The Dawn of a New Generation - Gen Z!?

Demographers are just now starting to declare the dawn of a new Generation.  It looks like they will be called Generation Z and they join the 4 other active Generations:

• Traditionalists - Born pre 1945 40 or so Million U.S. population current ages - 70+
• Boomers - Born 1946 to 1964 76 Million U.S. population, current ages 51 to 69
• Gen X - Born 1965 to 1979 55 Million U.S. population current ages 37 to 50
• Gen Y (Millennials) Born 1980 to 1994 U.S population 66 million current ages 21 to 36
• Gen Z Born 1995 to 2009 U.S. population 61+ million current ages 6 to 20

Of course the actual divisions for Gen X, Y and Z are a bit subjective and many demographers debate the actual division years.  But this gives you a picture of their presence in the population and the age ranges they are currently living in.   

We are just starting to see what drives Generation Z.  They clearly grew up in a completely digital age and can tour the world on their phones, tablets and laptops with ease.  Since the Boomers grew up in a world of Jet Travel, Mass Communication with both Audio and Video, a world wide telephone system and the evolution of the car - we have seen advances on all these key communication points with every generation since.  

Take a look at some of the early traits and facts about Generation Z that sets them apart (click image to expand): 

There is a lot to take in with this graphic, but you can see a generation that lives in a very digital world.  Yes, radio has it's work cut out for itself to keep this Generation listening.  

If you'd like to catch some more in depth views on Generation Z check out this recent NY Times Article.  

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/29/jobs/make-way-for-generation-z.html?WT.mc_id=2015-Q2-KWP-AUD_DEV-0401-0630&WT.mc_ev=click&ad-keywords=AUDDEVAPRIL&kwp_0=13674&kwp_4=93699&kwp_1=135827&_r=0

Keeping A Two Way Conversation With The Audience

Is your presence "just a nice voice on the station that hits all the positioning, surveillance, billboards and station liners?"  Or are you a personality that cuts through right to the audience and engages them with you, and the station?  Obviously, we know that the latter option here is the one that pays off and brings a lot more listeners to the party.   But, making that leap from 'just a voice on the station' to an 'engaging personalty' is a big step and one that many people never pull off.

When you hear a team, or an on air performer, that's bringing it on this level there is one key that nearly always stands out.  The team or personality is really having a CONVERSATION with the audience.  It's not a speech or a presentation, it's an interactive conversation.  It may be a conversation with their on-air partner about a topic or event, but the ones who really execute this content well are the ones that are making it a real 3 way conversation with the audience included.  They refer to them as if they were there in the room.  They use them a lot on the phone to fully join in.  They plan the break to include an audience POV into the conversation.

Instead of thinking of you and your partner, or just you on the air, as talking into the mics with the meters jumping in the studio- think of something more like this picture.

A small group or people engaging in a conversation.  It may be a very simple idea and one that may also seem very obvious, but listen to all the breaks you hear that are just about announcing - not about having a conversation.

Even if you only have 20 seconds till the PPM meter time bomb goes off with the audience, you still have enough time for a well planned quick conversation.   

The New Music Instrument That Could Completely Change Music?

Stumbled on this from a FB post and was very intrigued on the potential for this new Instrument called the Artiphon.  It's really nearly every instrument we have been playing for thousands of years all wrapped up into one compact package.

It can be any kind of stringed, keyboard or percussion instrument.  A Violin, Chello, Bass Guitar, Slide Guitar, Uke, banjo and plays with the same fret board and strumming actions we all use.  The keyboard of course opens up all of sounds from synth worlds, and allows for brass/woodwinds along with all the piano and organ sounds.

It links with phones and tablets to control the instrument set ups and with apps like Garage Band so you can lay down songs and mix sounds with ease.   It's also very compact and has it's own speaker built in.  Of course you can hook it up to a big Marshall Stack and wake up any neighbors.

Right now it's a Kickstarter campaign and it's pretty hot with investors.  Currently with a $349 contribution to their Kickstarter campaign you can get one and it looks like they will be priced under $400 when they hit retail - probably later this year.

Have to believe that within a year we will see artists sporting the Artiphon on stage and in the studios.  Could this be the end of the Tour Bus and new artists hauling a U-Haul behind their van around the country?  Now they could just fly Southwest and take all their instruments as a carry on.

