I can deal with assholes and I can deal with sleazebags and I can handle when promotions don’t go perfectly but the thing that just makes my head do the whole Star Wars Death Star Blowed Up Thing is when stations miss opportunities to market themselves.

And when I say “miss” I mean it in the context of not changing up the imaging, doing something on the morning show, doing some social media posts, maybe some web graphics or a weekend theme, or even just showing up for it.

The reason that a station in Chicago missed the Bears in the Super Bowl was that “Our CHR audience doesn’t care about football.” In Chicago. Maybe the biggest grouping of sports nuts on the planet. Read more…

There are so many metaphors that tie Radio to politics and even romance. And since some of these are fairly large, I guess they would be megaphors.

Politicians are prone to embellishing the truth. I know. It’s a shock. Do you need to sit down and collect your thoughts? They will maybe exaggerate a little to make their events or policies or successes seem even bigger or better or more successful than they might actually have been.

Why? Because sub-conciously people want to be affiliated with things that are larger and more popular than the competition. Or, at least have their choice validated.

The same goes for romance. I’m not going to tell the woman I met at Happy Hour at Chili’s that I drive a 1998 Ford Explorer with rust spots. I will probably tell her that I’m looking to upgrade my ride and am pitting two dealerships against each other to get me the best deal on a ’17 Escalade, and if they want my business, the rims had better be free.

I know a woman from my little corner of east central Minnesota whose ex-husband wooed her with his management job at Aveda and he was also enrolled at St. Thomas where he was working on a Masters in Business.

Uh…”management at Aveda” turned out to be in their distribution department (loading dock) and the St. Thomas thing was really some kind of highschool equivalency course. Whoops. He now drywalls and she got the kids.

Even the marketing of products is tweaked to improve or embellish their appearance. When I worked at Emmis in Minneapolis/St. Paul there was a photo studio on the level below us that specialized in menus and labels and other imagery of food. It was fun to hang out and they showed me the ropes in their kitchen on how to prepare a Perkin’s hamburger so that it looked bigger and juicier than it already was. It involved under-cooking, some coloring and lights.

How does that apply to us?

Well, we’re in the shopper comparison business too. Read more…

Twice in the last year I’ve found myself at international radio conferences and one of the things attendees will ask me, is to what do I attribute the staggeringly low participation rate in our on-air promotions.

“Because they suck” is just too vague so I try to explain the reasons I think we’ve over-thought and STILL dumbed down contesting so that no one cares.

TV has “game shows”. Big gaudy spectacles of noise and vibrant visuals that attract audiences of people to watch a select few who have gotten the call and some plane tickets to Los Angeles.

Radio has “contests” which are drab, uninteresting and immediately forgettable.

Disagree? Then try to explain why fewer than 1 in 10 listeners are compelled to pick up the phone and try to win $1000.

I was hired in 1991 by United Broadcasting in San Francisco to try and help this floundering ship called KSOL. After a few months, sitting in the GM’s office with the PD and Jerry Clifton, the consultant on the phone, Jerry declared “This station sucks. We need to blow it up.” And 7 days later Wild was launched.

Out of the gate we did fun, brash, attention-generating, cume-building promotions but, at some point, Clifton happened to be doing a market visit during a two week period when I’d put something that just wasn’t “wild” on the air.

Jerry: “Why is this contest on the air?”

Me: “To try to get people to listen?”

Jerry: “Well, it won’t because there’s no reason for it to be on the air.”

And he introduced me to his concept of a Promo Arch.

He said a great promotion is like a movie. There’s a beginning. There’s a middle. Stuff that’s unexpected could happen. And then there’s an end. And if you did it right, then there’s a sequel. Read more…

Original image by: Nasa’s Marshall Space Flight Center

If I had a credo, or even a mantra, it might be “Two-for-one well drinks and all ladies drink free until midnight”. Or maybe, “Don’t go chasing waterfalls.” Or really any body of water because if you catch it, you’ll drown. But most definitely “The first five hours of a station’s existence are its most important five hours.”

It sets the tone. It’s like fumbling the first kickoff of the game and the other team recovers and runs it for a touchdown. It’s just become harder to establish your game.

Launching stations has been a huge part of my job, even before starting this gig. Wild 107.7 in San Francisco was debuted on six days notice, in total secrecy and three of those days I was in a hospital, but still working. The first Wild logo was designed in Orlando (secrecy again) Fed Ex’d to me and focus grouped on the nursing staff at Daniel Freeman Medical Center in Marina del Rey.

Read more…