A Lesson From Political Polls

 

As we head into the 2022 midterm U.S. elections we are seeing a lot of confusion with the polling system.  For 60+ years we have had political polls at the center of our elections.  They called up thousands of random people with a quick survey to research the election and make predictions.  Until we had cell phones the surveys could depend on the responder answering their phone at home and taking the time to answer the questions.  With enough random calls completed, a demographic and geographic balance (or weighting) could predict within 5% of the election results - which is the sampling error.   

BUT - now we have the cell phone, with caller ID built-in, we carry it everywhere and even drive with it.  It even shows us telemarketing and spam calls so getting a 'random sample' is almost impossible as very few are answering the call.  We also don't have a reliable 'phone book' with most of us keeping our cell numbers hidden from public view.  Most researchers use random number systems to try and make calls.  

In the end pollsters and researchers struggle to get respondents and then even when they answer the time is limited as they walk, drive, shop, ride elevators, and who knows what else while talking on the phone.  Some have tried to go to online research patterns but then how do you obtain a truly random sample?  

All of these drawbacks and 'excuses' have left most pollsters and political watchdogs confused.  Here on election eve, some are making big predictions, but are also walking them back after they have seen the last 4 elections end up with results that the polls missed.  

Here in radio land we also have become dependent on a lot of research and polls to determine who we program and relate to the audience.  Is this research helping, or just bringing in lots of false information that we end up acting on and failing with? 

The same realities that are casting confusion and doubt on the election polling are also baked into our music research, audience-level ratings, and perpetual studies done for years and years. 

Is New Music Going to DIE??

 From radio's perspective, the emphasis is clearly on Classic Hits and Classic Rock.  The number of stations in each format continues to grow and the ratings most often find the 2 formats near the top of the ranks.   In the Billboard sales, streams, and downloads tallies we saw older songs outperforming the newer songs.  As we look over the testing we have on newer songs it gets harder and harder to see a huge value in nearly any format.  Even in Country the newer songs are not having the impact they used to.  You see big classic artists selling their whole catalog for 100s of millions in instant revenue.  How much value is there in music that's 50 years old? It looks like a lot more than any current songs on the chart. So what is happening?  A lot of elements are combining and changing the whole landscape of music but these 3 stand out a lot.   

• Gatekeepers and Influencers: Back in the 'good ole days" you had Radio stations playing music, TV shows with artists as guests, concert tours, and perhaps you could have your song on a big movie soundtrack.  You had a whole network of promo folks drumming up radio airplay, the label or your manager also secured some TV shows, and of course, you hit the road to play live.

• Today's Market landscape: In today's world you have radio airplay centralized with corporate, radio having a diminished stand in the new music landscape, and tons of different exposure platforms from podcasts to YouTube channels, and social media groups across 5-6 platforms.  And you don't have a 'label' providing its network to help.  We have a lot of noise to get past for any musician. For a while, we saw some new artists evolving from reality TV shows.  But, now that is also drying up as we have fewer of those shows and their viewership is waiting.  Radio also used to work with them playing the songs from the show and having Ryan Seacrest on both platforms.  We've also had 2.5 years in pandemic land that has no doubt affected the music we are hearing today.  Tours shut down for 18 months.  Artists tried Zoom recordings, they had some time to write but to join up and record face to face?  

• The Music Itself:  This may be a big KEY to why the whole game.  Who needs musicians anymore?  We have Pro Tools

Just find a way to sample, lay down a couple of chords, cut and paste and you have instant computer music.  We can say that the evolution of keyboards and electric guitars was just as much of a revolution in making music, but this is different.  You still needed to respect and follow the standards of rhythm, meter, key, and musicianship to make a song.  The best artists crafted carefully writen songs with creative poetry that blended with the instruments to create the art that is a song.  

Has the computerization of music turned us back to longing for a day when you had to really have harmony and couldn't just auto tune it.  To a day when you actually had to play that cool bass riff for the whole song to lay down a base with the percussion?   

It's more than just the software we have whole new creations that are way more than just instruments to play music on.  The Instrument here has 100s of instruments built in with all the software to build chord progressions, rhythm patterns, music theroy is built in, and you will never hit a wrong note again!!  The Instrument Review  Is this real music or computer genereated Virtual Songs? 

What its all led to is a new music landscape more based on 'the look' the 'Instagram/ticktok/Facebook/Twitter image than it is about the music.   Where are the songwriters and musicians that will challenge Pink Floyd, The Stones, The Beatles, Garth, Prince, Linda Ronstadt, The Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, Ozzy, Van Halen, CSNY, Dylan, Paul Simon, and so many more?  