We also have to wonder what new sounds this will bring to music of all types.  Think of all that musicians go through to work with their instruments.  Here it's all reduced to a single device.  More creative barriers will no doubt be broken.

You can see the kickstarter campaign and hear their demo here:

Here is a link to their Kickstarter campaign:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/artiphon/introducing-the-artiphon-instrument-1/description

Classic Rock Still Big In Commercials

Just about every commercial break on TV seems to include another Classic Rock song from over 30 years ago.  Even though most of the 'target' audience for the product or brand wasn't even born when the songs were hits they still seem to be the norm.  

One of the most famous campaigns came around 13 years ago when Cadillac wanted to revive their brand and build a 'younger' audience.  They latched on to Led Zeppelin's Rock and Roll and saw the brand build a much stronger image.  Notice that when GM had to shed a number of brands Cadillac survived.   You can relive the spot here.

Ad Age recently reported that Pete Townshend and the Who are looking into more licensing options for their songs.  Of course they already have a strong presence in the NCIS TV shows but no doubt there are a lot more opportunities.  Now they are taking the studio masters from the 60s and 70s and putting them through a number of re-mixes to make the songs sound a bit more contemporary.  You can take a listen to a bunch of Who classics and imagine them in many commercials in the Ad Age article - just scroll down on this link.

But sometimes you have to wonder about the relevance of a song that may be approaching 50 years old on a Millennial generation that was born 20 years after the song was a hit.  Take a look at the Nissan commercial here.

It's hard to imagine a group of mid 20's Millennials really 'getting down' to a song that came out in it's first version in 1968 (nearly 50 years ago).  But, at least here they picked up the 1981 version with Billy Idol (it's only 33 years old).  

No doubt these spots are effective.  Nissan surely did their homework before launching this campaign and a number of other vehicles they are marketing with Classic Rock songs.  We often see Classic Rock stations score some pretty healthy shares in 18-34 demos even though most of the Classic Rock stations have an average music year around 1978 to 1981 when you analyze their hourly era spread.  Yes, Classic Rock is great music and many titles have truly stood the test of time but as that era ages we have to wonder how long 'rummaging through mom and dad's record collection' will live on?  

Music For 'Smart People"?

Caught this the other day from a Facebook post.    Virgil Griffith, a software app writer, came up with an interesting idea.  He took a database of college student SAT scores and compared their favorite music artists from their Facebook profiles.  Take a look at what he found - (note the top scale is their SAT scores).

While it may not be real scientific and it's probably not something we need to build a new Selector rule for -- but it is pretty interesting.

You can read more here  

U2 and Garth Brooks - The Challenge of Radio Airplay

Over the past Month we've seen 2 of the top performing acts of the past 20 years come out with new releases.  Garth Brooks makes a long awaited comeback that has been carefully staged with his first tour in years to back it up.  Garth will no doubt pass Elvis and become the 2nd on the list of best selling artists, behind the Beatles.  He's selling out full weeks of big arena shows in minutes.

U2 stages their release with the big Apple announcement of the I Phone 6 and offers up their new album for free on I Tunes.  Their last world tour in 2009-2011 grossed over 700 million and over 7.2 million attended the shows.  It's the highest grossing concert tour in history.

Yet, it seems that radio is a bit tepid on both artists when it comes to airplay.  Garth's new single may not be a barn burner anthem like Friends In Low Places where everyone can sing along with a beer in hand, but after a 10 year absence for the biggest artist in the history of the format it's in the mid 20s in the Country chart this week (9-15).  It did get quite a number of spins in the first few days, but now that it's settled in it looks like it will have a challenge to hit the top 5 on the chart.

U2 is just getting it's Miracle (of Joey Ramone) out but you probably won't hear much on your local Rock station from the song.  It's in the 50s on the overall rock chart and mostly getting played on AAA stations which are not present in many markets. Really for the last 10 years U2 has struggled with new releases being accepted by Rock programmers.

We've seen this before with all kinds of 'stars.'  Paul McCartney came back with huge tours and media presence over the last 10+ years and has not seen the light of day with any of his newer releases on  radio.  Springsteen has continued to pull off huge shows and tours in the last 10 years and even his legendary army has not seen much radio exposure for his last few releases.  It also shows in formats outside of Rock.  Ask Mariah Carey, Kelly Clarkson, and many more pop artists who seem to fade after just a few years or struggle to make a comeback.

