Fred Jacobs is President of Jacobs Media, a media research and consulting firm. Jacobs Media clients have included CBS Radio, Premiere Radio Networks, Citadel, Greater Media, MTV Networks, Playboy, Amazon, Electronic Arts, NPR, Sylvan Learning Centers, and Taubman Malls. Learn more about the company here.
One of the more interesting and potentially compelling stories to come out of the Pandora Files this year has to do with a difficult topic for those folks – sales.
Obviously, there’s incredible consumer interest in Pandora – especially on mobile devices where listening has surpassed usage on computers. While the radio industry debateswhether Pandora is “radio,” the fact is that many consumers from diverse backgrounds enjoy it immensely.
Last week, Edison Research released their version of July audience ratings, based on Pandora's data. According to Edison's calculations, Pandora has an impressive .5 or .6 AQH rating in NYC, LA, Chicago, San Francisco, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Houston, Atlanta, Philly, and D.C.
There are ratings and then there's audience research, and this chart from our recent Techsurvey 7 is proof positive that core radio listeners are turning to Pandora. Our surveys are comprised primawrily of station database members, often P1s to radio. And while perhaps much of this listening may be additive to broadcast radio, time spent is…well, time spent.
Among those who stream, nearly three in ten listen to Pandora weekly. Note how both men and women are turning to this pure-play option, while usage is especially strong among 18-34 year-olds and smartphone owners.
Buzz, usage, momentum, mobile. These are all qualities that are synonymous with Pandora.
So what's the problem?
The missing word is sales. In a story that broke last week, it turns out that even with all these positive arrows, Pandora is having a heap of trouble selling its mobile inventory from which 60% of its overall listening occurs.
Pandora’s CEO, Joe Kennedy, recently admitted that "The sheer level of aggregate advertiser demand for mobile is limited.” So while Pandora is ahead of the game in many fronts – ubiquity, access, and mobile usage – the speed bumps associated with streaming sales (especially mobile) along with rising streaming fees (as the audience grows) creates unique challenges for the new IPO.
If you’re in radio and you’re selling your stream, you can clearly relate to Pandora’s problems. And in tomorrow’s post, we’ll talk how radio might respond strategically to what Pandora is up to. As readers of this blog know very well, we have warned about the Pandora challenge for well more than a year, based on the results and reactions we've measure in our Techsurveys, as well as "Goin' Mobile."
Today, thoughts on Apple's latest major offering from Jacobs Media's Mac-Geek-In-Residence, Ralph Cipolla, and why our laptops and desktops are “Goin’ Mobile.”
Last week, we saw the much-anticipated release of Mac OS X Lion, Apple's latest iteration of the Mac operating system. Now if you’re not an “Apple Person,” you might wonder what this could possibly mean to you.
When smartphones came out, they mimicked computers in many ways. The release of Lion accelerates the reverse trend. Your desktop and laptop are looking more and more like your mobile phone or tablet.
It is statistics like the chart below that tell the story. Smartphones are overtaking regular computers. That’s going to have a direct influence on how your computer looks, feels, and operates. And it’s not a surprise that Apple is leading the way.
With Lion, the mobile experience is moving to our laptops and desktops. And even if you’re a PC user, you know the influence that Apple has on the world of computers.
Here are three big things about Lion and what it means to you:
1. Up In The Cloud: Lion isn't available in a box, like Snow Leopard and every Mac and Windows operating system released before this week. You download it from the online Mac App Store. Once you make an App purchase, from the $29.99 Lion update to any of the free Mac Apps, it resides in the Apple Cloud. This is how the iTunes Store will soon operate when it comes to all your songs, videos, TV shows, movies, and App Store mobile apps - all your content stored in one place, available for download and use on all your devices - MacBook, iPhone, iPod, iPad, etc.
2. Lion & iOS: Lion users will note a stark similarity between their late-generation iPhone or iPad when it comes to look, feel, function, and organization of programs. One of the big functional and aesthetic advances in Apple’s last major mobile OS release was the ability to group apps into folders and organize them across scrolling desktops. That’s essentially what Lion is all about on desktops and laptops.
So here’s where it’s going: the manner in which Apple’s mobile devices operate, navigate, organize, look, and feel is setting the standard for all computing devices whether they fit in your pocket or sit permanently on your desk at home or work.
You download "apps" and content from the iTunes Store, it lives in your account in the Cloud, and it's readily available for use across all your devices.
The world of personal computing is now “Goin’ Mobile.”
As your Lion-powered Mac computer now navigates more like a mobile device, there’s one exception – you can't touch the screen directly with your fingers and manipulate data.
We’re back from the 36th Annual Conclave, and Jacobs Media’s “Summer School” sessions. For the second straight year, we put together solid “classes” that featured some great learning. And thanks to the continued revival of Conclave, we presented our curriculum to an enthusiastically large crowd, eager to advance their education. It was a fun morning.
Lori Lewis (bottom left), our newest digital and social staffer, brought her social media skills to the classroom with a great session that helped attendees better understand the rules of interactivity with the audience. Bill Jacobs (top left) connected the dots between PPM and diaries, while Ralph Cipolla (top right) schooled us on the art of tease writing, complete with a great re-enactment of an old SNL bit that originally featured Jerry Seinfeld, but was acted out by the “Mighty Conclave Players.”
Our “guest lecturers” were excellent, each bringing great content, experience, and credibility to "Summer School." Arbitron’s SVP of Digital Media and Analytics, Paul Krasinski, (middle left) took charge and talked about “Total Audience,” a new service that’s designed to track listeners throughout their day, as they move from one platform to another. As radio becomes more adept at shifting from on-air to online to mobile, Arbitron’s goal is to connect streaming data with PPM listening to help determine “what they’re doing and how they’re engaging with you.” This was exciting information, and we were thrilled it was the lead story in Inside Radio last Friday.
As many of you know, we have worked with public radio since the late ‘90s, and we always have an eye on how these stations are approaching some of the same challenges that commercial broadcasters face. To provide that context, Mike Reszler (bottom middle) – Minnesota’s Public Radio’s Managing Online Editor – put together a great presentation that offered strong evidence about the power of digital assets – how they can be programmed, managed, and generate revenue.
To describe the various ways in which the MPR audience accesses their content, Mike presented one of the best “pie charts” I’ve ever seen:
I’ll have a slice of the pecan, please.
Mike also reminded us of the importance of mobile and social, noting that broadcasters need to set goals and get serious about their digital activities.
And our final “guest professor” was marketer Michael Brandvold, the guy behind the online marketing of KISS and other iconic rock and pop performers. Mike (top middle) has been on the front lines, learning from Gene Simmons, as well as our favorite teachers – success and failure.
The KISS formula is simple – it’s all about the brand. Mike reminded the classroom about the importance of listening to the fans, and tapping into their passion. That’s been a big part of KISS’s online success. He also emphasized the importance of retrenching when mistakes are made, and not being afraid to change minds and strategies. At one point, KISS got too “family friendly,” drifting too far away from their rock roots. Acknowledging errors, moving on, and changing directions are all part of mastering the learning curve, and Michael gave us proof positive about why he’s a great marketer.
As has been the case for decades, the Conclave continues to be a standout event, and we’re proud to be a part of it. We hope that attendees got their money’s worth for their tuition payments.
Thanks again to all who attended, and please give us feedback on our sessions, our agenda, and the overall experience. "Summer School" can be enjoyable.
...smartphone ownership crosses many demographic lines.
So no matter whether you program, sell, or own radio stations, this phenomenon touches your business in so many different ways.
And if you've seen our Techsurvey 7 presentation, you know that smartphones combine critical mass with out-and-out passion.
Here's a word cloud that depicts how cell phone owners describe their feelings for their devices:
If word clouds existed in 1975 and you asked consumers about how they felt about radio, it may have looked similar. But radio has always been about entertainment, and the best smartphones are only as good as the content they bring us. That's the challenge and the opportunity of the smartphone experience.
What groups have the greatest propensity to own a smartphone? Pew reports that the wealthy, those under 45, and African-Americans and Latinos are the most likely groups. And if that doesn't define diversity, I'm not sure what does. This suggests that smartphones touch everyone. While the better educated and deeper pocketed folks are more apt to lean toward iPhones, while the less well-heeled go for Android devices, there's no question that there's a smartphone for everyone.
Having an app is not a mobile strategy. This space continues to be a tech and lifestyle phenomenon the likes of which we've never seen. As Google's Eric Schmidt reminds us in three words, "Think Mobile First." That's good advice for all of us.
As we learned up close and personal in “Goin’ Mobile” last year, social media and mobile are dual accelerants – each feeding off the other – and growing in ways that were previously unimaginable.
Facebook’s impact on our lives continues to amaze us, as the numbers rise meteorically, including people that we never dreamed would be involved with social media. How many times a day do you hear the word Facebook in conversation and in media? (More than you hear Google.)
And then there’s mobile. In Techsurvey 7, we saw smartphone acquisition rise 56% from last year’s study. And we’re nearing that majority tipping point with our rock radio respondents. Many analysts believe that smartphone sales will grow by more than 50% in 2011 in the U.S.
