OOOOOhhhhhh Shiney Beads! Me Me Me!

When doing Hot Hits back in the day for Mike Joseph, at boot camp he always stayed in our face about each live break being referred to as “a relate”.  He never called them a break or whatever… only “a relate”.  Obviously, that meant whatever we said had damn sure better relate to the target audience in the moment or we’d never get out of boot camp and wind up back on our old stations somewhere.  You had to know and understand the target audience well enough to relate EVERY BREAK to build a connection to that listener one by one.  We had to earn their trust every day break by break.  There was never a throw away time n temp, never a simple call letters/title/artist… every break was a relate or you didn’t deserve to be in Hot Hits in a top 5 market.  Two boot camps and two different Hot Hits stations in two different top 5 markets, I still agreed with Mike on that and to this day that fundamental of the medium hasn’t changed for truly successful stations.  Lots of time and effort went into researching the audience and Philly was amazingly different from San Francisco, but the audience weren’t there to listen to me, they were listening to hear a reflection of what the station meant to them.  When I read this piece from Advertising Age this morning, it brought back that broadcast basic of making the connection with the listener every single break – oops – relate (sorry Mike).  Good reminder that it’s not just us, it’s a part of the fabric of life and our intercommunication at many levels.  See you in New Orleans!  Enjoy.         Garry Leigh      Snafu Consulting
Connect More, Advertise Less
What Mardi Gras Parades Can Teach You About Human Nature

Posted by Tom Martin on 01.21.09 @ 08:55 AM
Tom Martin
Here in New Orleans, the Christmas decorations have given way to the Mardi Gras decorations, which got me to thinking about an old blog post I wrote a few years ago about connections.
As I sat on the neutral ground one year during Mardi Gras helping my kids yell for and catch beads, toys, etc., I had an epiphany. Here we were, in the middle of what can only be characterized as organized chaos, and amidst the yelling, screaming music, an interesting thing happened — we made a connection.

As my 3-year-old (at the time), Hayes, sat slumped in his ladder, fast asleep (poor thing was sick), I was doing my best to keep him from being hit by a flying bead while also catching him a few trinkets so when he awoke he wouldn’t feel left out of the fun. And then a float stopped in front of us and on the top deck some 20 feet away a young woman (I think — not sure as riders are masked) made eye contact, gave a quick little frown and then reached down and launched a huge stuffed animal, but only after assuring she had my attention and that I realized she was throwing to Hayes. I caught it and waved a thank you to her and then she was off. Mission accomplished. I was a good dad.

Now if you’ve never ridden on a Mardi Gras float, you can’t fully understand how unique this situation is. As a rider you can’t hear anything but a constant swell of screaming and yelling. Hundreds, thousands of people screaming for your attention in hopes you’ll “throw them something mister.” Add to this the fact that you’re on a moving platform, it’s dark and maybe you’ve had a cocktail or two, and it is hard enough to pick people out of the crowd that you are looking for much less make a random connection. But it happens.

In fact, this same thing happened a dozen or more times as the parade continued to roll on. I didn’t know these people, they didn’t know me but they felt something. A connection. For a fleeting moment, a personal connection was made and the nameless rider put down the 25-cent plastic beads and tossed an item that costs them (Mardi Gras float riders pay for the stuff they throw out of their own pockets) not an insignificant amount of money.

Why?

And that has gotten me thinking. About this idea — connection — the simple human need to connect to others. Powerful. Powerful because it causes people to do things, feel things and act on those feelings. Powerful because connection lives beyond the transaction and creates feelings and memories that last. Powerful because in a world of hyperconnectivity, consumers have never been less connected to brands.

At first I thought it might just be me, but then one night I read a report of Anderson Coopers’ coverage of Mardi Gras that year — he rode in Endymion, a Super Krewe, the big parades that you see on TV. He remarked: “Rolling on the float late at night, I realized Mardi Gras is not about the beads or about Bourbon Street. It’s about making a connection, one person to another.” And it hit me. Anderson was right. He had captured the essence of Mardi Gras but more important he had captured this powerful human insight, one that I’m sure can be used to create more powerful and effective work. People really do want to connect. But as advertisers, we need to give them something worthy of connecting too.

So the next time you sit down to write a brief or review concepts, ask yourself if what you’re doing is advertising or trying to connect. If it is the former, try again. Who knows, you might just get rewarded with a nice prize for your efforts.

~ ~ ~
Tom Martin is president of Zehnder Communications, with offices in New Orleans and Baton Rouge. He can be reached at Tom.Martin@z-comm.com. Follow him on Twitter: @TomMartin .

