Imaging - The BIG Key to Building a Great Station

 

Imaging has been evolving on radio stations as a key element to building the brand.  Crafting an overall style, positioning, at work listening, recycling the audience, building Morning Shows and personalities, building promotions, improving time spent listening, and other missions have evolved through imaging.  Those little 5-15 second links between the songs and around the stop sets are very important, but we all have to ask 'how well do we use them.?'

In the foundation days of music radio jingles did most of the imaging work.  We tried to make these messages sound like little songs.  A very effective idea, but soon we needed more and the task (or at least some of it) was moved over to the station voice.  

Working with stations today we often see less attention to imaging over the last few years in my opinion.   So many Operations Directors, PDs, or Brand Managers are working with 5 or more stations and by the time they manage the tasks around that Imaging is one that often ends up at the bottom of the stack.  

Ask any of the voice-over people how much copy they get every month?   Most will tell you that only a few stations come up with the 1 or 2 pages they contracted for.  

Yes, there are some stations that are very well imaged and take great care.  I can remember working with stations in Canada where they had production people that just handled imaging for the 3 stations in the building.   They cut everything from daily Morning Show recycling to contests, to special imaging for holidays or local events.   Today that would be a tough luxury to justify outside of the top tier markets.  

We also have a number of services that will craft the imaging for you.  Send them a page of copy and it's all produced and ready to air.  Many also offer amazing creativity.  

There is also a debate in imaging on how much do we cram into these spaces?  Some stations rely only on quick station name clips (Z104) and zip right back to the next song.  They don't try to build any of the imaging points listed above - just shut up and get on with it.  

One thought to consider on the value of your imaging.  Imagine you went to a client and they wanted to purchase 4 - 10 sec mentions between the songs, 2 30 sec promos leading off each stop set, a rejoin 10 second after the 2 stop sets, and a 20 sec ID at the top of the hour.   EVERY HOUR.  That's around 1000 10s, 375 30s, and 168 IDS a week.  Even if you only averaged 10 bucks a spot that's over $60,000 a month in marketing resources.  Over 700,000 a year!  How's that for a promotion budget?