REINVENTING Chris Byrnes The folks at Disney are doing it. Until November 2006, Disney is giving all its theme parks a face lift. The first park to get the treatment was the oldest, Disneyland, located in Anaheim, California. When all the bandages came off on May 5, visitors saw less of the old and more of the new in the 230-acre park. Sure Mickey, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and Pinocchio are still there, but Disney’s research revealed that today’s young ones prefer Buzz Lightyear to Goofy.
So as Disney celebrates its 50th year with a facelift it appears to be embracing its digital “Pixar film pals” such as Woody, Buzz, Nemo and Flik. When the parade makes its way down Mainstreet you’ll see 26 characters from their recent blockbuster movies such as Sully from Monsters Inc, Flik and Atta from A Bugs Life and lots of those green army men from the Toy Story movies. State-of-the-art pyrotechnics, laser beams and lots of music from their recent movies all add to the new feeling at Disney. Even Space Mountain has been made-over with new rockets, special effects and a new soundtrack.
I suspect that radio can learn a thing or two from the folks at Disney, given we are both in the entertainment business. I concede that while it costs an arm and a leg to spend a day with Disney, our customers [listeners] can enjoy our product for free. But is your station still betting the farm on the same tired concepts you’ve been using for years? If Disney saw the shelf life of their product fast approaching the end, perhaps it’s time you look at your product from top to bottom and find ways to offer more benefits to listeners and advertisers alike. As I pondered this, I jotted down a few thought-starters outside the obvious areas of music, information personality and promotion:
Make It Easier For Your Listeners To Communicate With You: Today the studio phones are seldom answered. I make a point of calling the contest lines of not only the stations I consult but also the competition, and most of the time they go unanswered. Give it a try some time and see how often your phones get answered. With today’s technology there are smarter options to get those phones answered including a new web based service called www.radiovoodoo.com which can not only gather data on your listeners but also play them a 30 second client spot that is caller-gender related. Having your phones forwarded to reception or a call answering service may be another option. I know of stations that create volunteer positions for interns or retired people, who answer phones for a few hours a day in return for some station swag. The phones are a powerful tool too often ignored in this voice-tracked multi-tasking world.
Website: This is another powerful tool that can build a better relationship with your listeners. Most radio station websites are glorified brochures that offer little in the way of perishable content. There is an excellent piece of free research about what listeners expect from a radio station website at www.edisonresearch.com. Examine your website and see what it offers the listener. Check out how your website is marketed and look at the monthly hits to the site. Are you promoting the benefits of your site on the air?
RDS: Pushing valuable data to car radios is something that most radio stations are still thinking about. Granted we are still in the early stages of this technology and you need to do some careful research to ensure you purchase the right product if you decide to do this. Some systems will allow you to display 7-10 letters while others will scroll. Others will display a lot more information if the commuter pushes the info button on their car radio. Today’s automation systems offer options to seamlessly push this data directly to the RDS and allow the Program Director or News Director to send additional information to the display. More and more cars are coming out with in-dash screens and navigation systems which will allow for more text to be displayed. Radio still dominates in car, and it’s critical that we provide more valuable information via the speakers and the screen displays. Mobile Wireless internet is not that far away and unless radio closes the loop for the in-car consumer, the internet may take control of the valuable in-car audience.
Streaming Audio: I’m pleased to see more and more radio stations are adopting streaming as part of their business model. The Lawyers seem to have moved on for the moment and while all the legal issues have not been resolved, I am encouraged by the recent developments in online streaming. While most radio stations stream just their own air product, some companies are developing web only radio stations as a means to generate new revenue or cut into a competitor’s market share. If you’re a Hot AC station that battles a CHR, why not create a web only CHR station and promote that on your terrestrial signal as well as externally?
Make It Easier For Your Clients: Radio has always been a difficult medium to purchase, and sadly it’s not getting any easier. Yes consolidation has helped, but there are more radio stations on air today than ever before, which means more radio sales reps on the streets confusing advertisers with outrageous claims and probably bad mouthing their radio competition down the street. Our competitors in newspaper and television are becoming more sophisticated in their selling techniques, making it easier to purchases and they are also improving their delivery systems. For example, engineers at Fujitsu have developed the first bendable color electronic paper with an image-memory function, which you may see sometime in 2006. The daily paper will be transmitted to this one page and touching the top right corner will take you to the next page. The industry is working on a system that will allow you to tailor content to your preferences. HD TV is a reality and those flat screens are crashing in price, but radio is still arguing over IBOC vs. Eureka 147.
Product Check-Up: When was the last time you ran a complete audit of all your on-air programming? Take a day and really listen to your radio station. Check your music against your research scores and see if every 15-minute period reflects the image you are trying to project. Do your announcers sound local and plugged in to your community or are they just going through the motions? How much time each hour does your announcer actually spend in the control room focusing on his next break? All too often the announcer can be found outside having a cigarette and talking about last night’s ballgame during a three song sweep. They rush back just in time to open the microphone and blurt out meaningless drivel that fills the gap to get to the next event. Does your imaging sell the benefits of listening and are your commercials effective or are they simply price and item lists that fill 30 seconds but fail to motivate the listeners to visit the client location?
Too often when a radio station decides it needs a facelift the end result is hardly noticeable. Calling a radio station “new” while playing the same music, using the same voices and running the same imaging didn’t work 20 years ago and it definitely does not work today. Listeners have a well tuned BS meter and they see through this half-hearted attempt. While I am not a fan of the Jack or Bob formats, because they have a very limited lifespan, at least they do blow up the radio station and make things different. They run with no announcers, distinctive imaging and fun contests. Their external marketing stands out and what comes out of the speakers sounds different and exciting, at least in the early stages.
The Disney people are very smart and are always looking for ways to make their theme parks more exciting and a better experience for their visitors. They also look for ways to keep you coming back regularly. Radio needs to do the same and even more. Take a leaf out of Disney’s book and consider giving your product the facelift it so richly deserves. |