15 Months of Fame Lifecycles on the Web

Doesn't it seem like in the WWW world big things only last around 15 months or so? It seems to take 15 months to watch a new application or web thing develop, then it spends 15 months as the big thing, and another 15 months winding down. Myspace is a great example starting in late 2003 and building till the sale to Murdoch in mid 2005. As 2007 began we started to see a migration of the innovators and early adaptors to Facebook. By the middle of 2008 Facebook will probably blow by Myspace.



Look at YouTube which started in 2005 and was sold in 4th quarter 2006 to Google. By the early months of 2008 we'll probably see YouTube start winding down on the 'cool meter'. Something else will replace YouTube as the next cool thing.



While not everything seems to follow the 15 Month stages brought out in these examples there is clearly a very fast moving and volatile life cycle on the web. Look at it from an advertisers side. First you went with simple banner ads on big web sites only to find that your consumer wasn't there, then to pop-ups which we all blocked completely, into email boxes where you became spam, now to Google Adwords in a complex mess of bidding and placement. Advertisers seem to be constantly running to the next big thing on the web only to find a confusing mess when they spend the dollars. Things are changing fast and will probably even change much faster.



Recently Mark Cuban was discussing the slowness of the INTERNET and suggesting that we will probably see more INTRANETS that are more limited so we can actually navigate at the speeds our computers are capable of, instead of the slow, messy, way overcrowded, constantly crashing, WWW world - read it here I bet Mark is right that we will soon out grow the old Internet and find it just too slow to handle all the video, high end audio, animation, gaming, and interactivity we will likely demand from interacting with our computers. What happens when we try to download movies in high def formats? How far can we compress audio and when do we realize how much better things can sound? Mark's speculation on the answer to the ever increasing demand on throughput to get more and more complex aplications and content on to your screens and speakers is to close down the scope of the network. Go from an INTERNET to a more smaller and more controlled INTRANET - perhaps one that is all interactive through your cable provider with it's own You Tube like sharing site and a smaller personal network that can be monitored and controlled. Take off some of the 'freedom' and open to anyone side of the web and suddenly the experience might be the next logical evolution.


How does this relate to radio? Are advertisers, marketers and clients accomplishing anything towards building their brands and business growth in an environment where things are moving so fast your message disappears in front of you. Is this like the elusive task of trying to catch a chipmunk as it darts around your garage or yard with just your hands? It's so fast and so small and has so many holes to dive into.


It seems like everywhere we go radio gets the 'old fashioned' tag on it. While it may be tempting to be betting your marketing dollars on the latest web craze and find yourself chasing that chipmunk all over the garage. Meanwhile Radio still reaches 90% of the population or more, can be bought for lifestyle and specific demographics, and still delivers a very healthy TSL compared to other media. While it may be old fashioned it's also reliable, fairly easy to craft a quality message on (you don't need hours of HTML code or complex bidding systems), local to your community and still pretty affordable.

Influentials and the Diffusion of Innovation

Dave Van Dyke and his Bridge Ratings service have just released a new study that digs in on a group of listeners Dave has branded as New Influentials. You can read the whole study report here. Dave's study found that 10.2% of radio's audience fit into this group of Influentials that are heavy users and very likely to 'spread the word' and lead others towards various formats, stations or personalities. The level of New Influentials is a little higher for Satellite Radio and Internet Radio.

Looking over the data brought back some marketing memories studying The Normal Curve and a study from the 50's called The Diffusion of Innovation.

The Normal Curve (or bell curve) is a theory based on the occurrence of any trait or behavior and is the basis for all research. The probability of something occurring within our behavior and our reliability in predicting or detecting that trait are all demonstrated and calculated in the model of the curve. All 'things' happen under the curve and the middle of the curve is where you see the highest occurrence of a trait or behavior which trails off in either direction. The middle also represents a place where we are most likely to find the trait or behavior. There are tons of formulas that are the basis of Statistics and Probability theories and figure the reliability of any study, sample variance and a host of other measurement facets.