During the pandemic, we saw a huge increase in the sales of guitars online.  As we sat locked away for almost 2 years we should expect to see something coming from all those guitars.  Hopefully soon.  

The link below is to a You Tuber who has built a following of over 3 million. He breaks down music from the perspective of a trained musician and a producer.  He has a master's in music, has taught music on the college level, and produced Shinedown, Parmalee, and others.  He does the show from his recording studio in Atlanta.  If you want to really learn how a song is built and what makes it great Rick will teach you a lot. 

Watch him breakdown the top 10 from last April  

Rick Beato You Tube

And Lastly even Archie saw this coming (thanks to Lee Arnold for posting this Pic)

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?

Top 40 Music - Chicken Vs Egg???

One of the sharpest programming consultants and also a top advisor at I Heart Media is Guy Zapolean.  He's a father of the Hot AC format and a veteran of many Top 40 success stories for probably 30 years or more.  Guy has seen the music landscape and studied it in depth from a premise that Top 40 is a blend of music styles that focus on the best of  Pop, Urban, and Rock music styles.  When the blend is in balance the format has the best opportunity to win.

Of course, I'm paraphrasing and summarizing Guy's work and you can read more in the articles he's recently published in All Access.  He has also published older reports on much the same premise in All Access.

Here are links to the articles

The first outlines the theory
https://www.allaccess.com/consultant-tips/archive/26826/the-music-cycle-the-extremes-approaching-in-2018

The 2nd goes deeper into the data and yearly summary charts to show the effect of the theory on music popularity.
https://www.allaccess.com/consultant-tips/archive/28915/the-music-cycle---the-extremes-are-here-as

The 3rd looks at the rebirth of the cycle.
https://www.allaccess.com/consultant-tips/archive/20592/zapoleon-music-cycle-update-exiting-doldrums-and

The theory builds on a few key premises to success in the Top 40 format.

• Centrist Pop music is the 'glue' that holds the format together.  Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, Ariana Grande, Charlie Puth, Ed Sheeran, Maroon 5 are example artists.  The key element for Top 40 is getting Moms and Daughters and the balance of Pop is what holds them together. 
• Hip Hop/Urban and Pop Rock/Alternative are the other 2 key elements for the format.   Hip Hop has been growing and growing over the last 2 decades and now we have a chart that has a lot of Drake, Cardi B, Kendrick Lamar, Post Malone and more bubbling under.  There is also a Pop/Alternative side with Imagine Dragons, Lovelytheband, Panic at the Disco all having top 20 songs.  
• Hit music has 3 cycles in Guy's theory. 
• Birth - An explosion of pop music - The Beatles hit, MTV ushers in a wave of new artists, American Idol shines a big light on pop music, are all example events that spawned an explosion in pop music.  
• Extremes - The growth of Hip/Hop/Urban and Rock sides in popularity pushing the Pop elements to the background in the mix. 
• Doldrums - A phase where the balance is focused more on the extremes and the Pop music glue that holds the center of the format together is weaker and weaker.  

Guy's analysis on where we are now in the articles shows Top 40 is in the Doldrums.  The music mix has moved to Hip Hop/RB/Urban percentages above 50 in popularity charts and Pop has fallen to under 30.  In top 40 Airplay charts we still have Hip Hop/Urban around 25% and programmers have tried to keep Pop at 60%.  The format is forcing itself to stay in a Pop lane even though we see more energy in Hip Hop now. 

We've seen CHR stations slumping a bit in the ratings over the last year and this music cycle is a clear factor.  Guy's case is well laid out and the proof in his tracking of the CHR audience over decades is clear.  The data is clear that there is a slump in audience and the need for center pop songs/artists is pretty threatening.  

But, is it the Chicken or the Egg?  How much does radio AIRPLAY factor into making music popular?  

When you start looking at the charts and focus on the Pop songs and Pop artists you can see a clear favored status for Hip Hop music and Pop songs that might have been given enough spins to get them into the top 20 or top 15 fizzles out or take a long time to build.  

Look at 2 groups of songs here from the Top 40 charts this week.  

Juice Wrld, Post Malone - Sunflower, - The most dramatic here is Post Malone's Sunflower which in 3 weeks is already in the top 20.  Post Malone is on a huge roll and anything he's in seems to take off.  Juice Wrld took only 6 weeks to crack the top 15. 