Social feeds off mobile – and vice-versa. And to illustrate this symbiotic relationship, a newly released comScore study, “The State of the U.S. Mobile Advertising Industry and What Lies Ahead,” shows that the biggest year to year increase in mobile is its use for social networking.
In March 2010, 40 million U.S. consumers accessed social media with their phones. One year later, and that number has exploded to 60 million – up 45.7% (circled on the chart below).
So how does this data inform your mobile strategy? If you have a mobile app – congratulations. The opportunity to be on the hottest devices ever is a plus for your station and helps to give your listeners a chance to hear you in more places, not to mention a sense of cool. Give yourself an extra 10 points if you have an individual station app, allowing you to truly showcase your brand right alongside Pandora, Facebook, Google Maps, and the New York Times.
But if your app doesn’t include social media connectivity, the comScore data suggests that you may be missing a golden opportunity to better engage with your rapidly mobile audience. The chance to go right to your Facebook page or your morning DJ’s Twitter feed while your audience is in the dentist’s waiting room or watching their kid’s ballet recital or in between innings of that baseball game is too big to pass up.
Give your app the once-over and make sure that it’s socially in-sync with the changing tastes and habits of your audience. Google’s Eric Schmidt pointed out in a speech earlier this year that one of the implications of smartphone ownership is that we’ll never be bored again. If you carry a smartphone, you know exactly what he’s talking about. We have never seen a time or boredom killer quite like the smartphone (or tablet).
And given the consumer’s need to be in touch – especially via social media – chronicling even the most mundane aspects of their lives in words, pictures, and videos – social media connectivity via phones is a natural confluence of culture, connectivity, and technology.
We have not witnessed a greater change in overall lifestyle and business communications in our lifetimes.
Decades ago, radio set the pace for live and local entertainment, music discovery, and current events in hometowns everywhere.
Now more than ever, radio needs to keep pace with its listeners who are very much setting the pace themselves.
Tomorrow, we'll get a little LOMO on you as we take a look at he incredible local mobile revenue opporunity and why it will only get better.
What drove this precipitous drop? It had very little to do with the way the car runs – its handling, safety, stability, braking. It has everything to do with problems with its electronic features, mainly SYNC. Drivers registered 116 complaints for every 100 vehicles, much of them having to do with issues surrounding MyFord and MyLincoln Touch systems.
I get it, because I’ve experienced similar issues with my 2011 Ford Edge. (Of course, I lease a vehicle called “The Edge.”) SYNC was seriously the main reason why I chose the Edge, and I’ve had my share of problems with it, ranging from outages to volume control problems to just plain inconsistencies.
According to J.D. Power, SYNC is simply too complicated for many consumers. Truth be told, my salesperson didn’t understand it very well either. So that first weekend, I dragged my laptop into the garage, inserted the SYNC DVD, and sat through for 90 minutes watching every chapter.
Clearly, SYNC is cool and amazing, packed with more options than most consumers can imagine. Look at my desktop in this picture. Down the left hand side, you can see my array of choices. But there’s a lot of stuff on this screen – and it’s only a portion of the different views I have available, including services, climate, information, and of course, the phone.
And that’s a big part of the problem. It’s confusing for someone who just wants to jump in their car and listen to the Classic Rock station in town or connect their smartphone to listen to the audio from a favorite app.
You get the feeling that Ford engineers weren’t thinking CX – the Customer Experience – when they loaded SYNC with just about every feature, option, bell, and whistle imaginable. And that’s the problem with many consumer electronic innovations – whether it’s SYNC or the remote control that came with your plasma TV. Too often, engineers trump designers and researchers.
For broadcast radio, systems like Ford SYNC and Toyota Entune need work. But they’re going to get better, easier, and more intuitive. Ford is addressing many of the flaws that led to their “bad book.” And you can bet that consumers are looking for these options when they hit the showrooms.
Techsurvey 7 asked about systems like SYNC, and we found out that nearly one in ten of our core radio sample already has a vehicle like mine. And their impact on radio listening could be a problem. We asked these respondents if these high-tech entertainment systems had affected AM/FM listening. And one-fifth indicated they are spending less time with local broadcast stations.
Our apps division – jacAPPS – is now involved with research before we build apps, and usability testing after the fact for just this reason. Our experience with ethnographic research tells us that looking at content and innovation from the view of the end-user is the secret to creating and producing great products.
Ford will figure this out – if they already haven’t started dumbing SYNC down to be congruent with consumer habits and tendencies.
Look at your station’s website, your Facebook page, and your app, and consider it from the consumer’s point of view.
In the meantime, BlackBerry sales continue to lag, sparking layoffs, streamlining, and all those other words that you don’t want to hear from a company that was once the big dog. RIM profits fell nearly 10% in that same quarter due to disappointing sales.
It gets worse. The investment community is finally onto RIM's problems. Its sixth largest investor, Jarislowsky Fraser Limited, announced it was paring back its stake by 50% or more. As Stephen Jarislowsky told Bloomberg, " We are on the way out."
Who knew?
We knew – and those of you who participated in Techsurvey 7 (and their earlier editions) saw this coming, too.
In this fluid, crazy, fast-moving world of technology that is sparking a sea change in the basic ways in which people communicate with each other, it is our jobs – yours and mine – to try to know what’s coming.
As it relates to smartphones and apps, our design team at jacAPPS needs to know where it’s going before it gets there. And as media professionals assigned with developing our brands' tech strategies, you need to be sure you’re attuned with your consumers,and understand what platforms and brands matter to them. Otherwise, you can make very costly mistakes at a time when every dollar counts.
In the smartphone market, it’s about passion, utility, and loyalty. (If that sounds like radio, you’re thinking along the same lines.) We saw hard evidence in this year’s study that Apple (and Android) have all three assets, whereas BlackBerry lacks them all.
More than 80% of iPhone owners are staying with that brand next time – for RIM, it’s a grim story.
But as mentioned, your smartphone isn’t just a device that does a lot of stuff. We’ve learned in research from “Goin’ Mobile” to our Tech Surveys that your phone is a reflection of who you are. Smartphones make a statement about their owners, and some – like Apple – evoke passion with a capital “P.” BlackBerry owners, as the chart below clearly shows, are much more lukewarm with their praise.
All that blue for iPhone translates to “love.” And that’s a big driver in this marketplace.
But RIM’s ultimate downfall is in the world of apps. Somehow, while BlackBerry owners were busy firing off emails and texts, the Apple team conceived the “App Store.” And the different experience between platforms today suggests that RIM’s inability to comprehend the importance of apps is a big reason why they find themselves on the mat.
From Techsurvey 7, the number of apps that smartphone owners download differs greatly by device. Apple owners – iPads, iPhones, and iPod Touch devices – are more likely to have more than 40 apps. Compare that to BlackBerry customers, about half of whom have fewer than 10 apps.
Somehow a major player like RIM missed the app phenomenon, assuming it somehow wasn’t of importance to consumers. But you don’t have to be in the dark because basic research among your own database members – the same ones you send “eBlasts” to every week - can open the doors of your understanding, and provide guidance for your fiscal and strategic decision making.
As they used to say on The X-Files, “The truth is out there.”
Every day we are barraged by articles, blogs, and research about media and technology. It’s easy to miss something important amidst all the new gadget releases and pundit observations.
That was the case with a recent MediaPost email I received. Buried at the bottom was this headline: “Smartphone sales up 80%.”
The piece itself was just a few short sentences, summarizing that first quarter sales of smartphones were spiked by the rush of new models. Overall, nearly 100 million units were sold in Q1, almost doubling the same quarter last year.
We also know that in that same quarter, Apple sold 18 million iPhones, which accounted for about one-fifth of these sales.
Holy crap! What goes up 80% these days? Not even gas prices. But that speaks to the ongoing meteoric growth that is occurring in the smartphone sector.
So what does this mean to those of us who are developing mobile strategies, and for those of you who have built and developed apps for your station or company?
First, think of these new smartphone owners as new cumers moving into your market. Radio programmers know the challenge of building new listeners, but in the case of smartphones, thousands of these consumers are showing up in your metro every month.
Second, they are excited about their new purchases and, in most cases, they can’t wait to “test drive” them, download apps, and find out what their friends and family members have been talking about.
Third, they are new to these devices, and may not have previously dealt with the app store experience. They may not totally “get” what an app is and what it does.
Fourth, they have probably forgotten that YOU have an app. That’s because you probably promoted it when the app first went live, but now you’ve likely replaced those promos with your 9-to-5 contest, your music festival, or your “Rock Girls” promotion.
Our jacAPPS division has now designed and built more than 425 apps generating upwards of 9 million downloads in less than three years. We track app downloads every month, and we can see the close relationship between stations that regularly market their apps on their air versus those who have moved on to talk about the morning show’s charity jello jump.
Stations that have a strategy for app promotion and marketing, connect the dots for listeners, and embrace the mobile technology have steadily rising app download metrics, which will in fact translate to better revenue generation as well as stronger engagement with listeners – most of whom appreciate that the station “gets it” by launching a mobile application.
