STATION SLOGANS: DO LISTENERS BUY THE HYPE Paul Heine – Billboard Scan the dial in most any market and you will likely hear a barrage of boastful claims carefully constructed by programmers to position and define their stations: "No. 1," "the authority," "your favorite." "The best," "the most," "the hottest," "the biggest." "Bangin'," "more," "less," "continuous," "relaxing," "variety."
Stations have jammed listeners with slogans since the advent of perceptual research. Does the audience still buy into them?
Veteran programmer John Sebastian is rethinking slogans as he reshapes CBS Radio adult hits WJMK (Jack-FM) Chicago. Positioning statements have been watered down, he says, because "we've hammered them over the head, and we've lied. We've claimed things that aren't true. On some level, they eventually figure that out, and then you lose your credibility."
Jeff Kapugi, newly arrived Clear Channel regional VP of programming and PD of mainstream top 40 WIHT (Hot 99.5) Washington, D.C., is going through a similar process. "Is chest-beating old times?" he asks. "Is that something we shouldn't do anymore? Does our audience even believe it anymore? Shouldn't they tell us that we're No. 1 instead of us telling them we're No. 1?"
After decades of dishing slogans, Lee Abrams is taking a different tack at XM Satellite Radio. The company's policy is to "aggressively avoid boastful positioning statements," the satcaster's senior VP/chief creative officer says. "They're over-used, have no credibility and in some cases, they're blatant lies." Slogans are an example of how radio "has marketed to listeners instead of giving them the goods."
To remain credible, stations need to deliver on their promises, Sebastian says. Programmers mistakenly believe "they can claim to have the most variety, that they play the most music and that we're No. 1 and people will believe it. I don't buy that. I don't think listeners are stupid. Your positioner needs to be true."
DeMers Programming Media Consultants president Alex DeMers says, "Some stations make the mistake of using slogans that simply are not backed up by the listening experience—they just don't ring true. If you say you play 'everything that rocks,' for example, you better be delivering on that promise. You've got to be credible."
The majority of Arbitron diarykeepers identify stations by their frequency, Kapugi notes, rendering most "radio speak" slogans irrelevant to the audience. "How do you define [the station] when we do so many things? We play D.C.'s hottest music. We have a very entertaining morning show. We try to have fun contests. How do you roll those top three attributes into a four- to six-word slogan that clearly defines what the radio station is all about and still sound hip to your audience?"
UNDERLYING NEED
"Position statements underlie listener needs that came out when stations began doing perceptual research in the '70s and '80s," Albright & O'Malley consultant Jaye Albright says. In fact, "classic rock" and "smooth jazz" were descriptors first uttered by research participants.
"In many ways the parameters of why someone would choose a radio station in an iPod world haven't really changed that much," Albright says. "They want to listen to a station that is perceived as the leader, the one that everybody else listens to so they're up with the latest trends in their favorite kind of music. They want a station that doesn't talk too much and plays a lot of their favorite music. The underlying need for positioning has not changed."
That logic continues to inform many slogans, including the "No. 1 hit music channel" positioner at Clear Channel mainstream top 40 WFLZ Tampa, Fla. "If we tell people we're No. 1, they'll feel they want to be part of that No. 1 club, too," says Kapugi, who programmed WFLZ before moving to D.C. He hopes that listener psychology extends to Arbitron diarykeepers. "I want to be a part of what everyone else is a part of, I want to be No. 1 too, so I'm going to write down 933 FLZ, because they're No. 1 and I don't want to listen to No. 2," is his dream listener's thought bubble.
Top 40 and other cume-based formats are constantly in audience transition, attracting new listeners and shedding older ones. Does claiming to be the best resonate with a new generation of media-savvy listeners the way it may have in the past?
Acknowledging that stations require "some kind of definition" of what they are all about, Kapugi wonders if "Hot 99.5" is not enough by itself. Waiting for his family to join him in D.C. from Florida, he frequented fast food joints and other public places, fertile turf for informal perceptual studies.
"I'm new to D.C., what's the cool radio station to listen to here?" he would ask locals in the target demo. "They might say, '99.5,' " he says. "I'll be like, 'Cool, what kind of music do they play?' Not one of them would say, 'All the hits.' It's not their lingo. They don't use that word. They say, 'They play my favorite songs,' 'they play the hottest songs' or 'the best music.' "
BOLD BRANDING
The most effective slogans are concise, unique, believable and resonate with the listener. "Kick-ass rock'n'roll," coined by Sebastian at WCOZ Boston in the late '70s, delivered on all accounts. With rock threatened by disco and new wave, it defined a sound and attitude, repositioned the competition as wimps and had shock value. In true radio lemmings fashion, this bold branding spread across the country.
"Even though it hadn't been used on the radio before, when we said 'kick-ass rock'n'roll,' a segment of the audience knew exactly what that meant," Sebastian says.
Meanwhile, modern rock WDRE Long Island, N.Y., minted an equally effective positioner: The station that "dares to be different." WDRE did not just say it was different; compared with anything else in the local market, it truly was.
Today, adult hits positioning exploits media-fueled perceptions that corporate radio programmers dictate what you hear on the radio. "Playing what we want" (and its derivatives) started with Bob and Jack and has since spread to other formats.
Such anti-positioning, Albright says, is intended for listeners who "think all these position statements are simply bogus bullshit that radio stations have failed to deliver on. But what's in the box is ultimately what defines the product, not what they say they do."
Abrams questions the credibility of slogans and calls them a crutch. " 'Rock without rules?' Ridiculous," he says. "They're playing by the same rules they've had for the past 30 years. Create something rule-free, but don't say it. Our attitude is, 'Don't brag or tell them how many songs you play, just do it.' "
ARE YOU EXPERIENCED?
"The best brands are the ones that have a brand story that invokes an emotion and that customers feel like they have experienced something as they use the brand," Albright says. Radio has tried but has not developed brands on par with a Starbucks, she says.
Edison Media Research VP of music and programming Sean Ross agrees that what you do is more important than what you say you do. "I think the magic is always in the station and the format, never in the slogan by itself," he says. "The magic is in finding a body of music that people want to hear and that works for the market, and then if you have a great positioner, that's even better. There are a lot of lower-rated triple-As that use 'world-class rock,' and it doesn't make them KFOG [San Francisco] or KBCO [Boulder-Denver, Colo.].
"It's never a bad idea to teach the audience how to use the radio station. If you get something like CFWM [Bob-FM] Winnipeg [Canada's] ' '70s, '80s and whatever' that sounds a little off the wall but still does its job, that's even better," Ross adds.
DeMers believes slogans are not essential. Powerful brands like CBS Radio modern rock KROQ Los Angeles do not need them. "They have created a unique but consistent listener 'experience' where every element—music, personalities, Web presence, public presentation—is completely in sync," DeMers says.
"It's a key thing for radio to come up with unique and emotional positioning statements that do get across their message and are real and are true," Sebastian says. "The more we do that, the more we'll be successful." |