Shawn Mendes - Lost in Japan,  Silk City/Dua Lipa, and Alessia Cara - Trust My Lonely.  Alessia is a huge talent with a lot of success to bank on.  But, after a full month only 60% of the CHR stations are playing the song and it sits in the 30s.  Shawn Mendes has seen more success with most adding him over a month ago and he is above 20 in airplay but the song is moving slowly through the 20s.  Dua Lipa could be a sign of a very strong new artist and part of a new birth cycle. She has had 2 hits in the last year and this is a good pop song,  but it's taken over 2 months to get this song above 20.  

We also see songs handing around the top slots forever.  Maroon 5 - Girls Like You is approaching 6 months of airplay and 420,000 spins, still showing top 5 airplay.   Post Malone - Better Now has a similar story 380,000 spins and top 5 with 7 months in the field.  Some of this is the importance of recurrents or very familiar songs in the PPM world.   New music and artists are a tougher sell to PPM programmers.  The PPM Media Monitor meters nearly always show a dip with new songs -- so caution is taken.  Why play the new Dua Lipa when you can spin Maroon 5 again for the 500,000th time.  

The question I'm posing is - do Top 40 programmers have enough influence over pop music to be able to do a better job of playing songs that fit the need for a strong pop center and keep the glue that holds the format together strong?   Or is it all determined by the audience?  Don't we still have enough leverage to have some control over the needle?  Do we always wait for the audience to tell us or do programmers seek out the songs that will balance the mix? 

While we can't win by playing stiff songs that don't cut it with the audience we can keep our balance and perhaps look not only at the charts but also at the value of the song in the mix a little more.  Could we also keep an eye on the whole audience, not just the Hip Hop fans?  We seemed to sit and just watch the flocks of moms and daughters and dates heading to Lady Gaga's Star is Born and ignore the big song from the movie.  Now we are playing catch up as the movie wraps up its theatre run with huge reviews and box office numbers.   

Now we see why Guy calls it the Doldrums.  

How Close Are You To Your Audience?

Are you close enough to really engage them? Or are you a distance voice reliant on the music you play that they can find in many places - with and without advertising? 

Is your audience a real part of your station, or just a set of ears on the other end of the speaker.  Do you really have a team of personalities that can engage an audience?  Or is it all 'phoned in?'

Do you really know what entertains the audience and engages them?  Or have you given up trying? 

All of these questions may seem obvious, but take a few hours and just listen to your stations.  For many, it may be time to find a way to authentically engage your audience again. 

We all can see a world of new engagement and entertainment on every level.  Radio is still reaching over 90% and has pretty healthy engagement, but the more we sit back and let our programmed automation take the lead we risk losing the connection that made radio so effective.  Just a few thoughts as 2018 gets rolling and see Spring ahead.   

3 Opportunities For Radio Revenue in 2018

While we still see lots of challenges for Radio there are 3 opportunities that have tons of potential to drive revenue and cement Radio's strong marketing tool position in every community.   Let's take a look:

DIGITAL - Yes, digital on-line web-based marketing has huge potential for radio.  The Borell studies of advertisers across the county show that the key to success is using both traditional media and targeted digital campaigns.

While it's great to use all the web tools to laser target prospects on the web, you also need the brand building, event creation, and huge reach of traditional media. 

We also have skilled sales teams that already call on the key marketers in our markets.  Give them the knowledge of digital and the tools to add both sides of this package to what they can offer and Radio gets closer to being at the center of more marketing plans and dollars.   Build whole campaigns that build the brand and micro-target customers.

LOCAL - No media has the potential to be more Local than Radio.  Newspapers are struggling to stay afloat in most markets.  TV has become a streaming world with so many options. The internet news world is more often nationally focused, more so on politics it seems like now. In the end who wakes up in your market and talks about your weather, traffic, events, and issues?  Radio clearly has the one on one potential here.

EVENTS - Staging events and also participating in big established events can be a key revenue source.  Yes, it takes lots of planning to build a Job Fair or a Bacon Fest, the opportunity to stage these events and bring in nice crowds from the market is a key skill that Radio has a big edge in.  The key is building them to make sure you build revenue. 

The New Marketing Tools on the block may be great at finding niche targets, but it takes more than chasing targets with banner ads or pre-roll videos.  Most of the time the customer needs to know you and be able to get face to face with you to become a real customer.  Radio has proven over and over it can deliver. 

2018 is a year to look forward to. 

