of the others you can hear online if you want to listen to how it's done.

If you'd like to know if listeners like it, just talk to any of those PD's or either one of us!

The Canary Is Still Breathing; The Branch Hasn't Broken

It's been more than a decade since it became conventional wisdom that radio's programming and marketing departments were primarily a service bureau for sales, in pursuit of revenues, cutting costs, thus attaining higher multiples.

Ratings bonuses have increasingly been replaced at the companies where bonuses for talent and programming still exist with "BCF" bonuses, making us all members of the sales department.

The executives who started this trend are longtime broadcasters and I have always told myself that they may bend the twig until they start to hear cracking, but they're smart enough to stop bending just before it breaks. They'd recognize the sound of a coalmine canary that stops chirping.

And, just because it still sounds like some major market traffic reporters, news departments and weather forecasters no longer answer to the station program director in the length or word choice of their content, the twig remains barely intact and the bird is still, softly, singing.

What? Me? Worry?

I get paid by A&O clients to worry.

As PPM is rewarding the panel listeners' most compelling and likable personalities, punishing ones they don't spend as much time using, driving up ratings of stations which waste the least amount of time talking about anything or playing songs the audience doesn't engage with, broadcasters who want to win simply must relearn how to edit, edit, edit everything.

Now, programming as a service bureau for sales includes once again focusing on trimming everything that doesn't make money or entertain to the bone.

Sure, a great PD still brings ideas that make money, but PPM clearly shows that every competitor has the same 60 minutes per hour and not a second more and it creates lots more revenue to have high ratings than to add more value-added mentions.

There was a time when the majority of General Managers and Program Directors spent a day away from the radio station listening together, agreeing on what elements grew audience and made money and which ones were simply wasting time.

• That way, the PD could talk authoritatively to the cluster's news director, the long distance meteorologist, the bartered traffic service knowing that the GM is going to back her up when she says "this is what I need" and expect great execution.
• That way, they agree on how many extra mentions "we" do compared to our shared-cume competition.
  
• That way, they set firm commercial unit limits and concur on the costs of overselling them.

PPM has provided new tools which amplify the sound of cracking twigs, chirping canaries, making product integrity - as defined by radio's users - a programmer and manager's time-tested, very highest priority.

Your Station's Promo Inventory Is Finite

Think of every promo as a favor you are asking of your audience (attending an event, listening to morning drive, participating in a contest, friending you on Facebook, reTweeting your content, even thinking about the station in a new light).

The more you ask of your listeners, the less impact each request will have.

Network television provides an example of effective promo usage. Each of the major networks airs 30 to 50 different programs each week, yet they heavily promote fewer than a dozen.

Similarly, it is important to create priority and focus with your station promos.

Every week, there will be dozens of "priorities" that all seem to deserve promo mentions.

Unfortunately, the more "priorities" you promote, the more clutter you create and the fewer things your audience will actually remember and respond to.

Narrow the station's focus down to only the most important promo topics and devote your entire inventory to these.

How Will Your Self-Promotion Fare?

Accountability IS the future, and now that new measures are evolving to check - down to units smaller than a minute in the not-too-distant future - to see which of the things we broadcast engage/relate and which things are counter-productive to both usage and brand-building, you don't need to listen to very much radio to get very worried about our medium-term future.

We simply MUST stop talking about ourselves and what we do, and begin to sell benefits instead of features in entertaining and compelling ways.

"Content" is not where your next remote broadcast is going to be, or who the guest is going to be on next Sunday's 5:00 am public affairs show.

"Data is going to begin changing the way ... advertising is purchased or managed -- finally -- and "tune-in" is quite likely to be first in line. It certainly won't happen overnight, but the multiples involved are clearly too great to be ignored. 2% improvements won't move markets, but 20% or 2X improvements will. This is going to have a lot of impact in TV measurements, metrics, processes and, very likely, business models. It will certainly be disruptive to many of the incumbents -- and will also present many of them with extraordinary new opportunities -- but it will certainly be crazy getting there."

How many media pundits/research studies have to say this and for how long before radio starts to sound like it's stopped being narcissistic?

Putting The Buzzword "Engagement" Into Action

SpotIQ in Philadelphia was developed at Jerry Lee's WBEB, though it's also now being embraced by other local stations as a tool to make radio advertising even more effective.

An hour spent with their "Engaging Commercials" webinar will not only let you hear some very powerful spots, but also teach the tools which increase the impact of anything on the air!

Badonkadonk Is A $100,000-Winning Radio Commercial

Stuck for ideas? That's the whole reason for this competition.

Click here to check out the best radio advertising of 2007.

Thanks AGAIN, RAEL.. You May Have Given Some Ammo To Us Clutter Police!

In the item below (RAEL Hits Another Home Run) I strongly recommended the latest Radio Ad Lab study, released only Friday. Now the RAEL Webcast from RAB'07 in Dallas (Requires Windows Media) is also online too. However, that isn't why I am writing an additional post.

Here's why I want you to down load the full report Radio and the Internet: Powerful Complements for Advertisers and go immediately to Page 24, where they talk about an unintended "research effect" of the study, especially if you have a client who wants to run more than one ad a quarter hour, or a client, seller, SM or GM who feels that every traffic, weather, news and sports update must have both an open and a close ID for the sponsor. Direct from the study:

...those receiving two exposures to the same radio ad were hearing that ad twice only a few minutes apart. Harris Interactive and the RAEL Research Committee both now believe that those two exposures in such quick succession may actually have harmed the more emotions-linked responses. While the second exposure may have continued to grow with the second radio impression, the second exposure may have actually started to hurt whatever positive feelings were triggered by the first exposure.

Yes, I know that a "research effect" isn't a finding or a recommendation and these two ads were :30's not :10's or :05's, but this makes so much sense that I hope you'll keep the pages in this latest RAEL report describing this phenomonon close by and ask anyone who wants to run the same 'ad' more than once in under 12 minutes to reconsider that in light of the fact that it could be hurting THEM (...as well as US).