But stations need to provide the basic A-B-C's of how to use and when to use apps. It's the same for streaming. Just because your audio is available via a stream doesn't mean that your audience has gotten the message about all the new locations and situations in which they can now access your content. So often, programmers take it for granted that listeners simply inherently know what to do. There is benefit in providing simple, helpful explanations.
One thing that we have learned as app developers is that not every brand has a radio station connected to it. When you think about it, radio truly has an advantage when it comes to getting the word out. At jacAPPS, we are also building applications for non-media brands – companies and entities that do not have a built-in megaphone. Not surprisingly, these businesses often struggle to get the word out about their apps, having only word of mouth and email marketing as promotion vehicles. When it comes to self-marketing, radio has it pretty good - if it uses its genetic assets strategically.
Radio’s powerful cume, brand equity, and trust via personalities and shows make the medium the perfect candidate to not just participate in the mobile experience but to thrive within it.
As you may have read yesterday on AllAccess, an A&E produced show, in partnership with Popular Mechanics, rated all of the most important, innovative, and incredible devices in history.
During the past several weeks, Jacobs Media’s social media maven, Lori Lewis, has been working her way through a series of posts called B-A-L-A-N-C-E. Today’s post is the last letter - “E” – and it’s about the need to Establish, and then maintain your credibility in the community.
I’m sure you’ve heard the saying “Build your network before you need it.” With social media, it’s about building your community before you need it (or it needs you). To establish yourself in any community, you must first distinguish how you can serve. Once that has been determined, it’s then possible to develop a social media communication strategy to maintain your integrity.
There is no finer example in the display this element of B-A-L-A-N-C-E than in James Spann. In case you don’t know, he is the chief meteorologist for ABC 33/40 TV in Birmingham, Alabama, who stayed on the air and online with the brave folks of his state during the devastating tornadoes earlier this year.
Spann turned his Facebook and Twitter streams into a real-time way to serve his community. But had he not been established as a viable, believable, and credible market fixture, his effectiveness in using these tools during this crisis would have not been anywhere near as powerful. Spann is an honorable example of a memorable brand.
And he’s a great story about proving what it takes to maintain credibility after first establishing a strong community presence. Too often, talent has a tendency to jump in and start tweeting, posting, and making social media “noise” without first establishing presence, reputation, and audience expectations.
The key to Spann’s success wasn't just about what he did during this weather disaster - it dates back several years. Spann truly “built his community before he needed it.” He spent years making listeners comfortable with his presence and personality, while not pushing himself into theirs. Spann speaks in schools, and spends time visiting with senior adult groups, civic clubs, and other community groups. So in the middle of the crisis, he was a familiar, comfortable source that Alabamans trusted. It all starts with that established presence.
Spann clearly has a “servant’s heart,” and no doubt saved lives through his use of social communication. You can get a sense for how he connected with his audience during the storms – and how they stayed connected with him:
On Twitter, Spann had so many incoming tweets that he created a couple of different hashtags, including #WeAreAlabama so the community could track the conversation in a more organized way.
Spann’s heroics point to the importance of a real conversation with his audience, in times of tragedy, but on “slow news days,” too. He tries to follow everyone that follows him on Twitter (unless it’s spam) and he stays current on Facebook. He continues to use his Twitter and Facebook streams as a way to serve the needs of the people of Alabama.
All the social media tools in use now provide incredible potential for talent to connect with their listeners and viewers. But it’s the hard work that it takes to establish reputation, credibility, and trust that truly unlocks the keys to social media effectiveness.
Please leave your comments below, and if you’d like to read Lori’s earlier “B-A-L-A-N-C-E” posts:
This morning’s post is a collaborative effort from Fred Jacobs and Ralph Cipolla. Fred is clearly living in the here and now. Ralph, however, is prepared to go where no researcher has gone before – the year 2021.
Yesterday, we took a first look at Techsurvey 7. One of the most effective tools for looking at multiple data points in our surveys is the Media Usage Pyramid. This is where we aggregate many questions about gadget ownership, media consumptions, and behavior in one large, all-encompassing graphic. Below is the pyramid for TS7. Down the right-hand column, you’ll see percentage change from year to year, where applicable.
So, at the very bottom – the things they do or own the most – you can see that 97% of our sample (20,000+ strong) own a cell phone. More than 9 in 10 listen to the radio and/or use the Internet an hour a day or more.
Moving up the pyramid, note that more than three-fourths are now on Facebook. And a bit higher, we’re now seeing smartphone ownership near the majority tipping point – a whopping +56% from last year’s survey. Between the holidays last December and Verizon’s ability to carry iPhone, mobile continues to skyrocket.
Some other highlights – and new entries – include subscriptions to services like Groupon (an amazing 42%), as well as those who have clicked “like” on one of our participating station’s Facebook pages. Note also that while satellite radio continues to flat-line in our surveys, HD Radio inches upward, while tablets (mostly iPad) had a nice debut at 7% (the lowest number it will ever be).
And then there’s Pandora, where more than one-fifth (22%) of our respondents listen weekly. We have talked about this pure-play competitor in our blog many times in the past two years – and this is a big reason why. If radio ignores Pandora or concludes that it’s “not radio,” it does so at its own peril.
But what about the future? Where will we be in two years, in five years, in a decade? Well, Ralph Cipolla, has his Vulcan ears on, and has perhaps done a mind-meld with one of your listeners from 2021, allowing him to put together this predictive pyramid of what our Tech Survey 17 Media Usage Pyramid will look like – ten years from today.
It’s nice to see that FM Radio will remain dominant (although the frontal-lobe implant microchip has yet to be invented). It appears that Pandora will still be a force to be reckoned with, along with Facebook.
And don’t forget to look higher on the pyramid for clues about how Twitter, couponing, and even satellite radio will fare a mere decade – or four tech lifetimes from now. We would love to hear your predictions, too, so feel free to comment away.
Thanks again to our 70+ stakeholder stations, along with the 20,000+ respondents, and all of you who took the time to see the results in our webinars. Also, thanks to Tim Davis for his infographic design work on TS7. You can check out our cool Techsurvey 7 infographic created by Tim by clicking here. And thanks to AllAccess for their partnership.
We are excited about the release of Techsurvey 7, our seventh annual media and technology web survey. With more than 70 Rock/Alternative/Classic Rock/Triple A stations participating – in the U.S. and now Canada - more than 20,000 core radio listeners have weighed in.
The free AllAccess webinar takes place today. Click here to register and participate.
This year, while gadgetry continues to be a big story – to no one’s surprise, smartphones are growing at a meteoric rate – TS7 is more about relationships. Now I don’t want to get all Dr. Phil on you here, but the fact is that understanding how consumers are connecting with one another, and how they are utilizing different platforms to access radio station content, is all part of getting our heads around the rapid change that is impacting us, personally and professionally.
Yes, it’s exciting to see that tablet sales have already hit the 7% mark (while about a quarter of everyone else says it is very or somewhat likely they will buy an iPad-like device during 2011), and while one in ten respondent drives a vehicle with a system like Ford’s SYNC, it’s the relationship part of the equation that is the real eye-opener for us.
Yes, these are database members, but more than a third say they’d like a strong relationship with the station that sent them this year’s survey. That means they don’t want to just passively listen. They want a seat at the table. They want to participate in station community and fundraising events. They want to “like” the station on a Facebook fan page.
In short, they want access and they want to participate. That signals incredible opportunity for radio moving forward – and that’s where our company is focused. Let’s play the right songs, let’s compete hard in PPM and in diaries, but let’s also understand that consumers are forging new connections that are leading to habit-forming usage with other media and entertainment outlets.
Radio’s strong personality, brands, and content can be rechanneled in many new directions and on different platforms. The purpose behind our Tech Surveys is to help create road maps for our stakeholder stations, allowing them to participate in these new avenues (where by the way, owners and operators, there are often additional avails).
Tomorrow, we’ll look at the top-line Media Usage Pyramid, and make some bold predictions about where we’ll be a decade from now.
Today’s post was co-written by Fred and Lori Lewis, Jacobs Media’s social media whiz, who always advises that when it comes to tech, do the right thing.
Is that a hacker in your account or are you just happy to see me?
It turns out this lewd photo was addressed to a woman in Seattle that Weiner follows on Twitter. While it was removed, it was too late. It had already been shared everywhere, and now this situation has spiraled out of control.
While Representative Weiner initially said his Twitter account was hacked and now claims the photo was a “prank,” this incident becomes just one of many digital faux pas that have been perpetrated by clueless politicians who just don’t seem to understand the transparency of technology.
The photo, stored at Weiner’s alleged yfrog account, is connected to his verified Twitter account. So whether this was some sort of hacker prank, the reality is that Weiner’s ensuing press conference was totally botched and he has apparently never reported this incident to legal authorities. For that alone, his behavior puts him squarely on the growing list of dumb politicos who just don’t get it when it comes to technology and digital channels.