Check out This Streaming Site

A very unique site that lets you wander the planet and drop in on key stations all over the world.  Check it out Radio Garden  

Look Out Alexa and Friends are on the march!!

You can see the quick rise of these devices over the last 8-10 months with the early adaptors.  According to Edison Research's Smart Audio Report with NPR in late June 2017 around 7% of the households, own one of these 'smart speakers'  The leaders are Amazon's Alexa and Google's Home and they are poised to be THE big deal this Christmas.  While it will not be as life changing as the smart phone, released 10 years ago, it could have a big impact on Radio listening.

Right now these devices can control smart devices like the thermostat, light switches, and more as they develop them.   They can also act like Siri on the phone and look things up on the web. But, the big deal for Radio and audio is - they can stream your audio with great sound into the house again.  In fact, the Edison/NPR study reports that 90% of the smart speaker owners bought it to listen to music.

For years and years, we've seen radio become a very portable and mobile medium with the car becoming the spot where most listening happens.  Now we have the chance to get back into the home with a new device.  No wonder the sessions at the NAB Radio show in Austin on these devices were well attended.  The only problem is we are competing with all the streaming channels (Spotify and Pandora) and every station in the world who is streaming through the big apps like I Heart and Tune In Radio.  They already have a 'Skills' app section in the Alexa world for 'partners' to link up to Alexa so you can order up an Uber or a Domino's Pizza.  Could there be a link for your station to have a skills app?

So how does your station take advantage of a new radio in the house?   First, we need to educate the audience to command Alexa to tune us in and that will be tricky.  Just saying 'Alexa I want to listen to Z100' might not bring the answer we expected.  How many Z100s are there in the world of streaming?  The key will lie in our call letters - but how many of us use our call letters all the time?   The answer is very few of us.  Does the audience even know our call letters?

We are going to have to start with a detailed campaign in our imaging and promos to explain to the audience how to order up our stations in Alexa land.  First, buy an Alexa and see what works for your station in your market.  Then craft your imaging campaign and make sure it's running enough to stand out.  In the end, our call letters may be very important to more than just the legal ID we bury in a sea of spots in the :50 stop set.

 Yes, only 7-10% of the audience has one now but, this will grow fast over the next year.  If you wait to jump in the pool it could be pretty crowded.  

When Does Classic Rock Get Moldy?

"Classic Rock - Rock That's Stood The Test of Time."  One of the classic sweepers for the format.  But, when does the music get too old?  Right now most Classic Rock stations have an average year of 1977 to 1980 in their music mix.   If we took all the songs over 30 days and averaged them we'd hit a year in that range - the songs are around 40 years old!!  So if you were 18 in 1978 you are now 57.   You are out of the 25-54 demo, coming up on 10 years out of 18-49s, and retirement is hopefully just a few years off.

If you look at the range of music played in the format nearly all of it comes from the mid 60's up to 1990.  Even the newest songs in the mix are almost 30 years old and the oldest are 50 years old.  If you look at the mix on the Classic Hits stations they are at least into the early 80s for the average year and often the mix extends into the early 90s.  It's been over 15 years since we began to see the end of the old - Oldies - format.  Oldies used to cover the late 50s to the late 70s and found itself too old to be effective in the 25-54 demo.  That's when the transition to Classic Hits began and saved the old oldies stations from the grave.

Will it happen to Classic Rock?  Part of the issue is that Classic Rock clearly defined itself as it positioned against rock stations that still played current songs in the 80s and 90s.  That's when the boundaries were set.   For the most part Gun's n Roses is the last band let into the format.  Once in a while, you see a few grunge era titles from Pearl Jam or Nirvana in the mix, but it's very light.  Classic Rock does not include the 90s or beyond - Grunge and Alternative are not in the club at most stations.  Some have expanded but usually, it's less than 4% of the mix.

Will there be a legacy or gold format built for today's 30-50 year old?  If you are 38 today you were 19 in the late 90s.  Does Classic Rock evolve or is the door open for a new approach and mix in rock?

Radio Without People, Presence, and Community

Over the last 20 years, Radio has become more and more wrapped up in its music than it's link to the audience and the community.  Yes, we've all seen the research from the audience that always declares that the music is the most important ingredient on the music stations and that we should all shut up and play the hits.  The PPM meters show the levels diving off as the music ends - so we focus on just playing the hits over and over.

But, the reality is that the audience has access to music all over the place.  It's on their phones, streamed into apps, all over YouTube, and Spotify.   The real key to great radio in today's world is not just playing the hits with some catchy sweepers.  It's getting involved in the audience's life.  Being at the festivals, having the audience involved with the station on air, having the personalities become stars in the community and linking to that community in every way possible.