New Music Merchandising On Display

OK, so we all are embracing new ways to expose new music and make it available for purchase at a time and in a way most convenient for the music fan.  I’m impressed that some of the oldest school companies on Earth are really getting creative in deploying assets to expose and monetize those exposures.  We should all be gathered around the conference table regularly brainstorming with “those people” to gain new momentum?  How about credit for just trying some new things and seeing what sticks?  Investing in new channels and giving them the time necessary for their viral spread to begin changing the users habits (parts of the program have been around a long time)!  By the way, when you get your sales reports weekly, do they tell you there was a huge AXE push with a particular artist and that may skew that figure?  Is there a way for you to now that and interpret the sales info from that perspective? Does it matter or is it just great for the industry that we are willing to experiment in these areas?

Take a look  at this AdAge article and let me know what you think….. Garry Leigh     Snafu Consulting

Walmart, Unilever Up Partnership in Retailer’s Music Site

Marketer Promotes Its Products on Soundcheck With the Likes of All-American Rejects, Nickelback

by Jack Neff

Published: December 29, 2008

BATAVIA, Ohio (AdAge.com) — As a means to sell more music and attract more visitors to its music microsite, Walmart has teamed up with Unilever for an entertainment- and shopper-marketing program that appears to be gaining momentum.

Bands like The All-American Rejects are featured alongside Unilever’s products on Walmart shelves as well as the retailer’s sponsored music portal, Soundcheck.

In the latest incarnation of the partnership, Unilever is merchandising its new Axe Hair lineup of hair-care products for the cheeky men’s brand in stores alongside CDs from All-American Rejects, Gym Class Heroes, David Cook and Nickelback, while simultaneously sponsoring Walmart’sSoundcheck microsite, which has been backed by the marketer’s personal-care brands since earlier this year.

Backed Beyonce’s new album
In similar fashion, Unilever backed the launch of Beyonce’s “I Am Sasha Fierce” CD last month with displays that promoted the album alongside Suave products, as well as promoting another release from Beyonce’s sister, Solange, who also had an exclusive interview on Soundcheck sponsored by Caress.

Unilever’s Suave also sponsored interviews and exclusive video performances by Beyonce on Soundcheck in November. And Axe sponsored a studio concert performance and a free MP3 download by All-American Rejects earlier this month.

For its part, Dove in October sponsored a “Women in Music” program on Soundcheck featuring videos of nine artists, including Miley Cyrus, Jennifer Hudson and Faith Hill, at the brand’s self-esteem workshops for girls.

Walmart’s Soundcheck initiative dates back to 2006, when it primarily focused on exclusive concerts played on the retailer’s in-store TV network operated by Thomson’s PRN. Procter & Gamble brands such as Gillette Fusion and Venus sponsored exclusive content on the microsite last year.

Program takes off
But the online program appears to have taken off considerably this year in terms of viewership and in-store merchandising support, as Unilever has featured it in programs with most of its major personal-care brands. Unilever and Walmart have gotten mentions about its promotions and exclusive content on Soundcheck in the blogosphere, using a giveaway of a Danity Kane CD and Degree products, for example, on one blog this spring.

URLfan.com now ranks Soundcheck in the top 1% of the 3.7 million sites it tracks in terms of blog mentions, averaging a mention about one every three days. A preview of Beyonce’s Suave-sponsored Soundcheck appearance last month has drawn about 844,000 views on YouTube, and a Soundcheck appearance by the lesser-known Danity Kane, sponsored by Degree deodorant, has garnered more than 400,000 YouTube views.

Fundamentals – Not So Much

Been listening to a lot of local radio and noticing that format basics are no longer required and, in fact, are almost a luxury now?  

The simplest radio 101 communication fundamentals just don’t fit into the schedule of announcers voice tracking way too many stations at once, and there just isn’t time to be aware of their landscape market to market.  At least that’s what one might surmise.  

I think it really comes down to management just settling for less because our jobs and perspectives are just so different now in this consolidated less is more world.  If we programmers don’t require more from the staff, of course they will do less and only a precious few will go the extra mile to separate themselves from the crowd on-air.  It has always been that way and that’s why the hiring process can seem so long and tedious as the search for the one in a million self motivated communicator becomes a real challenge.  But it doesn’t stop at hiring the right person.

I remember when we first heard Bobby Bones and could immediately tell he would do any amount of work and prep to win.  It showed in every facet of this show; every character, every bit, every element.  After meeting him, we came to learn that Tommy Austin had created an atmosphere in which people wanted to learn more, experiment more broadly and achieve greater success.  I think the real key to Bobby and Tommy was allowing a talent to fail on occasion as a bit went flat or too long, or a character just didn’t gel in the show.  Failures didn’t require a huge postmortem but did require a thoughtful consideration of what worked and what didn’t, so the mistake wouldn’t be repeated and the show would be better for the experience.   