He’s not the first, and at the rate we’re going, he won’t be the last. Don’t these guys understand that in the digital world, nothing remains secret for long?
But somehow, these things keep happening. In February, former Congressman Chris Lee (R-NY) posted this picture (right) on Craigslist, apparently unaware that anyone of importance might recognize him. He quickly resigned a post that he more than likely worked years in order to reach. The photo looks like something you’d see mocked up on Saturday Night Live, but in fact, Lee’s reality is funnier than anything that Seth Meyers could dream up. But to his family, friends, staffers, and supporters, it is not funny – it’s just plain stupid.
Here in Detroit, you probably remember our former mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick and “sexting” escapades with a former co-worker. Now he’s in jail and we have a new mayor. Once again, Kilpatrick was seemingly unawarethat his texts might become public, sullying his reputation, humiliating his family, and chasing him out of office.
But our leaders’ disconnect with technology goes back decades, and speaks volumes about how they can seemingly set policy when they often don’t understand the first thing about media, gadgetry, and the reality of transparency.
Case in point: When the first President Bush visited a grocery store during the campaign and was wowed by “that thing” – a price scanner. He had never seen one before, and in front of the world, demonstrated that he was out of touch with technology. (Some say that he wasn't actually amazed, but the story certainly stuck, marking him as a politician who was behind the curve when it came to even the simple technology that all of us "regular follks" encounter every day in grocery stores.)
But the most critical gadget gap occurred during the Nixon Administration. As you may recall, the President authorized audio taping in his office, for the purpose of having all those critical meetings archived for posterity.
He and his minions never realized that once recorded, those conversations could eventually make their way into the media, thanks to reporters like Woodward and Bernstein. “The Nixon Tapes” were the beginning of the end, necessitating the first Presidential resignation in American history. And above and beyond the arrogance and stonewalling, a lack of understanding of the realities of technology was a big part of the root cause of Nixon's downfall.
In any case, Representative Weiner’s gaffe brings to mind the ongoing need for media leaders to do whatever’s necessary to learn the tech ropes, and become competent, conversant, and even expert at new media channels – from texting to social networking to mobile. If they’re going to lead rather than follow, be proactive and not reactive, and develop a vision for their companies and their brands, learning from former political icons like Nixon, Bush, Kilpatrick, Lee, and soon Weiner isn’t just smart – it’s essential.
There’s something interesting happening at the crossroads of television programming and social media that is worthy of our attention. While many of us are addicted to consuming TV shows through a DVR for maximum convenience, there’s a sub-event occurring around live programming.
There are certain real-time events that don’t make sense for the DVR – the Super Bowl, the Oscars, and American Idol that you just have to watch live. And recently, the ratings for some of these programs (except the Oscars, but you could understandably lay the blame on the choice of James Franco and Anne Hathaway as the pathetic hosts) have actually been stronger, despite the media fragmentation.
That’s because as Dr. Jeffrey Cole (pictured) of USC Annenberg explained at a recent speech called “The Changing Face of the Internet,” the communal aspects of television viewing is part of that medium’s history. Most of us grew up, sitting around the rec room or den with our friends or family members, watching Cheers, L.A. Law, or Seinfeld.
Dr. Cole says it best:
“We’ve always had co-viewing at home with other people in the room, but now we’re seeing co-viewing through social networking where people who are not together are watching as if they were together.”
This experience is being amplified thanks to real-time social media tools, like Twitter. I can tell you that my TweetDeck silo during the Academy Awards broadcast earlier this year was far more entertaining than what you were watching on the screen, or even whatever quips you were hearing from others in your living room.
That’s become the case every time there’s a major sporting event or TV show that viewers are compelled to watch live. If you remember the old Mystery Science Theater 3000 on The Comedy Channel/Comedy Central where the robot characters quipped throughout old sci-fi movies, then you have a sense for the fun and joy that come from watching TV while enjoying the cleverness, snarkiness, and witty comments from your “friends” and “followers” via social media.
NBC is attempting to corral some of this conversation with the creation of a new social platform, NBC Live. It will contain polls, trivia, photos, and an ongoing social stream where users can comment about what they’re seeing on the screen along with thousands (millions?) of others who are logged in.
For NBC, the aim is two-fold: get consumers away from the DVR habit for a TV event or show, and to attract them from Twitter or Facebook and onto their proprietary social platform.
By the way, there’s probably a third goal here, too. The chances of viewers watching commercials – whether they realize it or not – runs a lot higher during live programming than on a time-controlled device like TiVo.
By the way, this communal phenomenon also occurs on “The Backchannel,” that Twitter community created by anchorman Stephen Clark here in Detroit. We showcased Stephen at last December’s Jacobs Summit, and we’ve discussed the phenomenon of news viewers participating in the content creation of the 11 o’clock news on this blog on our website. In many ways, watching the Twitter comments in real time on #backchannel is indicative of this social viewing experience.
So what’s the application here for radio? Or is there one?
Seven or eight decades ago, people sat around their living rooms and enjoyed the radio together as a group. As radios became ubiquitous and portable, listening became more personal and solitary.
Fast-forward to today. Is it feasible for those who have a favorite morning show or who follow a talk show to log-on, participate, and comment simultaneously? Is it of value when a station interviews a music star to encourage listeners to use social channels to have their own running conversation about the content? Why wouldn't a personality show want listeners to send in content - audio, video, links - in real-time during the broadcast?
TV is beginning to understand the importance of a two-way exchange with its audience. They realize consumers will multi-task – watch, chat, and share feelings, jokes, and observations at the same time. And that dialogue can enhance the experience and build a greater sense of loyalty and a new dimension to the act of consuming video content. This is a different kind of engagement that brings out the emotions, humor, and shared experience of enjoying (or hating) the same shows in real time. It is not like watching a YouTube video.
In radio, we are still BROADCASTING, and the audience is passively listening (with the exception of talk and sports talk radio). Until we figure out that a new dynamic to enjoying media content is to converse and socialize, we won’t unlock some of the wonderful possibilities that come with creating great radio where the audience can interact with us - and with each other in real time.
I cannot envision listening to Pandora and discussing what song comes next with friends on Twitter. But I can imagine listening to Drew & Mike or Preston & Steve or B.J. Shea and having an ongoing dialogue with other people enjoying the same show.
If we open our eyes to new ways for our audience to enjoy and consume our programming, we just might develop new channels, new revenue streams, and better engagement with our rapidly changing audience.
Thanks to the maestro, Dave Martin, for bringing Dr. Cole’s speech to my attention – via Twitter.
Jacobs Media’s mobile guy, Paul Jacobs, takes a look at a new Google study about mobile – “The Mobile Movement.” Here’s his “take” on this great report and the changing mobile environment:
Google has just released a new study - "The Mobile Movement: Understanding Smartphone Usage" - that provides important findings for any brand that has ventured into the app space, especially radio and other media. For stations that merely have an app that streams, there is data that suggests much greater potential for the melding of radio and mobile.
While it's in Google's best interests to promote mobile advertising and search (and this study has some great data on the revenue generation potential of smartphones), one particular data point caught my attention near the end of the survey. It’s under the header, "Cross Media Exposure Influences Mobile Search."
When asked about what motivates mobile search (a function that two-thirds of these mobile respondents report doing), four in ten credit radio as the source. This is just a shade behind television (43%) among traditional media sources. This underscores that the potential for radio and mobile synergies is strong.
And it reinforces the notion that a timely radio message can drive behavior – especially among consumers with mobile phones. We see this every day in our jacAPPS download statistics. Stations that regularly promote their apps always excel in driving more listeners to the various app stores. Radio remains very influential.
This is a huge finding for radio, and supports what our jacAPPS team has been telling its customers since the beginning - a mobile app for radio needs to be more than a Walkman. The data in this study illustrate how consumers are using their apps for shopping and a myriad of other activities.
And with Groupon and Living Social crowding the industry's ability to attract traditionally non-radio businesses, this reinforces the need for radio to think of apps in multiple dimensions. Back in the day – 2008 – a great radio app provided a logo, the stream, and perhaps artist and title information.
Today, apps need to do more. That’s why we will soon be announcing a major partnership with a group that has created its own version of Groupon that radio stations will easily be able to incorporate into their apps. This will allow individual radio stations to integrate mobile into their retail advertising arsenals. And as the Google study shows, the marriage of mobile and commerce should be a long, happy one – based on current habits and behaviors.
Google has posted the study on a web site along with an introductory video. Take the time to watch it, and absorb the data, and then think about ways that your brand’s mobile strategy can be upgraded.
Smartphone ownership is growing at a rapid pace, and so are consumers' expectations. It's time to get out of the "radio box" and truly take advantage of the opportunity that's in front of the radio industry. Groupon and Living Social aren't going away, but radio - and its locality, personalities, cume, and brand loyalty - is in prime position to fight back, compete, and even thrive.
The Walkman is dead – and while the mobile movement enables radio to become a bona fide portable medium again – it is essential that radio companies take a more expansive view toward building mobile tools that can satisfy consumers, advertisers – and yes, an even better bottom line.