Back in the 50s and early 60s a professor at Iowa State Evertt Rogers was trying to see how we could spread all the science and innovations going on in the 50s for farming to other countries where they were struggling to feed their populations. His books on the Diffusion of Innovation are based on the Normal Curve, breaking the populations into 5 distinct groups based on how they adapt new innovations, technology or products:

• Innovators - 2.5% - the first to pick up on an innovation or product.



• Early Adaptors - 13.5% - this group spreads the news on the product.



• Early Majority- 34% - With this group you are at 50% of the population.



• Late Majority - 34% - As you cross the center line of the Normal Curve note that curve goes down!!



• Laggards - 16% - The last to jump on

Dave's study really shows us the importance of the Innovators and crossing to a majority of the Early Adaptors. With that 10-12% you are poised to influence the Early Majority and get your station, personality or format (your brand) to that point where you can reach 1/2 of the market and beyond. This is what is also called - The Tipping Point in Malcolm Gladwell's works.

How many times have we seen strategies and tactics in programming that leave out the Innovators and the Early Adaptors? Taking out some of the features or key elements that made the station unique, tightening the music so much that we leave this influential group searching for a new innovation. Trying to smooth over a strong personality to be more adaptable to the Late Majority.

You also have to keep in mind that the audience under this Normal Curve is in a constant state of change as innovations and products in every sector and our own sector are launching. Each is gathering it's own series of innovators, early adaptors and spreading to the majorities. To stay ahead you have to identify who your Innovators and Early Adaptors are and keep them high on the station.

As you market the station and develop the content make sure you are balancing both the Innovators and Early Adaptors with the Early and Late Majorities. Perhaps one of the big reasons we see the new media building so much momentum is that Radio has left the Innovators and Early Adaptors behind and while we still enjoy the acceptance and usage of the large Majorities and the Laggards how much longer till the Majorities adapt the new technologies?

In the early 90s more studies and theories focused on crossing the line between the Early Adaptors and the Early Majority as we began to see many innovations struggle to reach beyond a small group of fanatic followers. Crossing the Chasm by Geffeory Moore is probably the best book.

The keys to using these theories and ideas in your marketing plan is making sure you are balancing your efforts. Remember that you are also marketing your product on your product - the imaging, on-air promotion, music mix, and personality all support the innovation of your product. Making sure that you have a balance in all areas for both the Innovators and Early Adaptors as well as the Majorities is the key to long term success for any station and really for our media as a whole.

Thanks to Dave and the Bridge Ratings folks for bringing these basics back into the spotlight.

Some Good Signs For Rock Music/Radio

Usually twice a year we take an in-depth look at the Spring and Fall Arbitron Format analysis where they gather all the ratings from the top 100 markets and break them down by format.

The news is usually released after all the books are out and nearly always headlines another decline for all the rock formats. The facts are there as we can see the last 8 years showing a steady decline in most demo breakouts. We've all been hopeful that someday we'd see the tide turn here and perhaps it could come as we get the first 2007 numbers in just a few weeks.

Even if the numbers don't show a turnaround yet there are lots of signs that one is happening on a number of fronts:

• Rock is HIP again - Look at all the signs from the huge popularity of Guitar Hero, overall CD/download sales of rock acts, the summer concert sales picture, and the 'Indie Rock' movement in the 16-22 age group. Look at the music out right now from Linkin Park, Foo Fighters, Finger 11, Velvet Revolver, Ozzy, Pumpkins, White Stripes, Nickelback and other fairly well established acts. We also have lots of new artists breaking
• PPM - Suddenly in the markets where PPM will be taking over there is a rush to rock. New York and Philly both signed on new rock outlets and expect to see more in the top 20 as the year progresses. PPM finally shows a lot more acceptance and listening to rock radio than we've been seeing in the diary system. Arbitron will also likely be trying to shore up the sample issues in the diary a least a little. There will still be over 200 markets on the diary system for years to come and of course we all need confidence in the numbers. Both of these events could combine to 'turn the tide.' We will probably see some confusion in the Format reports from Arbitron as they phase in PPM data. The data is different in diary and PPM and there will be issues combining it for a national perspective on formats done with 2 different methodologies.
  