Allowing missteps when training racehorses is not something that comes naturally, but you have to let them breathe and assess the track occasionally to know how best to attack it and their competition.

How much time do you spend working with your talent on growth and learning the fundamentals?  How do you handle failures?  Do you allow enough room for not just chomping at the bit, but to open up and flat out run…or does that require too much maintenance?  

Pick some format basics and make them fundamental building blocks and lets get back to teaching, grooming, and fostering talent which is prerequisite to growing audience.  Just ask Tommy and Bobby.  

 

Garry Leigh

Who Cares

Our radio industry seems to have had the passion squeezed completely out of it as the commercial investment companies have squeezed into it.  Why did the investors show up in the first place?  Because the product people had created such compelling entertainment that our margins were topping 50 and 60 percent.  So who wouldn’t want into that kind of business plan and then want to squeeze a few more percent out?  In the process they squeezed most of the product people out and with them went the those most passionate about the product and left a lot of great sales people with nothing very creative to sell.  That leaves the investors holding a rather smelly bag and resultant ratings have been nothing to write home about as our stations have become a pasteurized homogenous tangible dated product.

Ownership and investors need to do a deep gut check on the product side, much as CBS has, and get some passion back into the equation.  Let’s get the hallways humming again and try some new concepts. Yes, many will fail and that will lead to many more successes.  Entertainment is a continuously evolving process and every day is a new one.  Maybe this blog post from Mediapost today will add a little inspiration.    Garry Leigh at Snafu Consulting

Last week Max wrote “You’re Nothing Without A Link.”Dwight Zahringer wrote in response, “Well, I am glad to see that mainstream media is finally getting it to a certain point. I’m happy to read this article but also shake my head on why these simple tactics take so long to get embedded in the brain of media professionals. I work with so many agencies- people with large professional degrees that their parents paid a lot of money for and they never learned basic common knowledge that they must evolve with media. SEO is basic and if you write for a living then realize this simple statement, ‘Content is King, Links are Queen.’ Without content there is nothing for search engines to grab and without links there is no way for them to find content. Keep up the education. Bite small and chew, then swallow.

Friday, May 2, 2008  Why Passion Matters By Max Kalehoff  In a hyper-competitive market, competence is expected and only flawless execution is tolerable. But that’s no longer enough. Today, the ultimate competitive advantage is passion.When passion lets loose, you drive focus, cultivate mastery, leverage spontaneity, foster creativity, build intuition and live toward mission. The dots connect. Clarity emerges. Your own bar of excellence sets higher, and you become infatuated with exceeding it. The result is accelerated and extended value creation that otherwise would never have been possible. Think of the places in your business where the presence of passion really matters — making you stand out beyond the rest, or sink into mediocrity. It’s about approaching things with the utmost thought and care, versus doing anything less. In my experience, there are a few places in business especially sensitive to passion:    Listening and understanding your customers and the market.  Innovating based on your market insight and intuition.  Building your product with quality and speed.  Ensuring the highest aesthetic and usability.  Refining your product over and over and over again, until it’s better and better and better.  Paying attention to all the details and signals that comprise the experience.  Inspiring your employees, customers, investors and other stakeholders.  Engaging and collaborating with customers.  Fixing things quickly when they go wrong — and then making them far better.  Using your product yourself and recommending it to friends because you truly believe it’s the best.Businesses with passion tend to excel in these areas, while businesses that don’t tend to just get by or break. I know — this is all obvious. But the irony is that most businesses and brands I encounter come up short. It’s probably because passion is not something that can be bought, outsourced or faked. Rather, the presence of passion has more to do with an authentic and fierce desire for your product to really change the game. Of course, it also has a huge amount to do with the CEO and leadership. It has to do with hiring and grooming an employee base that is culturally aligned and motivated with a real stake in the outcome. Same for investors, advisors, customers and partners. Who’s doing it right? We can all name some of the mega-brands that veer toward passion, like Apple, Google and JetBlue. But passion is equally important in smaller businesses, and perhaps more attainable and prevalent. In my life, some examples include instant-messaging aggregator Meebo and microblog platform Twitter. On a micro scale, there’s my barber Alberto at Astor Hair, the many local farmers at New York’s Green Markets, the Little Mexican Café near my home and, of course, my son’s nanny, Aliana. Does your business and product embody passion? If not, it’s probably at risk of being displaced by one that does.