(Prediction: As the iPad 2 proliferates, digital camera use will drop, too.)
We have seen this same phenomenon in different settings over the past year or so. In “Goin’ Mobile,” many of our 18 respondents pointed out their use of other gadgetry had dropped due to reliance on their smartphones.
And in the new Techsurvey 7, which will be released later this week, we had respondents list devices they are using less frequently as a result of owning a smartphone. Digital cameras and camcorders topped our list, while computers were also mentioned.
This doesn’t mean that Nikon or Canon is going to go away, but you can imagine a scenario where the people who buy high-end cameras will narrow down to the pros and photo aficionados. For the rest of us, the best camera is the one we’re carrying – in our smartphones and tablets.
This strongly suggests that consumers are becoming more and more dependent on devices that do multiple things. Kurt Hanson frequently shows a slide of Mr. Spock and the tricorder as evidence that Gene Roddenberry was even more prescient than we thought when he created the Star Trek series. The tricorder was the device that did it all – close in size, look, and feel to today’s tablets.
And that leads me to think there might be a parallel here for America's workforce, specifically in radio, where the employee base has shrunk in recent years. We continue to preach the importance of air talent acquiring multiple skills to make a greater contribution to radio clusters – music scheduling, production, voicetracking, social media and web support, and of course, great sales relations and strong appearances.
The old “four and out the door” philosophy is as dated as cart machines and splicing blocks. Today’s measure of success for personalities is about providing multiple services and skills. At budget time, the jock who brings multiple skills (think "functions" or "apps") to the table has a better chance of increasing her longevity and creating more value.
People take sides in battles they care about. And back in the day, choosing a radio station was very much a personal choice.
Today, it’s computers and smartphones. That back-lit Apple logo on your laptop or Android dude on your smartphone says a lot about the type of person you are – or aspire to be.
While each of these brands may not enjoy all of the different ways they are depicted, the tech wars scream about the value of brand definition and the ways in which consumers value them.
In research studies, radio still asks a lot of image questions that try to get at some of these same brand qualities – especially as it pertains to the wars between stations. But the days when people defined themselves by the rock station they listened to are rapidly becoming a thing of the past.
It doesn’t have to be that way. Radio may have lost its fastball in the last decade or so, but the medium continues to be viable for local information, new music discovery, big personalities, and capturing the moment. The medium has valuable weapons in its arsenal and there are still many stations that make strong brand statements every day that keep consumers coming back for more.
As an industry, radio would do well to celebrate its biggest and best personalities and stations. While the trades typically do this well, radio’s conventions are more often a collection of executives, consultants, and researchers, often missing the personality, the programmers, and the folks who are still making great radio.
At Apple, Google, and other tech companies, they celebrate their developers – content creators who contribute to energizing and growing the mobile space.
The good news here is that a high-pitched battle tends to be good for the overall space. As WLS’s legendary programmer, John Gehron, once told me when his arch rival, WCFL, changed formats back in the day, the loss of a key competitor is often bad for the survivor. When there's no competition, bravado, and swagger, interest can wane. Everyone likes a good fight, enjoys taking sides, and defending their choice – whether it’s laptops, sports cars, and yes, even radio.
Of course, it’s hard to imagine that the street team at Google is going through the trash bins in Cupertino. Isn’t it?
Last week, old friend and thought-leader Dave Martin fired off a tweet that included a link to a new concept - Groupon Now. It is important that everyone in radio sees this, so take a look, and then let’s talk about its implications.
We have discussed Groupon many times as part of a larger and ongoing conversation we’ve been having with clients about coupons, the economy, and the changing retail psyche of Americans. It is part of a major trend in the way the entire structure of advertising is changing, including the role of media outlets as how consumers shop.
Our Tech Surveys for Rock and Public Radio have each pointed to this phenomenon, and we have urged broadcasters to step up and launch initiatives that aggressively utilize coupons and deals. Similarly, our “Marketing To Men” study underscored the potential that radio has to realize revenue via discount couponing programs.
A recent blog post that was catalyzed by Jelli’s Mike Dougherty discussed the concept of adapting the radio sales model to something more desirable and current than traditional radio advertising: deals rather than spots. We thought he was onto something before we saw this Groupon Now video. After watching it, you may agree that new thinking about the traditional advertising model is imperative.
This Groupon Now service hasn’t been activated yet, but it is a potential game-changer that could rock the local radio sales paradigm. Too often, there’s the myth that the Internet is global, but in fact, a key to cashing in on the power of the real-time web may in fact be right there on your main drag and in your urban and suburban strip malls.
That’s how Groupon sees it, using geo-location, timely coupons, and speedy scanning to bring together consumers and local businesses in an “anywhere/anytime” setting.
Guess who’s not in the picture?
That’s right – the beleaguered radio rep who is still primarily selling “reactive” advertising – packages of :30s and :60s. Radio becomes the dreaded “middle man.” And it sure seems like other traditional media - TV and print - will feel the impact of this type of direct marketing concept, too.
Radio's time-honored concept of connecting customers to retailers continues to revolve around tired remotes, street team, the station van, a card table, banners, and minor giveaways. When stations do many of these each week, they lose their potency. And local advertisers are well aware this model is no longer as effective as it once was.
The Groupon Now concept is proactive. You tap the “I’m hungry” button and nearby restaurant coupons appear. If successful, Groupon Now combines the natural inclination of the consumer to search out great deals on an immediate basis with the needs of area businesses to generate store traffic – right now.
As radio bypasses many small businesses like Big Frank because “they can’t afford us,” Groupon takes them all, generates store traffic in a controlled, analytical environment and continues to win over fans with a scalable model. With no sales commissions.
As Paul has pointed out in this blog, competing for the same 7% share of media dollars with 30 other stations in the market misses the other 90-something percent of the pie. And because many radio outlets have been slow to adapt to the couponing/“make a deal” mentality, the door is open for Groupon, Living Social, and the many imitators that will surely follow.
Now some companies and clusters have gotten aggressive with couponing programs, adding them to the menu of marketing alternatives. But no one, to our knowledge, has committed to creating their own version of Groupon, available in the local marketplace.
In preparing this blog, I started surfing around our client stations as well as other well-known radio brands to see what is happening on the couponing front. Some broadcasters are developing bona fide programs, while others are giving lip service. So despite some concerted efforts, I happened across too many examples where upon visiting the coupons or deals page, I was told that there weren’t any available at this time.
There is nothing in Groupon Now that any local radio station, cluster, or company couldn’t develop themselves. But as we continue to talk to broadcasters about coupons and deal programs, several lament the same thing – the sales people have a hard time putting deals and discounts together, and attracting retailer buy-in.
I don’t know about you, but I didn’t see a single account rep in that video. And that’s the point.
Radio could do this, and here's a list of the requirements:
A great mobile app (I know where you can accomplish that part of the equation)
A vision (Groupon’s done the heavy lifting for you)
A powerful, responsive cume
An active database, solid personalities, and brand equity
Jacobs Media’s social media maven, Lori Lewis, continues her Friday series on “Balance” – best practices for radio’s use of the digital toolbox. She’s breaking out each letter of B-A-L-A-N-C-E to provide on-point information about social and digital assets and how the best can be utilized. Here’s the letter “L” to wrap up this week:
By now, you have a website, Facebook page, a Twitter handle, and you’re wondering what’s next. Maybe you’ve seen (as in last week’s blog on Balance) some of the consumer behaviors and cultural trends that stand out, allowing you to interact more deeply into these digital spaces.
We have a new league of consumers and a new kind of distribution. Building communities on these digital and social devices requires strategic thinking. It’s not about just barging in – it’s about gaining permission through trust to deliver conversations around your brand.
In this week’s “7 Crucial Steps to Balance,” we dive into the letter “L”- Leveraging trust and knowing your objectives with every communication.
Leveraging trust within your most loyal and even the most passive portions of your audience can be critical. One wrong interaction can chip away at even the strongest brand. Remember this classic tweet?
Trust is built through consistency. You gain it when you remain reliable with authenticity and integrity in creating consumer confidence.
It’s only when companies veer away from consistent behavior on all channels – be it traditional, digital or social – that they create confusion and limit the opportunity for trust and relevant growth.
It’s rather ironic that the future of marketing and leveraging trust actually lies in the realm of personal and shared experiences – because that’s also the essence of radio. Think about it: personal and shared experiences – a good story, a fun question, a time in people’s lives. The strength of radio’s traditional channel – what I call “the mother ship” – has always been about connecting with an audience.
Digital and social devices are no different. They work when the consumer feels like the center of the experience and has a reason to talk about the brand and its assets (music, personality, community, etc.) They work when we make it easier for the conversation to take place, devising content with emotional triggers that stimulates and welcomes responses.
Leveraging trust and knowing your objectives with every single communication takes an overall understanding of how you can benefit from tapping into these devices.
Growing the bottom line by offering multiple channels and avails for clients to engage with
These are in no particular order. Each brand will benefit in different ways by devising a social communications strategy that leverages audience trust.
