JacoBlog - Jacobs Media's Blog

Webtallica

Jacobs Media's Eric Holmes weighs in on Metallica's new website:

I’d like you to meet the newest Jacobs Media client, our first band - Metallica!  Well… OK, so we’re not consulting Metallica, but it definitely looks like they got the W.T.D.A. memo.  (Or maybe they could have written it!)

Their new website is called Mission: Metallica.  While they could’ve just sat back, released the new album and hoped for the best from their old fans, they decided to step it up.

After the debacle called St. Anger, it was obviously clear to Metallica and their management that a different approach was necessary.  And in this case, they’ve done a nice job integrating a standard event – the release of a new album – with a cool digital platform.

The new site includes video blogs of the band writing and recording in the studio, riffs from the new album and more.  The message states, “Experience the new album before it’s done.”  While it’s clearly fan-centric, this is a band that needs to embrace its minions – their original believers and those who discovered the band in the mid-‘90s.

This kind of site is the smartest thing Metallica could’ve done.  By creating solid digital content, they’re going to help raise awareness through e-mailing, IMing and MySpace/Facebook postings of their material.  When you give people a reason to check you out every day, you create an excitement and relevancy that hasn’t been there.

Digital content is going to be the key to almost every industry going forward.  Even through all that loud head-banging, it looks like Metallica got the memo.

High-Priced Talent

You tune in sports talk radio, and you're bound to hear that cliché debate about whether professional athletes are overpaid.  When a team is winning - like the Celtics - it's rarely much of an argument.  But when we're talking about the cellar-dwelling Miami Heat, it's a different conversation.  Consider the 2007-08 salaries of these players:

Dwane Wade            $13 million

Shawn Marion           $16.4 million

Udonis Haslem         $6 million

Alonzo Mourning       $2.7 million

Jason Williams         $8.9 million

That's a lot of green for a team that was 13-62 when this blog was written.

So when I read about a recent promotion the hapless Heat put together with their star-salaried roster, I couldn't help but be impressed.  To sell season tickets for next year (not an easy sale, to be sure), the players manned the phones at halftime of a recent game.  It was a great use of their marquis power, and a clever way to give new fans a celebrity brush with fame.  It also earned them media coverage in a number of news outlets.

Most radio stations don't use their big names as effectively.  Yes, many well-paid jocks have gotten the economic message in the past few years.  They need to make a greater contribution than their 4-5 hours shows.  As a result, many have stepped up, are spending more time at the station, while showing up for more outside events (with no talent fee).

But stations could utilize their big brands in a more compelling way.  A number of years ago, we talked about the jocks making live, unsolicited calls to members of the email database.  Imagine getting one of those out-of-the-blue calls from your favorite DJ, thanking you for listening, taking a request, and just spending a couple of minutes to schmooze with a station fan.  It's a lasting impression, very buzz-worthy, and something that can cement a listener's loyalty for years.

Additionally, it is ironic that clients often pay premium dollars for live reads by big-name jocks, but stations would rather use their anonymous Mr. Big Voice on most (if not all) key promos and positioners.  If your airstaff can effectively sell dog food, cars, and new windows for advertisers, why wouldn't you regularly use the power and influence of their voices to highlight what's really important - your station and your brand?

The sobering economic realities of radio, coupled with the rapidly changing technology environment, have forced radio programmers and managers to rethink many things.  The way we generate maximum value from our unique, proprietary personalities should be one of them.

Ultimate Noise

Jacobs Media’s Bill Jacobs shares a client promotion that has garnered national attention:

Stations are constantly on the lookout for ways to garner attention and make some noise in their markets.  If you take enough shots, every once in a while something breaks through in such a big way that it takes on a life of its own.  And usually it does so in a way that couldn’t possibly have been predicted beforehand.

Case in point is our client station WKLC, in Charleston, West Virginia.  Like many stations, they were looking for an impactful promotion for Valentine’s Day, and they came up with the concept of giving away a free divorce to one “lucky” listener.  It’s hardly a new concept, but with some planning (and a little luck), this seemingly small and basic promotion exploded to levels we’ve rarely seen (and they received around 2000 entries).

It started with the local newspaper, The Charleston Gazette, picking up the story and giving it some attention.  And you know the old adage:  “The harder I work, the luckier I get.”  Turns out that the Gazette's reporter is a stringer for the Associated Press, and the decision was made to put it up on the wire.  And from there, it took off.

While this doesn’t encompass everything that’s happened over the last several days, Program Director Jay Nunley has, among other things:

• Been interviewed by over 30 radio stations
• Been on the front page of the Gazette (along with GM Steve Z)
• Made it into USA Today
• Been contacted by Dr. Phil’s people for a possible future appearance
• Made it into newspapers in Asia, Africa, Europe and Australia
• Been interviewed live on Fox News by Sheperd Smith

This is a great reminder that it’s not about the size of the budget or the size of the market.  You don't even need a local morning show (Jay's the afternoon drive jock).  But a little imagination, some effort, a local contact, and some luck can move the needle in a huge way.  It's also another great story for local radio's ability to still be the big story - even in a world of iPods, Facebook, and XM.  Congratulations to Jay and Steve for helping turn “just another promotion” into the kind of breakthrough event that every station dreams about.