• Howard's History is fading - One of the big reasons we saw declines in 06 was from Howard leaving and seeing many of the CBS rock stations either change to a full talk format or at least have their ratings chopped up over Howard leaving.
• Other Formats - Look around at the other formats - CHR is struggling a bit as a lot of the core younger audience is very into other media. Country seems to be in a little lull for artists right now - no one is crossing over or getting huge notice outside the format core. A/C doesn't have a huge new artist and note that Christmas music is months away rock could benefit. Urban is also a little light lately as the rap/hip hop artists are not as rebellious and authentic as they were a few years ago - too much commercialization and bling have worn out their welcome. Hispanic may still be impacting some markets but here we also see a leveling of the playing field as PPM will not show as much listening as we see in the diary where Hispanics can 'vote in a diary' for their culture and language vs. recording what they actually listen to with a PPM monitor.

We're about 3-4 weeks from the report and it could be a confusing one from Arbitron, but the signs are there. Now back to trying to best my son's score of 99 on Kiss' song Strutter on Guitar Hero - a song rock radio added nearly 20 years before he was born. I bet we'll see even more teen and 18-24 number for Classic Rock formats over the next few years and we'll happily have Guitar Hero to blame.

Completely Missing The BOAT

After reading Little Steven's comments again on the state of the record industry a few follow up thoughts came to mind. It's rather obvious that the record industry hit a real opportunity and crossroads in regards to downloading music vs. the old CD/LP/Cassette distribution system they had built their business on. We've all seen industries tank because they didn't see the rushing train of the future heading full speed right at them.



When you look at the record industry they totally missed the boat and are sort of rotting having run a ground. Their big mistake - why didn't they just offer up a few million (a lot less then their legal fees, funds going into Sound Exchange and suing their own consumers) to the teen age Shawn Fanning (creator of Napster) back in 1999 and build a whole new distribution system on his model.



Look at Yahoo who paid Mark Cuban huge sums to just buy Real Audio and build their audio distribution platform. The record industry could have taken the same tact and built a huge profit center - instead they allowed Steven Jobs to build it 5 or 6 years later and use it to sell his I-Pod and in the end that device will control their future. They also started a little fire within a whole new wave of costumers who set out on a mission to embrace the new world of distribution and build it with or without them.


In many ways radio is at the same crossroads with new technology. We can't join together and just buy out streaming, social networks, widgets, cell phone or WiFi distribution but we could at least be a huge player with our experience in providing content. Instead we've been cautious, penny wise/pound foolish, and just plain cheap in jumping into the new area.



It may not be too late!!! Frankly we need to look beyond HD Radio and take our brands to the whole new interactive, web based, and world market arena. No, we won't find a huge pot of cash 6 months after we start, but we will save our industry and be a part of a whole new world of distribution. Let's not make the same mistake as our friends in the record side.

Radio and Records THE RELATIONSHIP AT THE CROSSROADS

Recently you've probably seen the industry sites and blogs dealing with the comments and 'findings' expressed by a Texas based economics professor Stan Liebowitz on the relationship between Radio and Records. His angle is that the time spent with broadcasters playing music on the radio has actually hurt sales of new CDs and artists has of course run counter to all that we know about how much radio airplay (on any band - AM/FM/Satellite/Internet) has contributed to the awareness of the artists and their songs. Most of us who have been a part of exposing the music to lots of people know that it has helped many artists get exposed and many to make lots of $s. But, we see the record/artists industry grasping for more fees and 'taxes' associated with exposing their creative works and Mr. Liebowitz's claims here only fan the flames. Of course anyone on the planet knows that most of this was the record companies and perhaps some of the artists clinging to the old analog/cd distribution in an obvious consumer conversion to digital. They missed the boat so let's go drum up revenue somewhere is a 'cheap shot' but one we all have to answer.