To do this it takes people.  Just having a syndicated morning show and a bunch of sweepers between the songs isn't going to really draw a dominate audience anymore.  It takes some people and a plan.  You can't just flip on the auto studio and expect the audience to engage, even if you play the right music.  Music has really become defense - just don't let the other stations or music providers score.  You can't score much with music.  There are places to find it first and places that play more of it along with more places that specialize in any genre of music you can play.  You like edm-chill music there are whole channels streaming 24/7.

Where you score points and create offense in radio is with your personality and community presence.

In many markets the Summer is when you can really pour it on in the community.  Take full advantage it's scoring time.   

The Old Fashioned Paper Diary

Rating services have been using the Paper Diary for around 45+ years.  They are still used around the world even with the advent of the people meter.  They are simple to fill out and there's not a lot of expense to get the data once you've got a willing participant.   But, it's getting harder and harder to get the younger audience to fill out a diary with a paper and pen.

Writing things down is something that is quickly fading from our world.  We click on the keyboards (no matter how small they are) and dictate to our devices.  There is no need to write much for the older half of Gen X and all the Millenials which make up the entire 18-45 cells. Even their signature is going digital.

We have seen the sample sizes continue to struggle in these cells and we often see extra cash sent to these groups to try and get the sample.  In most cases, the sample falls short and the diaries from these cells are weighted up, so they are worth 130 or 200 percent of the value of the demo cells that met their goals in returns.

So why not take the diary on-line?  Have it set up so you can fill it out on your smartphone or tablet or laptop.  Will younger demos fill it out?  Will it be more accurate? In Canada, their ratings system (Numeris), made the bold move to give it a try this past Fall.

So how did it turn out?  So far it looks like the sample return was up for 12+  just under 6%.  The 18-34 demos did show a stronger return.  But, the time spent listening was down - also around 6%.  Is the On Line Diary more cumbersome to fill out on a keyboard than just grabbing a pen?  We also saw fewer listening occasions, but longer reported listening when they did tune in according to what they entered in the on-line system.

No doubt there will be tweaking ahead, but it's a great move to at least see the potential of moving beyond the paper diary.

Is Social Media Branding A Waste!!!

We see it all the time as a brand or business launches something new and posts it on Facebook.   The post goes up and then you look at the comments and it's filled with haters.  Everyone complaining about the announcement to the point of no return.

Even though you may have 1000 likes and 800 shares, the 500 haters commenting and picking everything apart almost makes you wonder - should we have just announced the change on our website and avoided all comments?

This is one of the issues with Facebook and perhaps it's may not be your best option to announce a change.

I've recently seen some changes in radio stations where they ran out with announcements on Social Media.  The problem is that they had NO control over how the message would hit and with the door wide open for comments they get clobbered.   It usually starts with all the people who claim radio is useless or so old fashioned and that they have moved on to satellite radio or one of the streaming apps.  They claim not to listen at all, but they seem to know how bad it is or that the station doesn't play their kind of music now.  The same can go for personalities, contests, features and even special community events.  They can say anything they want in the comments - make it up and say whatever you want.

All it seems to take are a few haters tapping away on their keyboards to dampen the whole event or change.  There are ways to make sure you have some control when you announce in today's world - it may be worth it to consider the alternatives.  While yes - the haters will hate hate hate - you don't have to open the door just to accommodate them.  

Helping The Sales Team

With all the opportunities we have to market and build brands with all of today's Media options on so many platforms, your sales team has to really hustle to hit those budgets and build the revenue line. This probably isn't 'breaking news' in your shop, but has it become 'old hat news'?  Is it just a 'slump' that seems to go on and on?   Are we giving up on opportunities we could take advantage of or create?

But, what can the programming team do to help?  It's a sales issue, right?

Radio advertising may look like just selling 30s and 15s in the 2-3 spot islands we have in most hours, and while that probably makes up much of the revenue, we have a lot more opportunities.
The Potential to work outside the cluster boxes to build brands, draw customer traffic, and help brands integrate themselves in the community.


Many of these opportunities involve embedding opportunities outside of the clusters - an integration right into the product.  A place where your message is a lot harder for the audience to pass over.

It's sponsorship of features, events, promotions, studios, weekends, whole dayparts, and anything else we can dream up.  Too often we look at these as 'inventory' on a list that the sales team needs to sell.  How about if we changed the 'optics' to - opportunities for brands/clients/advertisers to engage their message front and center on the product.