A clear vision of how both you and your audience can benefit from digital and social channels is where you start. Once you define that purpose, then determine which channels are actually used and consumed by your target and understand the expected behavior behind those avenues.
Remember, we’re talking about leveraging trust. If you barge into a social community such as Facebook and start smothering live feeds with promos screaming about “where you’re going to be next,” trust will be difficult to develop.
Pushing promotions, contests, and appearances don’t build trust. They just interfere with the primary purpose people spend time on social sites. One of the best ways to build trust and motivate consumers is to join them in what they are already doing. Listen to them, converse with them, rather than talk at them.
Be part of their conversation. Join them at their digital cocktail parties and fundraisers. They aren’t really waiting around to comment on your Facebook page or latest blog – but if you’re sharing content that evokes emotional triggers, you’re making it easier to start the conversation. And in the process, you’re giving your brand an opportunity to reach new audience segments and strengthen your awareness and reputation.
There’s a great saying from thought leader Simon Sinek: “People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it.”
Consumers have choices. Our brands cannot be a viable part of those decisions if we’re not present, building trust, and treating every interaction as personably and respectfully as possible.
Please leave a comment at the bottom of the page. It’s always great to hear your perspective.
To read Lori’s other “Balance” blog posts, click below.
Of the hundreds of places where consumers can access Pandora via the web and mobile web, it’s the dashboard of the next generation of cars and trucks that creates the biggest challenge for broadcast radio.
As regular readers of this blog know, my newFord Edge with Sync presents a great deal of distraction and choice for the driver. The days of simply deciding which of five pushbuttons to select have been amplified by a veritable smorgasbord of media choices – satellite radio, any app on my iPhone, a hard drive loaded with my favorite songs, weather, traffic, GPS, horoscopes, and yes, AM/FM radio stations.
The smartphone is the gateway to more choices behind the wheel. And as Pandora's Les Hollander told the Worldwide Radio Summit last month, there is now more usage of his popular service on mobile phones than on computers. Clearly, mobile has been a critical catalyst in Pandora’s rise to the top of the pure-play heap.
Starting with the Ford Fiesta (pictured here), the Pandora app is front and center, allowing the driver to use her radio controls or voice commands to give the thumbs-up or down to songs, bookmark songs, and choose from various Pandora channels. Ford’s AppLink starts with the Fiesta, but will work its way across Ford’s portfolio of Sync-equipped vehicles.
You can watch Tim Westergren test drive the Fiesta, along with Ford Sync maven, Julius Marchwicki.
Based on our experience at CES in January, along with our presence here in Detroit, everyone you talk to is saying essentially the same thing – the inside of your car’s media/entertainment system is the most exciting part of the automotive industry. And Pandora is much farther down the road of making its channel ubiquitous, highly visible in cars, and fun and easy to use.
As Sam Milkman’s man-on-the-street research study presented at RAIN pointed out, despite all the choices available, most people will only be able to deal with just a handful of options. This has long been the case with cable or satellite TV where despite having hundreds of channels, most of us actually spend time with ten or less. I am also one of those people who cannot deal with places like “The Cheesecake Factory” where the menu looks more like a novel, loaded with page after page of entrees and appetizers.
The automakers are in the fast lane when it comes to in-vehicle services. In that spirit, the radio industry needs to act proactively to set up a task force to address the changing interiors of cars and trucks. As radios at home diminish, and at-work listening is challenged by online streaming, the car remains that last bastion of AM/FM domination. But not for long.
The movement to legislate radios into cellphones has been a major focus of industry attention for some time now, energizing debate between broadcasters and the consumer electronics industry. But the real battleground may be on four wheels. It’s taking place in the cockpit of that valued piece of metal that will be sitting in your driveway or garage in just a year or so - or maybe right now.
Radio needs a new strategy for cars – and it needs one now.
As traditional broadcast outlets continue to grapple with the competitive realities that come from new media players, their overall approach to advertisements really hasn’t changed a whole lot.
In fact, most radio sales teams are essentially selling the same products in the same ways they always have – 30 and 60-second spots. Sometimes, advertisers run 12 or 18 a week, and other times, they go for longer campaigns for 13-week flights.
But most of the time, the creative on these spots is essentially the same as it was back in the ‘70s or ‘80s. It’s the basic call to action, a simple dialogue, testimonials, fast-talking car dealers, jewelry store owners, mattress discounters, and other typical, timeworn approaches.
We know that advertising works – certainly on a subliminal level. Even consumers, who tell you in focus groups that they never hear commercials because they are constantly switching stations, somehow know what to buy as they walk up and down the grocery store aisles.
Yet, from a tune-out standpoint, PPM confirms what really happens when commercials air – the numbers drop as many meters “migrate.” Of course, no one listens to radio for the advertising, and that's how it's been for decades.
But does it have to be that way? If radio took a different look at its commercial approach, might there not be a way to rethink ads in formats that might actually provide value for consumers?
One guy who is becoming famous for taking a different look is Jelli CEO Mike Dougherty. Jelli is user-controlled radio, which allows consumers to use online/social tools to vote songs up and down on participating stations.
Clearly, Mike sees the world of radio through a different lens, and that doesn’t stop with music programming and social media. During a recent meeting, we were discussing why radio ads are so disdained by listeners.
And Mike has opinions about advertising and how it is positioned with consumers. His idea? Increase the relevancy of spots by making more of them “deals.”
When you think about it, millions of consumers subscribe to services like Groupon and Living Social – and they look forward to receiving their daily deals in their email boxes. A study from Yahoo! Mail and Iposos OTX MediaCT back in February confirms this. Of those who subscribe to these emails, nearly half reported they "can't wait" to check out deals. We cannot fathom that kind of enthusiasm for radio ads.
So, repelled by spots, but attracted by deals. Shouldn't radio's DOS' be strategizing new and different ways to market their inventories and their content? Imagine radio reps working with traditional (and new) advertisers to convert some of their creative from annoying, repetitive messages that often shout at the audience into compelling, relevant deals? And in the process, create a rev share piece so that as advertisers (or "deal makers") prosper from listeners who take advantage of deals, the station benefits, too.
They might even envision creating an entire commercial cluster of deals instead of spots. Or perhaps an hourly deal that gets well-positioned, and perhaps even creates some tune-in rather than tune-out. Imagine listeners looking forward to this hour's deal.
As big online companies like Groupon, Pandora, and Google refocus their efforts on the local marketplace, radio is going to have to do more than stand pat and continue to cram 10, 12, 14 and more traditional spots down the gullets of American radio listeners every hour.
Mike Dougherty’s idea – “Deal with it” – might just be the beginning of a solution set for radio’s advertising challenge. Instead of plowing along, doing it the way we've always done it, rethinking what is possible and learning from the success of these online coupon companies could be a step in the right direction for broadcast radio. And with great cumes, solid production values, and perhaps even a fired up local sales team, radio might be able to out-Groupon Groupon.
It's time to start taking a hard look at innovators like Pandora and Groupon and dream up ways to combine some of their better features with radio's great content, reach, and brand equity.
Since we brought Lori Lewis on the Jacobs Media team, a number of you have asked, “What’s she going to do for you exactly?” Good question.
We know that consumers behave differently today. They meet in social networks, they share content, and they spread their voice. They carry their phones with them everywhere they go. They rely on apps. They say whatever they want on blogs.
Ultimately, they can redefine our brands if we don’t take the time to understand the interaction and cultivate relationships by relating to their needs.
In Lori’s world, it’s about balance. Welcome to the series “The 7 Crucial Steps of Balance.”
Be aware of how dialogue contributes to the brand, the product experience.
Adapt to consumer behaviors & cultural trends.
Leverage trust & know your objectives with every single communication.
Analyze issues, patterns and trends on our digital and social properties as well as our competitor's.
Notice what it takes to build loyal, motivated relationships.
Create a metrics system for time and resource efficiencies.
Establish, then maintain your company's credibility in the community.
Each Friday, Lori will demystify how to grow the skills that are required today and learn how to merge them with radio’s traditional strengths. So today, it’s B.
We only confuse the experience with our stations when we position ourselves one way, but act like something different socially. Be consistent with who and what you are.
Be aware of how setting a reliable rhythm with your timing and content on a station or a DJ blog deepens the ties between your station and the audience. If you relate the blog to a radio show, would you really not talk for one entire day? Or for 10 days? You converse with your audience every day, so this consistency is expected in order to build up trust and the habit of tuning you in each day.
Social media is like all media - there are rules and best practices. My goal is to work with our clients to help them be aware of these rules and help them implement them for true success.
Next week in the “The 7 Crucial steps of Balance”: Adapt to consumer behaviors & cultural trends.
Then in his own patented, mercurial way, Kurt walked us through support data but also some anecdotes that suggest that while we’re all together on this merry-go-round, we aren’t always feeling the rising velocity because we’re too busy just hanging on.
Now this might not sound like a very profound statement to you on the surface, but if you think about some of the ways in which our world has changed in the recent past, it is a bit mind-boggling.