Michael Jordan Still Lighting 'Em Up

Jacobs Media's Bill Jacobs provides insight on how Nike plans on reaching young male consumers:

Even though Michael Jordan hasn't scored a point in an NBA game since April 16, 2003, he, along with Nike, is still scoring bigtime.  As a result of the phenomenal success of Air Jordans starting way back in the mid-'90s, Nike established "Nike's Jordan Brand," tying in younger athletes such as Carmelo Anthony and Richard Hamilton.  Now Nike is set to roll out the Air Jordan XX3 and the Air Jordan Retro 1 in 2008.  Substitute the word "retro" with "classic" and you can see the connection, and how it's going to be packaged.

However, how do you get young males to buy into the Air Jordan brand when many of them barely remember who Michael Jordan even is?  Today's teen target Nike customer was only 5 or 6 years old when Michael and the Bulls won their last championship in 1998.

Thus, you'd think that marketing to this group would be a tough putt.  But it isn't because the same concept applies to Classic Rock artists like Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, and Jimi Hendrix who are all revered by many teenage males who never saw them play.  When you look at it that way, it's easy to see why the Jordan brand remains so popular.  But it takes more than just producing the shoes (playing the songs).

What else is Nike doing to reach young male consumers?  The kinds of things any Rock radio station should be doing.  According to Roman Vega, manager for the Jordan Brand, the formula is rather simple:

"We're excited about our web site, jumpman23.com, which we continue to make more interactive.  With House Of Hoops by Foot Locker, Nike is building a closer connection with consumers on the street level.  And we have the Jordan Brand 'Breakfast Club' where we send athletes into communities to meet with young players."

Hmmm... so all it takes is a solid interactive web site, strong street presence, and sending your stars (jocks) into the community.  None of this is rocket science but it takes a plan, it takes vision, and it takes bonding with shoe buyers (listeners) on the streets and in communities -- things that do not cost a boatload of money.  It's not simply selling shoes (playing songs), sitting back and hoping for results.  We all know how well that works.

The Halo Effect

This morning's blog has been guest written by resident video game player/fan, Eric Holmes:

Kanye West and 50 Cent are the two biggest names in music right now and each had their new albums released on the same day Tuesday, September 11th.  Between the two of them, 1.6 million albums were sold in a week.

Linkin Park, arguably the biggest current rock band in the country, has sold a little over 1.6 million copies of their new CD which came out May 15th.

Halo 3 is out for the XBOX 360 today, and is already projected to sell over 3.5 million copies.  That’s 3.5 million copies in ONE DAY.

If you think that's overly optimistic, consider this:  Halo 2 sold 2.38 million on its first day.

Your male audience will be buying this game, talking about this game, and spending countless hours every day playing this game.  (Your female audience will be putting up with their male counterparts.)  As a listener, if your favorite rock station shows interest in one of your favorite past times, you’re going to listen.  Don’t let the opportunity of promotion with Halo 3 slip by.

Has Mountain Dew seen "The Bedroom Project?"

Jacobs Media's Dave Beasing offer his thoughts on Mt. Dew's marketing strategy:

No, they haven't see it, but they're clearly learning a lot about their consumers' attitudes in their own research.  In the Arbitron/Jacobs "Bedroom Project," one of the many revelations is the motivation for playing videogames.  The folks at ad agency BBDO and Mountain Dew seem aware that videogamers are extremely competitive, enjoy the social aspects of videogaming, and try to avoid losing their cool during battle.  The creative result is this television commercial for Dew's new energy drink:

If the Dew Game Fuel marketing team had used traditional consumer research, they might have tried to sell that delicious cherry flavor.  Or they may not even have known that their target consumers play Halo and are beyond excited about the upcoming release of Halo 3.  But with ethnographic research, marketers see real people showing their real emotions in their natural habitats.

Fred Jacobs, Arbitron VP Ed Cohen and I invite you to witness real people using media and technology during our presentations at the NAB/R&R Conventions and Jacobs Summit 12 in Charlotte.  Sorry.  We won't be showing a single chart or graph, but you may actually learn more about today's young people than if we had.

You can see both "Bedroom Project" presentations at the NAB/R&R Conventions in Charlotte next week.  Conceived by Arbitron and conducted by Jacobs Media, "The Bedroom Project" is an ethnography study about media, technology, and survey research.  The presentations are Wednesday afternoon at 3:45 at the NAB; Thursday afternoon at 2:15 for the Jacobs Summit 12.

Wanted: Young Men!

I was recently emailed a pitch to attend the third annual "Marketing to Men 18-34" conference in New York City in August.  If I hurry and sign up now, it's only $699.  If I wait until showtime, it'll set me back $799.  As the email states, this is "the definitive conference for professionals trying to make an impact on elusive male consumers."

Of course, I could save the money, the airfare, the hotel, and taxi costs and call Doug Podell or Jim Fox.  They know a lot about reaching and marketing to 18-34 men.  Or I could reach out to Wade Linder, Evil Jim, Ken Carson, Dave Richards, Todd Nukem, and many of the other Active and Alternative programmers we work with every day.  These guys - and many others like them - are experts in appealing to those "elusive" 18-34 men, and perhaps should be running this seminar, rather than paying to attend.

And that leads to other questions:  Why do advertisers and marketers pay to attend these seminars, and yet in terrestrial radio, selling younger guys is still considered to be next to impossible?  Why are young male demos coveted by many in the ad community, but radio still hasn't figured out how to package and market this obvious asset?  Why doesn't the RAB connect with this group - a speaker roster that includes executives from ESPN, the NFL, Unilever, A&E, the NBA, and BBDO?  And why does radio continue to leave money on the table, despite its great ability to deliver these listeners in bunches?