Programming needs to take a leadership position here and look for opportunities that fit the product and don't intrude on it.  Next, we need to outline the opportunities and create the guidelines so the sales team and the client knows what to expect.  It may sound simple, but do you and your team have a real plan here?  Or do we just wing it when the client brings it up?  Maybe it's time to work with your sales team and develop your plan.  

Your Point Of View Behind the Mic

When you, or the on air talent on your team, cracks the mic what is their Point Of View.  Are they in the sound proof room talking into the magic cylinder and making the meters wiggle so the masses can hear their every word?  Or are they communicating with the listeners and having a real conversation with them?

Obviously we know what will connect with the audience.  Yet, how many breaks do we hear on stations in all size markets with all levels of talent that just focus' on them and their point of view only.  Yes there are personalities that have a captivating point of view and a gift of gab and much of their audience dials in to bathe with their words, but face it most of the on air talent we have will build a lot stronger engagement with the audience by taking their Point Of View.  

Go back and listen to your breaks if you are on the air - where was your Point Of View?  

Big Data

Today we are all giving off huge quantities of data with our every breath.  It's tracked on our Fit Bits, phones, computers, cars, tablets, the affinity clubs we've joined, the social media we use, and all the cameras we pass through all over the place.  We can open our GPS apps and see exactly how fast traffic is moving on nearly any street in the country, and it's done by tracking the movement of every cell phone on the street.  We can see so much and are able to store so much of it that the term Big Data is really an gross understatement - it's way bigger than big.  I don't think Carl Sagan could find a word to do it justice.    

On the other side of this picture we have many who are studying all of this data to see if they can find the 'needle in the haystack' or the 'golden nugget' that launches a new product or allows you to direct all your marketing and distribution systems to hitting the consumer target right between the eyes - with 'super smart bomb messages.'  

We have tons and tons of data.  Yes, more than we can put to any real use.  So much that it often points in multiple directions with equal conviction.  

While all this data grows and accumulates are we just making huge piles of big data or are we actually finding new answers to human behavior or new ways to reaching them in marketing or messaging?  

One thing to keep in mind.  Just having lots of data is not the answer - we have to be able to understand and find real ways to use the data and that comes from finding a balance between the 'Art' and the 'Science'.   We have tons of 'Science/Data' here.  To make progress with all this data we will need to develop the 'Art' of building messages and having a full understanding of the audience.  

Just having piles of data is not enough.  

Are You All Set For 2016 in Promotions?

As we wrap up 2015 your station should be well along in your plans for 2016 in Promotions.  In fact you should already have 1st quarter pretty set and 2nd quarter roughed in.

We often see stations wait till just before a book to start planing out the promotions.  If the budget is not very strong we end up seeing if we can work with clients, barter, or sponsorship's to get a good promotion off the ground.  The problem here is running to the sales team with lots of last minute pitches and a lot less opportunity to craft the idea or event to work for both the station and the client.

The other area is community presence,  Being a big part of the festivals, concerts, sports, and community issues that are entertaining is also something that has to be planned out well in advance.

Pulling it all together in a rush always leaves lots of opportunities in the dust.

The meetings are not that hard to pull together and with on-line calendars you have lots of template opportunities.

A lot of stations have fallen behind in promotions.  The staff's are smaller and it becomes harder to pull everything together with only a few bodies on the case.  All the more reason to take the time to make a plan for the whole year and stay a full quarter ahead in your follow up meetings.  Your sales team needs time and you also need time with the leaner staffs and tighter budgets.   

Managing Your Team - Tips from Joe

Baseball season is coming to it's climax with the World Series just a few weeks away.  So much of the excitement this year is around the Cubs.  We all know the long legend of the Cubs, 108 years since last winning the series.  This year the team has finally built a potential winner with the skills of owner Tom Ricketts and GM/Money Ball wizard Theo Epstein.  They built a team of very young players that many felt were a year or two away from being contenders.  Lodged in a division with the two best records ahead of them with Saint Louis and Pittsburgh, they overcame it all and are now the top pick in Vegas to win it all.

While the players on the field make the plays and swing the bats, a big key is the coaching in the dugout.  Joe Madden manages the Cubs in a unique way and this is the real reason the Cubs are contenders.  This group is a real TEAM.  You see nearly everyone contributing with solid pitching performances, clutch hits, towering home runs, and strong defensive plays on the field.  It's not built on big egos or just a few individuals - it's the whole team.