Recently Dan Kelley who hosts http://www.classicrockfm.blogspot.com/ and also has a great background as a programmer and ops manager in our industry passed on Little Steven's comments on the whole issue. Remember that Little Steven is a very talented guitarist from Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band and also a host of Little Steven's Garage as well as an actor in the Sopranos but his perspective here is well thought out and does have a balanced angle on the issue. I have copied his comments from his Billboard Garage site below - I think we'll all agree with his well stated observations:

GARAGE ROCK July 21, 2007

LITTLE STEVEN VAN ZANDT
As even the slowest of us start to realize there will be no getting out of this permanently bad economy, that it isn't a cycle or a temporary blip, we will begin to see the last vestiges of reason, logic, pride, quality, integrity and dignity fly out the window.

Of course few of us will notice since most of those things have been systematically compromised, trivialized and marginalized by our corporate elite, and Lord knows our government, for quite some time and live on in our culture exclusively in disparate groups that by now must resemble religious cults and pitifully handicapped social niches.

The latest evidence of this sad loss of logic, pride and integrity comes in the form of a feverish obsession by virtually everyone to make all those greedy, evil radio stations pay for the privilege of playing our precious records.How dare they!

The free dance is over, buddy, it's time to pay the piper! It's perfectly obvious that this has been the problem with the record industry all along. Too much damn airplay!

And now that we've figured out that radio is the enemy, we're going to need a spokesman to voice our feelings and calm the outraged millions of customers who are angry and embarrassed at having been hoodwinked into foolishly buying records simply because they heard the song on the radio.

And ladies and gentlemen—right on cue—here he is:University of Texas at Dallas economics professor Stan Liebowitz, who argues that radio "acts as a substitute for music sales. If they weren't listening to the radio in their cars," he opines, "they might buy more CDs. "What else is he teaching those lucky kids in Dallas? That those oil wells out the window are the real keys to the greening of America?

With all due respect, professor, why will everyone be buying these CDs, or downloading or whatever? Because they like the artwork? We have talked about, right here, the new ways people hear music and its significance especially for young bands: ads, videogames, TV, movies, ringtones, car horns, whatever.But can any sane human being think all that can ever replace a great radio station?

Could it be that the professor has forgotten, or is too young to know, that there would be no record industry without radio?

Does anyone think it's a coincidence that ever since radio has been playing less and less new music, new music sales have gone down?

And now we want to make it less profitable for radio to support new music?I am a songwriter and a performer and I own record companies and publishing companies and I do not believe radio should pay anything to anyone.

And I mean every kind of radio.Let me go further and say anyone performing a song on TV or in a movie in a concert context shouldn't have to ask permission to do it or pay anyone either.Soundtracks? Yes, that's different. Videogames? Yes. Ads? Yes.

But radio stations and concert performers shouldn't have to pay for promoting our music and helping us sell it. Radio is the greatest thing that ever happened to us all, not counting Les Paul sticking that pickup on his guitar—which also worked out quite well.

The record industry, the publishers and our government should be doing everything possible to help radio, old and new, and start treating it like the national treasure it is instead of trying to kill the golden goose that's carried everyone for 60 years.And as for you economics professors, how about you spend some time figuring out why the value of the dollar is worthless and leave the music stuff to us?

See you on the radio.

THANKS LITTLE STEVEN.

Covering All The Bases

Taking EVERY opportunity you can is both a challenge and also a big key to building your stations into a giant machine that constantly builds it's brand and community image. In today's world of the Internet we also need to take an 'uber-presence' to all the opportunities in the on-line world. Here are some examples and thought starters:

Key into The Audience's World - What are they talking about right now? Consider these examples from current events:

• Friday the 13th - It's coming this Friday.




