HOW STRONG IS YOUR BRAND
Here is a check list of the important things to look. At the end of this article is a quick test you can put your brand through to see how it measures up.
- Mission Statement: What is it? Do you have one that is meaningful?
- Target: Narrow, Broad, Ethnicity, BBM or Arbitron
Positioning/Strategic Context
In real estate, it’s location, location, location. In BBM or Arbitron ratings, it’s position, position, position! Your station’s POSITION in the market is easily the most important element to drive ratings. Ries & Trout’s positioning boils down to four key rules. It’s called the “smell test:”
- You must position yourself in the prospect’s mind.
- Your position must be singular: one simple message.
- Your position must set you apart from your competitors.
- You must sacrifice. You cannot be all things to all listeners. You’ve got to give up stuff when you focus on one thing. Here are the questions to help you nail it:
What Is Your Position?
Position means answering these questions:
- Can listeners identify what your station is known for? Is it music, information, personality/talk? If yes, what? If no, what should it be?
- Does the station have a leadership position in the minds of listeners? What Is Your Leadership Position?
- Do listeners know whom the station is for? Describe the demographic and psychographics.
- Do listeners know how to use the station?...
- By daypart (Mornings/Middays/Afternoons/Nights/Weekends)
- By location (home/work/car/other)
- By utility (relax/news/at work/party)
From Ries & Trout’s 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, “If You Can’t Be Number-One In A Category, Make Your Own Category”…
- What category does your station own?
- Which position is worth defending to the death?
- Which position is strongest to defend and the hardest to attack?
“Narrow Focus Equals Broad Results.”
Concentration of force (from Focus by Al Ries) – The Law of EST demonstrates that the stations that are the “youngest,” “oldest,” “hardest,” “softest,” “news/sports-est,” or “hip-hop-est” are the stations that win in the ratings. So…
- What is the one thing that is most important to your station? (Curly’s law from City Slickers – “The secret of life is about one thing.”) This is a strategic product/marketing question, not a revenue goal.
Position vs. Positioning Statement.
Remember, a position is a cold, no BS statement of how you are perceived in listeners’ minds. A positioning statement is how you want to be perceived. If your perceptual research or ratings have told you your positioning needs serious work, here are some questions to help you establish a new positioning statement:
- What - what business are you in?
- For whom - what listeners do you serve?
- What need - what are the special needs of the listeners you serve?
- Against whom - with whom are you competing? (Station 1) (Station 2)
- What’s different - what makes you different from these competitors?
- So, what’s the benefit? - what unique benefit does a listener derive from your service? (A unique selling point had better matter to listeners or your position still won’t have value.)
- What is your word? - what word do you wish to convey in all forms of marketing… to audience and potential audience?
- What is the product description?
- What is the posture of your station’s presentation? (i.e., Gen X bordering on rude, reflecting lifestyle of $50,000+ households, irreverent Baby Boomers, etc.)
- How will you measure performance?
- Perceptually (“We need to see 65% of all the all-news fans seeing our station as THE news station.”)
- Ratings Evaluation – Ratings success is defined by two things:
- Position – Getting and defining your position and the number of competitive “choices” your listeners have and…
- Execution – How much have you done “just right?”
In case after case, BBM and Arbitron finds that 75% of any station’s ratings can be attributed to that station’s position (is it clearly defined?) and the number of real choices on the dial. (This formula comes from Arbitron) If your 12+ share is a 3.7, the number to the left of the decimal point is the POSITION number and the one to the right of the decimal point is the EXECUTION number. Execute great, you’re a 3.9…execute poorly you’re a 3.2. 3 shares are your position and how many real competitors you compete against.
The Strength of Your Top Two Competitors
This has a direct relationship on your ratings success. There should be little or no focus on the others.
- Who are your competitors?
- What type of battle are you fighting?
- Offensive – which competitors of yours are fighting an offensive battle and what is that battle?
- Defensive – which competitors of yours are fighting a defensive battle and what is that battle?
- Flanker – which competitors of yours have created flanking positions and what is that flank?
- Guerilla – which competitors of yours have entered the fray as a guerilla, what is that position, and what position could they bug out to when the current one is played out?
Setting Ratings Goals and Managing Expectations
Arbitron recommends you use a five-book average for this. Nearly all the tools you need to analyze your station’s ratings and strategic health can be found in the Programmer’s Package of Maximizer and the various reports in PD Advantage. The reports are not as “programmer friendly” in Micro or Airware for BBM. But you should establish standard reports and always run them for your station and your competitive stations.
Interpreting BBM or Arbitron
This is like a medical exam (only sometimes more painful).
- Check up. Regular scan of basic health. What hurts (“our cume is off”)?
- Diagnosis. What caused that cume erosion?
- Prescription. Recommended action steps. Your oath should be, “Do no harm.” It is sometimes better to wait until you know.
- Prognosis. What are the expected results?
- What is your station’s cume goal, both 12+ and target demo?
- What is your station’s P1 conversion goal?
- What is your station’s P1 TSL goal?
- What is your station’s demo composition goal?
- What is your station’s ethnic composition goal?
- What is your station’s most important daypart?
- What is your share goal for that daypart?
- What is your station’s second most important daypart?
- What is your share goal for that daypart?
- What is your station’s average age trend?
- What is your station’s cume sharing pattern? (Only sharing above 20% matters. If your station has significant ethnic composition, run sharing patterns on ethnicity).
- Make some assumptions – project your station’s share. For example, if you believe your marketing campaign can add 50,000 cume and you can maintain TSL, what would your share be? Or, there is a new station in your format arena and you believe most of your erosion will be cume, resulting in a 25% hit, what would your station’s share be?
Run the same analysis for your primary and secondary competitors.
Ratings Goals And Expectations
These should be updated every quarter as the ratings come out. As a rule, the marketing model should be updated along with budgeting and midyear revisions… or more often if competition changes significantly.
Brand Equity Balance Sheet
How strong is your brand? Have your brain trust take this exercise, rating your station’s strength based on a –5 to +5 scale. Be objective. Average the results:
- Brand Loyalty (realize older targeted formats tend to have more loyalty than younger targeted formats).
Score:
45+ Franchise Player
30-44 Strong, But With Some Vulnerabilities - Ripe For Direct Competition
15-29 Drastic Overhaul Needed
Negative BLOW IT UP AND START OVER
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