The line up is very fluid with many players roaming all over the field on defense and the line up changes all the time with many unique twists.  In the game you never know when Joe will change the strategy to small ball or get very aggressive.  The other key is that he strongly believes that having fun, keeping it loose and celebrating are key elements on his team.   The PJ party after the no-hitter on the way back from LA, the petting zoo at practice, and many other fun time are all part of the party legend.

Joe is also very skilled with the press.  We are close to Chicago and get to see the press conferences, the are honest, relaxed and usually entertaining - the press loves him.

As programmers, operations managers and market managers we all have talent managing challenges.  What can we learn from Joe?   Here are 3 observation from a fan who's watched a lot of  Cubs games:

1. - Keep it Positive and Loose - Joe is always calm and positive around his team.  It's not about pulling a player aside and yelling at him.  This is a relaxed and comfortable team and there is a big reason why that works.  If the team is tight, fearful and full of pressure what happens when the pressure of the game ramps up?  What happens when the bases are loaded and you need a clutch double play with a team that's already at 10 on the tension meter - ERRORS.  If you keep it positive and loose you are a lot stronger when the pressure pushes the whole team.  A great example was when the press brought up the Billy Goat curse - Joe's response " I don't vibrate on that frequency."

2. Celebrate - Joe also keeps the tension away with team parties and celebrations at key times.  He preaches that every win is celebrated for 24 hours or till the next game.  Sometimes it's a big party and other times it might be more subtle but every win is special.  Let out the emotion and keep it loose.

3. Balancing Art and Science - Theo Epstein is legendary for his stat team of geeks.  He wrote the book on tracking every piece of data he could collect on the game and analyzing it.  The movie Money Ball is all about his number crunching systems, that have changed a game that's filled with legends and myths.  Joe is very keen on the numbers and you see many moves he makes because he has key data.  Watch him constantly looking at a stat guide he has the geek team prepare for every game in the dugout.

But, Joe doesn't live completely by the numbers.  He knows that a lot of the great performances in the game go beyond the numbers.  The human emotion plays a huge factor and there are not a lot of data points that you can run that will predict that magical game winning performance that comes out of the blue.  Sometimes you have to go with the gut and Joe uses his gut a lot.  He is always balancing his gut and the geek teams numbers.

Hopefully the Cubs will go all the way and you'll have the chance to see lots of games.  Watch Joe and the team - there are lessons for all of us to learn.  We also manage a tight knit group of talented people on air, in sales, and behind the scenes in our stations.  Getting all of them to perform at their peak is a constant goal.   

Programmers and The Budget

It's probably budget time around your station and the plans for 2016 are being laid out.  Having worked with many different management structures from the owner operators all the way to the big corporations we often see Programmers and Operations managers role varies a lot.


In some cases they have very little input.  Other organizations bring them in for a quick overview and sometimes you see the Programmers and Operations managers very involved.

Of course everyone has their own protocol here but regardless of what level of management Programmers and Operations Managers have in your world working with the budget IS something you should learn.  


Here are some starting points and areas to consider as your stations start building the budget for 2016:

1. Learn To Use A Spread Sheet - Spread sheets make the budget process easy to visualize and you can instantly see what happens as you spend, save expenses and build revenue.  You can see where the profits and expenses are under the most pressure and where the best months are.  It's not hard to start - just play around.  Take you paycheck and lay out your bills month by month and you'll get the picture.  There's tons of help within the spread sheets and you should be able to lay one out in just a few minutes with a little practice.  
2. Look at History - Know which months are the most profitable and which are the least.  Know where the expenses are also.  Even if you have no input or control you will still have to manage the team and the programming through the highs and the lows.  You can't prepare if you don't know the lay of the land.  
3. Set Goals - What do you want to accomplish, or where can you improve in these key areas: 
1. Staff 
2. Promotions
3. Expenses
4. The Rating Books

While we think of budgets mostly in a 'money sense' there is also a lot of other considerations in a budget.  Seeing the best times or months for opportunities, the times when you also have the biggest challenges to the 'bottom line.'  

We've all seen the Money Ball movie and how Theo Epstein and the Boston Red Sox used a whole new system of stat collection in the game to help manage the whole team and the whole game to their advantage.  In many ways the budget at your station is a key collection of stats for your Money Ball game.   

 

Ancient Forms Of Data Collection

While the last 6 months has seen a lot of discussion on the accuracy of PPM data collection and the Voltaire processor we continue to totally ignore the other 200+ markets that Nielsen measures and prints accredited research on.