I’m not talking about over the past 10 years, but in many cases, in just a few years or even months. Here are some anecdotes of my own – some of the things that make me sit up and wonder whether we even realize the pace of our tech lives:
At the Easter egg prayer breakfast at the White House, President Obama noticed that Bishop Vashti McKenzie had an iPad, and said, “This is a hi-tech bishop.” How many people are you seeing using iPads as you travel or make your way around your community?
Active users of Twitter apparently have problems maintaining their connections with each other, compared to the rest of the population. As the stats show, daily tweeters have shorter relationships.
And with that great quote, Yogi Berra once again provided perspective for all of us trying to get a grasp of where it’s all headed. Our rapidly changing technology and its impact on media (and our lives) is moving at breakneck speed. But even with all this change, there are certain trends that are undeniable.
Recently, MobiTV created a huge infographic that does a great job of summing up mobile’s past, present, and future.
You can look at the entire infographic here, but the part that really caught my eye was the look down the road – in fact, the not-too-distant future of mobile’s trajectory.
So I pulled out the piece you see below. It shows how mobile will have an even more incredible impact on our personal and professional lives in the next few years.
In less than three years, the prediction is that 76 billion apps will be downloaded, generating more than $35 billion in revenues. While smartphone owners love new stuff and breakthrough apps, it is also true that some of the most popular apps have been built by existing brands – brands that users know and trust.
But the app development process is challenging - believe me. Just creating an app is not what this opportunity is all about. A great mobile strategy is required.
The story hit last week – Facebook now has more than 250 million mobile users. Those are big boxcar numbers. In our “Goin’ Mobile” study for Arbitron last year, all 18 of our smartphone owning respondents had the Facebook app on their mobile phones. That was all we needed to see.
I was fortunate to present “Goin’ Mobile” at the Oklahoma Association of Broadcasters Convention last week. This is always a great event, and this year’s conference broke attendance records. It speaks to the passion that broadcasters in Oklahoma have for radio and TV, and the hard work of Vance Harrison, OAB’s head guy.
At the end of the session, a couple of broadcasters approached me to talk apps, and the question I’ve heard dozens of times came up: Is it better for a station to have its own individual app or better to be part of an aggregated or “umbrella app” where hundreds of stations are grouped together?
With all due respect to both Clear Channel and CBS Radio who have chosen the latter path, our sense is that the big winners in radio appdom are the stations that have stepped out, developed their own apps, and then marketed them aggressively to earn their place on the iPhone or Android “desktop.”
Think about it – a radio station as massive and popular in Detroit like WRIF on the one hand, or the hometown rocker in Mendocino, California like The Coast (KOZT) on the other hand, can each live next door to that famous Facebook “F,” Google Maps, the New York Times, and yes, Pandora. That’s a pretty cool, desirable, and upscale mobile neighborhood.
It's also remarkable product placement, and while great visibility on this mobile beachfront property is not as easy as earning one of those five pushbutton presets on you old GM Delco car radio, the rewards may be even greater.
Yes, iheartradio has become a brand and a destination, but what about the hundreds of local stations that are tethered to that “umbrella?” To the consumer, is it about Clear Channel or it about WDVE and KIIS-FM? Radio’s salvation will be its strong local personalities, brands, and connectedness to communities. Individual station apps can be those conduits that showcase those great jocks, podcasts, videos, and other brand assets.
As more and more automakers provide the connectivity for smartphones with their in-vehicle systems, easy accessibility will make it even better to access your station in a cluttered car environment.
Facebook’s new milestone also means that their Places feature (shown above) – connecting its users with coupons and deals wherever they go – is another signal that local radio will need mobile coupon strategies to keep pace with players like Groupon, Living Social, and of course, the mighty Facebook.
Once again, an individualized station app will be radio’s entryway into the world of mobile. Research for radio needs to encompass key mobile questions, and our Techsurvey 7 – now in the field – will do just that. And I suspect that this will also be a topic at RAIN Summit West in Las Vegas later this month as I am proud to be on a panel with Liquid Compass' Zackary Lewis and Bonneville's Mark Preston, hosted by McVay's Dan Halyburton.
A recent New York Times article underscores something that we saw loud and clear in “Goin’ Mobile” – smartphones are replacing other gadgets and changing our lives in the process.
At the Worldwide Radio Summit in Los Angeles next month, I’ll show a different radio-ized version of “Goin’ Mobile” and one of the new segments we've put together will address the ways in which other gadgets are being relegated to the background because of smartphone use.
This includes GPS units, alarm clocks, camcorders, and even iPods. And then there are all those functional apps that have replaced many books, tools, gaddgets, and other resources, usually for a much lower cost. The Times actually calculated how much money one might save by foregoing the purchase of these “ancillary devices” as a result of owning a great smartphone:
Here’s how they figured it:
A mobile e-mail reader ($430: the Peek 9, an e-mail reader, is $70; two years of service costs $360).
A music player (an iPod Nano is $149).
A point-and-shoot camera (around $200).
A camcorder (around $200).
A GPS unit (they start at $80).
A portable DVD player (they start at $60).
A voice recorder (around $40).
A watch (around $30).
A calculator (around $10).
Total cost: $1,999
Considering a smartphone and a solid data plan costs quite a bit less, you can see how much more efficient our lives have become as a result of the iPhone and similar devices.
To put it in perspective, we have long talked at Jacobs Media about if the iPhone was instead originally marketed as a Mini-Mac – a handheld computer that provided email, texting, a GPS, alarm clock, calculator, camera, camcorder, mp3 players, and yes, also a phone.
The fact that these devices started as phones, and then became all these other things perhaps explains their success. At the outset, we all needed a cell phone. Marketing them as Swiss Army knives was the next step in their evolution.
And then I remembered that back in 2007 for “The Bedroom Project,” Tim Davis built this graphic that I’ve included here for the section we put together about cell phones.
And as consumers become more comfortable with all the things they do and the efficiencies they provide, it becomes critical that if you’re Garmin, Bulova, JVC, and other manufacturers whose devices are essentially incorporated in smartphones, perhaps you partner with smartphone manufacturers to possibly include your brands in their software packages.
Of course, I could have mentioned any number of radio companies here, too, because that’s essentially what Pandora is doing in as many gadgets as they can. Clear Channel's purchase of Thumbplay is a sign that broadcasters now have Pandora on their radar sreen.
As we said in the “Goin’ Mobile” presentation, the smartphone provides an opportunity for radio to be a part of the greatest gadgets of our lifetime. But there is no entitlement. We will have to earn our places on these devices.
If the name of today’s blog post looks a little strange to you, that’s a sign that what happened in Austin last week is something you should know about. Our digital dude, Tim Davis, is back – a bit tired but inspired – from South By Southwest Interactive. And here’s a summary of his time at this mega-conference, trying to fit in every great session. A detailed version of this post will be available soon at www.jacobsmedia.com.
I'm fresh back behind the keyboard from a fast-paced weekend in Austin for the 25th anniversary of SXSW. Having been to the first 10 of these as a college radio/Alternative programmer, it's novel to reappear 15 years later - and only attend the interactive portion and not the music part. (Although it's a safe bet that iPhone cases outnumbered guitar cases for the first year ever.)
Nearly 35,000 of my closest friends registered for this year's event (up significantly from previous years) and an already overcrowded city was pushed over the edge at some points. But the local restaurants and bars were clearly up to the task, and happy to welcome the record-setting crowd.
Here are some of my takeaways and highlights:
Social Media is the common thread of everything. Whether it's mobile, at home, or in car, the real-time web of social media is at the forefront of communication and marketing right now. Even the most Luddite of companies is looking at social media and asking questions.
If it's got an "i" in it, people are into it.All things Apple from hardware to iOS drove the many conversations, debates, and topics in the majority of panels. (It didn't hurt that the iPad 2 came out the day SXSW kicked off!) Apple didn't even have a booth and I didn't see a single Apple employee (they had to be there, right?) during my three days. But the ears in Cupertino would certainly have been burning 24/7 at SXSW Interactive. They were dominant without being there.
UI/UX is Ubiquitous. These previously tech-centric acronyms are being bandied about in research panels, in marketing conversations and among people who don't know RAM from ROM. “User Interface” & “User Experience” are pivotal in how people are communicating and how companies are interfacing with them. If you don't know those terms (UI/UX) and some of the founding principals, you may want to do some Googling of “User Experience” and think about it in terms of radio programming, marketing and sales. It’s a topic that is often missing in radio conversations, but at SXSW Interactive it was everywhere.
Usability isn't just for the pros anymore. Just as authors such as Stephen Krug have brought web usability to the masses, the topic of usability studies for apps (or just to see how consumers are using your product) came up repeatedly. All the more impressive is the array of available tools that allow for remote usability studies. No longer do you have to bring the participants to you - you can do eye tracking, heat maps and behavior studies from consumers’ homes or wherever is most appropriate to the study. Bottom line, however, is that research is moving towards a path of learning from behavior as much as statistics and metrics.