• Live Nation - Just this past weekend many stations took the Premiere Network coverage.




• 07-07-07 - A big event this past weekend did you jump in or didn't bother.




• Heat Wave - Really the whole country was pretty hot for the whole past weekend and we pretty much knew it was coming.




• Summer of Love - For Classic Rockers a natural it was 40 years ago when the genesis of the format was hatched in hippie heaven.

The Local Community - It's the middle of summer and lots of local events are probably going on in your area. How many of the state fairs, local ball games, softball leagues, blues/wine/balloon/air shows/state fairs and other festivals did you station show up at? This time of the year you should be out at nearly 1 a week and some weeks maybe 2 or more.

The Web - If you tune into NBC Nightly News you may have noticed their 'everywhere' promo campaign. NBC is going ALL OUT to embrace nearly every media with the Nightly News brand and make sure they are a lot more than just the evening network news cast. Just like radio evening news has been decaying over the last 20 years with 24 hour news networks, the Internet, and so many other viewing options in today's 100-400 channel world. Instead of just fading away - NBC plans on being a big news brand even after the evening news fades. Look at the on-line and new media options with the content from the nightly news:

• Net Cast - You can watch the whole 1/2 hour show anytime after 7p eastern online.




• Story Files - On the web site every story and the video is kept for review. Watch them anytime.




• Pod Casts - A wide range of podcasts of the big stories and some background that didn't make it to the nightly news cast can be downloaded to your I-Pod or MP3 player in both audio and video formats.




• Cell Phones - Get the headlines and alerts via text to your phone anytime.




• Cell Phone Web - Access the site in mobile formats with less graphics.




• Widgets - Download a display for your desktop or you can also post it on your web site or blog with all the headlines and links build in.




• Blogs - A full daily blog with 6-7 entries from the whole NBC reporting team. Also a world blog with international stories.




• Website - Obviously the launching pad for all this along with constant updates on the news 24/7

You can probably count on them to announce a social network system, a video posting for news you caught on your camera, and probably a special I-Phone site with features custom built for their browser.

NBC is leaving no base uncovered. It's an example we can all follow both in the streets and on the web. I know many of you are looking at this as a mountain of work requiring a huge time consuming effort and a small staff that's already multi-tasking all over the place just to stay on the air. Yet I bet if you organize your priorities, plan ahead, and communicate with the whole team you can make a lot of headway. Now is the time to start thinking about how you can make 2008 a big year for your station. Taking some time this summer to plan out 2008 and build a stronger web presence could be your start to covering all the bases next year.

So many times I see stations that are not reaching out on the air and in the community enough. They just seem content to play the music, run some commercials, take care of the client remotes, and generally phone it in. Even though some of your efforts will not be huge successes out of the box every hand you shake or interaction you have with the audience WILL pay off.

HD Radio - Hindsight is 20/20

We all know the saying Hindsight is 20/20 all too well. As I keep looking at HD Radio there are so many things that we, as an industry and Ibiquity as a producer, could have improved on. Here's some thoughts:

• The Name - HD Radio: HD is quickly becoming all about TV. With all the new flat screens and more and more programming being rolled out and all the marketing on TV that's going on for HDTV it's really confusing the consumer. Imagine if we'd decided to market FM Stereo as - Color Radio. We'd probably still be on AM and the FM band would have been set aside for something else. We could have called it Digital Radio or even better yet we could have built the model around surround sound (digital 360) and instead of just improving the quality in terms of frequency range we could have build a system that would have made the ultimate in car audio and maybe brought back more in-home listening.


• The Boxes - Does this look Hi-Tech in any way? While there are some other models most are not ground breaking. The satellite radios are a bit more interesting and different looking. After we all saw the 'glow' of the I-Pods it should have been a wake up call that the radio makers needed to at least try for some innovation in the design. We should have and could have focused a lot more on the visual display here. Having pics of the artists, logos, trivia, maybe even some artist history or gossip. But the display is not much more than time/channel and maybe song title if it was programmed in right.