Have these artists just run out of Hits?  Are we just tired of playing them?  Is the audience really tired of their music?  They seem to be willing to swipe their credit cards for hundreds of dollars to see them.  TV seems to be ready to plan some of their biggest shows around having them on as guests.   What do we know that they don't about the audience?  Is the audience really tired of them or are we? 

If My Car Radio Would Only......

The Center Stack (the place where the Car Radio and the Climate Controls used to be has grown into THE innovation center of the car today.  We all can see it filling up with backup cameras, complex climate controls, phone interfaces, GPS systems, vehicle monitoring systems, music storage, internet wifi connections, apps, more apps and of course the car radio.

While all these innovations bring new OH WOW features really the car radio is pretty much the same.  Really the only innovation in the last 10 years is the RDS system where we can sometimes see the song being played.

I've been on the road this Summer for business and family outings and the one innovation I wish the car radio had was a way for me to find the music and stations I want.  Say we are driving through South Western Ohio and I want to hear WEBN, but I can't remember the frequency.  Wouldn't it be great if I could just hit a button and find ROCK stations and there would pop up WEBN and maybe a few others to pick from.  Or my son want to find the Hip-Hop or CHR station.   Imagine if we could just yell at the radio or press a button and have a list pop up to pick from.

This is probably a simple solution.  How about just including a quick code in the RDS data that IDs the format we play and build it into the radio software?  Of course the radio makers would have to build some new software, but isn't it time to update just a little?  Maybe we need to start working with the electronic folks and start innovating the car radio again - hey we should be due just 1 update a decade - right???

Ready For Fall??

Yes, the Spring book in the diary markets is just wrapping up as I write this and Summer officially begins over the coming weekend.  But, before you head out for a Summer holiday, that you no doubt deserve, the time to think Fall is now.

Before you start make sure to take a look back at what just happened in Spring around your brand and also take a look at what went on last Fall.

Here are some areas to focus on:

Last Fall-

1. Long Term Trends in Fall - Fall is a busy time in radio with lots of activities that do affect listening patterns: 
1. School starts, Summer Vacations and Hours are gone. 
2. Sports picks up with the World Series, College Football, NFL, NASCAR Cup and Hockey-Basketball  kick off at the end.  Are the males watching a lot more TV?  
3. How does your station perform in past Fall books?  Is your TSL off, does the Cume drop?  Are there sample patters - perhaps you see more return from Females or older demos in most Fall books.  Does your station also have a pattern - UP in Spring and Down in Fall?  Or the opposite?  What's causing it and is there an adjustment you can make to lessen the impact or build on the momentum? 
2. Market Events - Any big festivals, holiday events, or community promotions that stand out that you could build cume and brand images from? Did anything happen in Sports that may have changed the book and could it happen again? 
3. Station Events - What was your big event or contest from last Fall - what really moved the meter for your brand in the market.  Can you do it again and if you can how can you make it fresh and better? 

The Spring-

1. Format Trends - Is the 'national spotlight' on for your music genre?  Are there adjustments you need to make in the music mix? Take a long look at the charts and the music trends for the format from a big picture and also focus on how your music scheduling is set up?  Also look ahead at the artists planning releases and are their any patterns for the Fall in your music genre?  Most of the big activity in new music slows down or stops before Thanksgiving - how does that affect the last month? Are you closing with a stale mix in currents?  Can you adjust, or should you?
2. Was there a promotion or event that really worked in Spring? Note it for next year and brainstorm on it now.  Also look at what opportunities you have in Fall to equal the gains you got from the Spring. If you had an event that didn't perform up to par - what can you do to fix it or is it time to look at something else. 
3. Competition - Did a competitor do something that stood out?  Did someone make significant changes in their approach or product?  What effect is that likely to have on the numbers? 
4. Did you have a Good, Bad or just Average game?  

Take a look at what you've learned from evaluating all these points and maybe a few more that you hit on and set 3 goals.  Setting a lot more could set you up for confusion or a struggle to focus enough to really execute.  Pick your goals to have the biggest impact and keep them in front of you as you plan the Fall.   It will be here sooner than you think.