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GETTING CREDIT IN THE RATINGS Chris Byrnes When the weather’s hot and staff is on vacation or getting ready to take a week at the lake, it can be hard to focus on your product to ensure your station is ready for the next ratings period. But just like Christmas and taxes the survey measurement period is certain to roll around so there is no excuse for not being ready. The diary system relies on people remembering the station frequency, call letters or positioning statement which is a big task, given the consumers did not have to make a purchasing decision. They just push a button and there we are. I think radio, therefore, has to fight harder to get recall. Radio stations that have been around for many years will likely receive more credit with the diary system than those stations that are new or have radically changed direction. Have you ever taken the time to conduct a diary review? It’s a humbling experience to see how your listeners actually perceive your radio station and what they call you when they write your station name in the diary.
Successful radio stations are well branded and own a position in the mind of the consumer. This is not new information, but sometimes we are guilty of forgetting about its importance. Fortunately the trend today is to get away from using the Industry Canada call letters as the primary name of the radio station and that helps a radio station become more memorable. The Wolf, The Goat, Fred FM or The Planet are more memorable than CHZQ. A memorable slogan, positioning statement or name can increase the recall and result in more ticks in the diary.
I have seen broadcasters select their slogan or name using Google to establish what other people were doing and to find out what is hot. Ironically this causes even wider use of these names or positioning statements, without the benefit of any local testing to see if this name or statement has any relevance. Radio Windy might work in Wellington, New Zealand or Chicago, but it would have zero relevance in Toronto. We started with Bob and then Jack came along and now we must be 10-deep in the “first name” radio stations out there. This blurring of the lines creates confusion and impacts the respondent’s likelihood of writing your call letters or station name in the ballot. The people meter trails have already shown there is a high level of unreported tuning with the diary methodology so we need to do everything possible to cut through and get written down.
All too often brand managers get confused by what works as opposed to what’s popular and they don’t have the empirical data to establish where these two important points collide. For example, the concept of running imaging on the air saying “If you heard a radio station today that played Elton John, Rod Stewart and Shania Twain, you must have been listening to XXXX-FM” has proven ineffective, because listeners see right through the ploy. We must keep in mind that most diary keepers don’t fill out their diary at a specific time. This tactic is about as effective today as the “write it down” tactics that were used a few years ago, before the measurement companies closed that door. They confuse the diary holder and raise their levels of skepticism about the process. Perhaps this is part of the reason why less than 50% of people who agree to take part in the ratings actually return their dairy.
Instead of focusing on attributes of a product, it’s better to sell the benefits of listening to your radio station. Isolate a primary benefit and then own it. One way to do this is to communicate with your listeners and establish which single benefit of listening to your radio station is most important to them. Then you must sell this benefit on-air and on other media, in terms that the masses can understand and to which they can relate. But a word of caution here... make sure you ask the right questions in order to get the correct information. Some years ago I worked at a radio station that engaged a well respected research company to carry out a series of focus groups for an A/C station. They recruited target demo users of the station and asked them to describe the music played on this radio station. The most common phrase used was “middle of the road.” Those four words were turned into an external marketing campaign to demonstrate how wonderful life was in the middle of the road. The campaign was a disaster because the research company failed to ask those respondents if they liked living in the middle of the road. You may buy clothing from Walmart or Tip Top, but you aspire to Gucci and Yves Saint-Laurent.
One method to establish if your name or slogan is right for you is to ask the following questions:
In closing here are a few other observations about station names, positioning statements and brands. Firstly don’t give up on a position because the staff of the radio station got tired of it. Listeners do not get tired of a good statement that means something to them. KDKA in Pittsburgh has kept the same theme to their jingle package for over 50 years and two or more generations of people have grown up humming that memorable station jingle. The only time to change is when you have quality data that shows there is a bigger opportunity somewhere else, or your audience does not believe or understand the current phrase. While it is possible to damage a brand, (I don’t imagine anyone will start a company named Enron anytime soon) that doesn’t happen very often. Don’t try and own too many positions. This often happens when competition is coming. The incumbent station will try and own everything and end up being famous for nothing. This is the time to isolate your true benefits and then own them in the minds of your listeners.
Never put a statement on the air that you cannot live up to. “The most music and fun in the morning” is alright if you are spinning lots of songs in AM Drive and you have the funniest morning show on the dial. But as soon as you fail in one of these areas your listeners will see right through you and may even start to question other aspects of your station.
Avoid over promising or making misleading statements. Promising “more variety” is a battle you can’t win, especially in today’s I-Pod world. No matter how many songs you play there are people out there with more tracks in their I-pod and they can hit shuffle and beat you any day. “Playing the most music” fails today for the same reason. “Less talk” is also a statement that is doomed to failure because in order to sell the concept you must run too much imaging, which contradicts the claim and makes you unbelievable. In Australia, the Nova group is struggling with the “Never more than two commercials in a row” concept. It got them the ratings but then they couldn’t increase the spot load to generate the revenue to feed the marketing machine.
Be as specific as possible: Tell people what to expect from your station and then deliver it consistently. 680 News in Toronto is always near the top of the ratings because people know they can get traffic and weather on the 1’s. Every ten minutes commuters on the Don Valley Parkway, the QEW or the 401 tune in to find out why it will take two hours to get where they’re going. “The Oldies you love, the information you need” is specific and clearly communicates the type of radio station you can expect if you tune into CFOS in Owen Sound, Ontario. Concrete actionable promises will win over vagueness every time.
Like it or not we are in the diary influencing business, so take the time to carefully look at the phrases you use on-air in order to get the credit you deserve in this next ratings book. |