• The Programming - The rush seemed to be all about variety and the number of channels being offered. Instead of focusing on building unique products hundreds of HD channels in a box were created and a coalition of owners 'issued' the formats out to the member stations so there wouldn't be any 'in-fighting.' Why didn't we focus on building unique products. What if all the efforts were put into some unique offerings like regional/local indie channels aimed at the new indie rock movement and 16-24 year olds that we'd pretty much written off on our main signals? Instead of just a few imaging pieces and a bunch of mp3 files spinning on a computer we could have made a full effort with real jocks, some feature programming, flashy web sites, and had a real radio station here. We've all heard Live365 home brew web stations that sounded better than many of the HD offerings. Getting 1 hit channel would have been worth a lot more than launching 300 channels no one cared about.


• Marketing - Radio's done a lot here with tons of promo spots all over the bigger markets. The flaws noted in the 'Name' section above are holding back the effort and causing confusion, but at least we have put a message out there. Think about how much stronger the message would be with a unique presentation, programming that catches attention, and some hip-sexy looking products.

Over the next few weeks are going to watch Apple launch the I-Phone. Much like the launch of the I-Pod this product will have a wave of Hyper P1s sign up and praise the product in a cult like progression. From that legion of early adopters (mostly people who were lucky enough to get in line early enough to reserve one and afford $600 for a phone/i-pod) it will likely grow to at least see millions using the product within the first 6 months or so. We've been working on HD Radio for 3 years now and we still don't have a million people able to hear the product.

I do think the I-Phone will not be the runaway hit that I-Pod is for Apple. The launch was well done but Wall Street and so much of the press expects this to be such a huge hit I don't think they will be able to live up to all the spotlight and hype. There are other phones out there with some cool features, ATT doesn't have the strongest network for coverage and data delivery, and the cost of the phones is pretty high. You can get a lot of the features in a phone that comes free with a lot of other services. Still, they have put enough marketing savvy and fuel in the tank to make sure I-Phone gets off the ground. If only HD Radio had done the same.

There's still time to make Digital Radio a success. While we've made some mistakes not enough of the audience knows about it to have formed a negative impression yet. We can't fix the name, but we could start to center the product around surround sound, do more unique programming, aim a lot more HD programming at the under 25 audience and really put an effort into it - not just 'hard drive' it. We could also get the radio mfg folks to put out something sexy - maybe WE should make a cell phone with HD Radio in it - why not?????

Over Protecting THE Brand

As we passed another gas station with prices above $3.20 a gallon it wasn't hard to imagine that American consumers should be swinging into a mode of car buying where MPG once again matters. You can see it clearly in the marketing for the Hybrids and smaller cars that seem to be moving off the car lots a lot quicker than a few years ago.

We have the Hummer H2 plant in our area and I wondered what impact all the high gas prices were having on their product. They did have a few cutbacks at the end of 06 but seemed to have settled down as we face the highest gas prices of the summer. When I asked a friend who works there what Hummer was planning to do to raise the MPG figures from 13 Highway and 10 City. The plan is to put a 6 speed auto transmission in, tweak the fuel delivery computer, and maybe trim a few pounds. It will likely bring it up to 16 MPG on the Highway.

Hummer H2s have Full Time 4 Wheel Drive or All Wheel Drive. If they put in a switch that would allow you to select 4 wheel drive when you were going off road or in the snow and the rest of the time on the freeway or around town use 2 wheel drive you could add another 5 MPG or maybe even more.

The response from the marketing gurus at GM - THAT WILL RUIN THE BRAND. NO WAY.

Wow a feature that is used probably 1 time a year by a small percentage of the consumers is deemed that important? I guess so.

How many things or pieces to your Brand are we protecting to the point of sort of looking 'stupid.' I can think of many rules we follow in formatics, coaching the air staff, handling promotions, and in scheduling the music that are almost as bad as the GM example above. Can you?