For those of us who pour over the diary data, collected in much the same manner as it has been for over 40 years, the shortfalls of the process are all too obvious.  The samples are too small, the respondents are only in the mix for a week and Nielsen has to go to great lengths to round up a credible sample here.  They send out requests with cash in them, send out more cash after you fill out the initial survey to see if you could be in the sample, then they mail out the diaries, call everyone a bunch of times and hope the diaries are returned.  Can you imagine the costs of the call centers, the postage and those freshly pressed dollar bills they send out.

The result is often very low participation with the under 40 year old demos.  These smaller samples are weighted up so they are still represented, but you can often see a diary take on the value of 160% or even 200+% greater than the average diary in 25-34s, 18-24s and 35-44s.  It happens to both Men and Women.  Whole generations in a diary market are often showing radio listening data that has no respectable confidence or reliability.

All of sample process is done much as it was in the 70s.  From the days when a typewriter was on every desk, phones had dials on them, TVs still had rabbit ears built in, and computers were only in the biggest offices and the military.

Today most of the under 40 audience has completely grown up in a digital age.  Just after they were born the first Apple Computer was introduced and by the time they were 10 the digital world was well underway.  For the under 30 crowd when they were 10 AOL was already rolling and by the time they were 20 smart phones were on the way.  Now we have 90% or more of the U.S. population with cell phones and nearly 70% of the population with smart phones.

We have to wonder who is filling our these diaries?  Who will bother in today's 'we have an app for that' world is writing ANYTHING down.  Who would agree to do this for maybe $10 or $15?  The price of a large pizza!  Are the ones who would go through all of this representative of the 12-40 year olds out there in the diary markets?

Increasingly we are seeing TSL from this audience jump around a lot and much of it is on a down trend in diary markets.  The few diaries they get back from the under 40 population are often not filled out with much listening, they are weighted up and then you see all kinds of wild trends and listening patterns.  Perhaps their little used pens are out of ink?

Surely it would be a lot less expensive to find a new way to measure listening that doesn't involve the ancient pen and paper technology.  Is there anything to report here from the team at Nielsen?  Before this generation completely stops giving out data outside of the top 50 markets?

  

More on Generation Z - Some Advertiser Insights

Every Generation in the groups we covered below has different challenges and characteristics that are keys to reaching them.  For the Boomers quite a bit of their culture and influence revolved around the explosion of music and protests in the late 60s and early 70s.  Generation X was consumed by the recession and boom cycles of  80s and also the fact that they lived in the shadow of the bigger Boomer generation.  The 90s defined the Millennial generation with the huge growth of Tech, but also an era when many struggled to find jobs after college and stayed at home.

Now we have Generation Z who were born around the turn of the century and while they continue to ride the growth of technology they also grew up in a very widespread and deep recession. They are also the first generation since the Boomers to grow up with a drawn out war.  No doubt it has influenced their thinking and culture and to reach them every brand will need to understand these cultural keys.

While Gen Z may still be in High School they will make up a large market and we can already see a lot of products and brands looking to establish themselves with this up and coming group.

 The smart marketers ARE looking ahead and they know that today's 16 year old will soon be out of college and in 5 years they will be the cresting wave that they have to ride.  They also know you can't wait to start figuring this out.  If you wait till the wave is on you and try to mount the surf board - the wave will pass you buy.

Here's more on what key marketers are looking at with Generation Z from Ad Age

This is also a group that will challenge radio programmers.  For the most part we lost out on a lot of  potential with Millennial's.  In the 90s, when they were all growing up and could have become fans of radio, we were completely consumed with building 25-54 audience.  For much of the 90s the peak of the 25-54s were baby boomers in their 40s.  Radio was for Mom and Dad and Millennial's had all the toys to find music and entertainment all over the place, and make it customized to their liking.  Yes, from many angles it looks like we sat on our surf boards in the 90s and let the Millennial wave pass us buy.

We can all see the potential here to re-tool our 'radio brand'  and build new brands with personalities music blends, social media integration and imaging to target this audience.  But will we have the opportunity to try?  It will take some bold ideas, new thinking, experiments that may fail, and it will also take investment.  We already ignored one generation - we really can't afford to ignore another.  Taco Bell isn't--and soon a long list of  marketing campaigns will be focusing on Generation Z.  Perhaps we can take just 1 signal of the 5 in the cluster and consider the potential?   Or we can sit our our surf board and watch the wave crest in front of us again.