Research is morphing from the traditional to the dynamic. As noted above, there's a movement in the tech world to find more - and better - ways to track success. I hit panels with topics from using the Net Promoter Score in Social Media to Right Brain/Left Brain (quantitative vs. qualitative research) challenges.
Check out this nice infographic sketch by Len Kendall that summarized one of the more vibrant and interesting panels I attended which was very research centric called "Stop Listening To Your Customers":
This session was presented by Mark Trammell, the lead design researcher for Twitter (he paid audience members who asked NON-Twitter questions with donuts!), and Nate Bolt from Bolt/Peters also an author and expert on User Experience. The gist of their entertaining session is well captured in Kendall's image above, but the underlying theme of these sessions is that observation is fundamental. Simple surveys still have a place, and they are ubiquitous - with services like Survey Monkey, SurveyGizmo, Checkbox and others. But we're entering an age where quantitative alone won't get you to the finish line.
And...Apps! Tying it all together - from research to user experience and social media, the darling of the tech world is mobile apps. The world is divided into two camps: one that says apps are the end-all-be-all, and the other that considers them nothing but a fad with only another couple of years left. No matter where you fall on that spectrum, you would have to have been in a cave to miss the dozens of panels on mobile apps- ranging from UI/UX, to iPad-specific design for Boomers, to content questions and data feed development protocols, etc.
A snapshot in time? Keep in mind I chose my panels, and so my “take” is relative to what I do for a living and where my interests lie. You could have just as easily found scores of sessions on education, "doing good in the world," and more technically focused panels for developers/programmers. I tried my best to get a solid cross-section of the offering at SXSW Interactive. Objectively, the Social Media track blew the doors off of everything else in terms of quality and quantity, with all-things Apps (if you include the 20 panels on how cool it is to own an iPad 2) being a close second.
There's a myriad of other topics that stood out, and some of the points above warrant more digestion and distillation. In the meantime, it's safe to say if you’re in communication, entertainment, marketing, software/web development, social media, or anything technical or creative, SXSW is where you should have been, and hopefully will be next year.
I'll follow up next week with a blog report on Guy Kawasaki's session at SXSW Interactive, and an incredible graphic that summarizes the session beautifully. Have a great weekend.
Author, speaker, and thought-leader Tom Asacker always has stimulating things to say. He’s spoken at a couple of our Summits and knows how to work a room.
In a recent blog – “Are You All Mad?” – Tom does it again, questioning why organizations are so slow to recognize change and make the necessary adjustments.
Brand managers and company leaders often stop asking questions once they’re established. The same curiosity that helped launch the entity in the first place goes missing when brands mature.
Here’s how Tom ended his blog, and how we’ll start ours:
“But instead of developing models to explore the mysteries, most established brands are moving into the madness phase as they place more and more emphasis and pressure on their worn-out methods.
Successful brands will continue to come and go. But the great ones will discover answers to the new marketplace mysteries of our time. Will you?”
Part of the challenge is that companies and brands could go a long time in past years without having to rethink a whole lot about their operations. That was most certainly the case for radio. Aside from the advent of MTV or the development of the CD and more sophisticated music scheduling systems, most stations simply were repetitive motion machines – often for decades.
And it worked.
But today, the pressure to explore those new mysteries are at the forefront of where companies need to go. The problem is that they have ongoing, day-to-day operating pressures, while being cast with the assignment of reinvention and discovery.
No one said it would be easy.
But for every mystery and challenge, there’s opportunity. If you choose to view it that way. Let’s explore:
Creating Facebook fan pages and re-teaching and re-training a staff can be daunting and difficult.
But the upside is that your fans have their own followings, providing stations with the ability to tap into their own audience’s communities. This cume growth was never possible in the analog world.
Diving into the world of Twitter can be a confusing morass of different opinions, celebrity worship, non-sequitors, and drivel.
But Twitter also provides access to a real-time feedback loop that can connect stations, shows, and personalities with fans – a la “The Backchannel” here in Detroit. Audience access and instantaneous feedback offer new content and material, as well as new listeners.
Mobile is an expensive proposition with new platforms, new devices, and a sea of apps that can make it confusing to know where to start and how to proceed.
Yet, mobile is the most important breakthrough via the smartphone that perhaps we’ve ever witnessed. Local radio brands can co-exist right next to Facebook, Google, Pandora, and yes, even iFart – if their apps are worthy. And mobile makes radio portable again, allowing station brands to offer a new experience to mature audiences.
You get the idea. Tom Asacker is right that brands often are victims of their own arrogance, and often fail to grasp the opportunity that exists as you move from mystery to method.
It starts with asking those questions and moving to strategies that can help address them.
Is it easier to start fresh with a new brand – like Pandora or Groupon?
Or is it better to start with an established, solid, long-term existing brand like many radio stations have – and build on that reputation, history, track record, nostalgia, audience, and reach to seek out new worlds and new opportunities?
I’ll take the latter any day.
Thanks to Dave Martin for tweeting about Tom’s blog.
In the U.S. where mobile apps rule, if you aren’t carrying an iPhone or Android product, you may be missing out on something very important.
Don’t take my word as someone who runs an application development company. Go to one of the world’s leading authorities on digital and new media business models, Kleiner Perkins’ Mary Meeker.
It is 56 slides of persuasive, hard data that is impossible to ignore. Many of her charts are so powerful that I cannot discuss them all in a single post. But one that stood out relates directly to smartphone owner engagement based solely on the platform.
BlackBerry owners just don’t get it because the app platform on their devices is simply not ready for prime time. And they won’t until Research In Motion does a 180 and commits itself to mobile apps. In studies among radio listeners, we continue to see their share slip, while the Android platform is hot. Apple’s recent move to finally release a Verizon iPhone has already helped reinvigorate their iconic device.
But in the meantime, BlackBerry continues to be a popular phone in business circles, leaving its owners in the parking lot while an exciting game is happening in the app arena.
It is important to realize that the mobile space is dynamic, rapidly changing, and not smooth and even. Your experience may vary depending on what type of device you’re carrying in your pocket, backpack, or purse.
And what of your station, your brands, your events, your advertisers, your personalities, your information, your proprietary content, and your ability to utilize mobile in your community?
What role can mobile play in connecting with consumers in a unique, compelling way? In carving out new sources of revenue? In having presence with listeners eager to consume mobile content in different ways?
I’ll give you one more slide from Mary’s presentation because it goes to the heart of a concept that radio people understand very well – TSL. Or in this case, time spent using a smartphone - TSS
Consumers do a lot of things on their smartphones, but traditional phone use only makes up about one-third of that time. Email consumes about 10%, while apps run a bit higher (and probably higher for Android and iPhone folks).
But then there’s what’s labeled as “New Activity.” These are things that consumers never were able to do before on their phones. This is fertile ground in the universe of time spent being entertained that radio always wants to earn.
It makes up nearly half of daily smartphone time, and as the graphic shows, it is comprised of lots of different activities – from games to maps to social media. It signifies opportunity for any media outlet – if it has the information and resources in order to compete for that time.
Too many broadcasters know the songs that test best with their listeners. Or the prizes they wish to win. Or how familiar their morning guy is.
But they don’t know which brands of smartphones listeners use, nor do they do know the level of engagement their audience desires. Without this data, how can radio companies hope to craft viable strategies that can connect with both listeners and advertisers?
That’s why our 7th annual Tech Survey is in the process of being designed and rolled out. While most stations are busy testing their music for the PPM and diary wars, there are bigger fish to fry around the corner. And radio’s real competitors have the answers, are doing their homework, and planning carefully for one of the great “mind grabs” in history – how to earn more of the consumer’s time spent on smartphones.
It may not be too long before a question asked in industry trades, at conventions like CES, and in strategy sessions just might be:
“And what’s your TSS – and what are you doing to move it higher?”
P.S. If you run, program, manage or own a Rock/Alternative/Active/Triple A station, and you'd like to sign-up for our Techsurvey 7, read all about it here. You may also contact Lisa Riker to sign-up.
We have talked a great deal about the challenges that many radio stations are facing as they attempt to develop a viable social media strategy, especially given staffing limitations. Oftentimes, the task of developing a strategy deteriorates into a bunch of tactics (“I’ll be giving away Ozzy tickets today at 4:20”), tweeted and posted by several people at the station.
The result is a checkerboard execution that often fails to deliver meaningful results. It’s like a station having four different PDs. You know the end result will be a mess.
Yet, on the social side, that’s oftentimes the way it works out. The future of managing social media brands and sites may be to designate one go-to person, working in concert with programming, sales, and marketing. A social media brand manager is where we’re all heading, but what would that person do all day?
That’s one busy day. And it speaks to the challenge that traditional media outlets will have moving forward without investment in this area from both a personnel and a strategic standpoint.
In the upcoming Tech Survey 7 study that we will field later this month, there will be no shortage of social media-related questions, designed to help stations better get their arms around changing audience needs and expectations.
But no matter the result, the trend will be to invest in personnel – at the very least on the cluster level – to address both the challenge and the opportunity of this communication pathway with consumers. As more than half of the online world now interacts on Facebook, that’s a cume audience that deserves respect and attention.
