Everyone in radio talks about brands and branding. Like “positioning” which preceded it, “branding” is an active verb that implies a process: critical thinking into strategy, strategy into tactics, tactics into execution, with consumer reaction as a result. This is a refined scenario that only occasionally takes place across the radio landscape, thus making “branding” a passive noun.

*Nike owns gym shows, Starbucks owns coffee, Evian owns bottled water. What do your  formats own?

*What is a brand anyway? Simply put, it’s what your product stands for in your target customer’s mind.

*What is the value of your brand? P&G suggests that the value of its brands may be 110 billion.   How do you calculate yours? Listener and ad-spend behavior are the key. Do you own your  format brand (defined by a 3:1 perceptual margin)? Does your top-line revenue match that dominance? How long have you owned that brand and what are the odds of sustained leadership?

*Conduct the Who, What, How, review. Who = target listeners. What = unique benefits (relevant, differentiated, important). How = brand imaging to a choiceful audience (on-air image strength, external presence and message).

*Are you on trend in DCE or “desired customer experience?”

*Not all audience prospects are created equal: it’s the Pareto Rule soberly revisited. 20 percent of your audience will produce 75-80 percent of your listening tonnage. For most consumers— against our belief system—your brand isn’t relevant. Thus accurate targeting and aligning with that target is everything. Know your target better than your competition does.

*Remember however in 2009 no one is captive; listeners opt in and opt out.  This is where  audience “granulation” comes into play for advanced media leaders. It refers to the level of detail through which we define and address our target. Arbitron is a great place to start but a  really bad place to stop. Observation research (ergonographics), Claritas’ Prizm clustering, and  fluid passive research available through your interactive systems are but a few multivariate sources to refine your understanding of “who’s out there.”

*Folgers like many national consumer repositories put it in a three-dimensional pictorial  frame: “We want to own that part of the day.” Starbucks says, “We want to be the third place”  (beyond home and job), while Tide has profiled their Marathon Mom: she’s active, seeking  balance in her life, self-reliant, fiercely independent, an early adaptor, a Gen X-er more likely to  work, but also finds time for herself.

*Have you created a similar forensic profile of your targeted listener?

*When you evaluate your brand, ask your staff the following salient questions:

1.      Are you “intentional?” Do you let the market define you, or do you define the market? Where are you, what’s around you, where can you go for more market share?

2.      What singular difference do you own and are you known for it?

3.      Can you be consistent, without changing message?

*Powerful longevity leaders have brand equity, created over years. They are completely  differentiated in important categories, music and non-music. They know what their brand stands for and they do everything possible to own it.

*Sobering audience/consumer realities all media must now accept:

1.      Surfer-consumers often use TV as a background, similar to Radio.

2.      In 1960, 3 exposures = 80% reach in national TV. In 2007, 110 exposures = 80% reach!

3.      86% of TV viewers multi-task while viewing!

4.      Clutter and noise is everywhere. Media is not consumed in silos.

5.      Brand loyalty is declining yearly. There is no assurance of brand loyalty at any price, in any media.

6.      Radio has no “shelf display.” How do we create it in the mind, through station brand imaging, and on our client’s behalf?

7.      Radio has gained an agency reputation of “not playing well with others.” Systemic invoicing issues alone have created 20% of clerical overhead against 6% of the ad-spend.

8.      Radio looks confusing to retailers and Agencies alike. It’s not--unless we make it so. Most radio analysis is too labor intensive and needs to be streamlined at the local and national level. Make it easy for your clients.

9.      The diary methodology is perceived as antiquated in media inner circles. PPM’s future is now, or, an alternative measuring method will be warming up in the wings.

Radio has a tremendous story: 5 million more listeners cumed radio in 2008. And while there are appealing new choices in specialized targets (streaming, podcasts, theaters as examples) new media lack credible methodologies for measurement, at a time where ROI for advertisers large and small is paramount; advantage radio.

Sponsorship money is growing at 30% a year. Some of our clients are beginning to tap this reality through non-traditional instruments.

The audience has become a “24 hour audience,” up all night in younger demos. The prospects are inspiring. Yet few media people get it. Why aren’t we cultivating sales concepts to meet this rising audience trend? Client “pods” on rotator packages for markets large and small are ideal. Who cares if it’s not at daytime rate? 100% of nothing is still nothing.

In the end much will come down to what advertisers will think of new Radio technologies:

            ~HD needs to get past consumer apathy and/or unawareness.

            ~Only 30% of invoices have EDI or electronic data integration. Agencies are operating on slim margins. If Radio sustains its appearance of being too expensive to administer, we will continue to feel it.

~Satellite has largely failed because it has no real measurement beyond subscription.           

~It’s clear that advertisers want PPM, saying they will do business with those stations   encoding and subscribing. Rates are rising, and those who haven’t looked at Radio will begin to include it based on pure econometrics, and we will be viewed as both a branding and reach medium. So far, PPM has unmasked Phantom Cume, found previously undiscovered P-1’s, and uncovered a huge amount of light listening in addition to typical tiers of P-1 and P-2 partisans.

As we zoom out, we urge you to talk about these views with your team members. Consider that “attributes” of your formats are not necessarily “benefits” to listeners. Conventional research is fading, since it’s harder and harder to find respondents who actually have a life, or are not research junkies. Our research alliance with Troy Research is producing some very new and non-traditional means of data mining and audience interpretation.

As they say at Continental Airlines, “Work hard, fly right.”