The Changing Consumer

12-2-14

Just like radio, retailers are targeting consumers wherever they are and on every device possible. If you were out and about late last week you probably ran across busy retailers, full parking lots and extra traffic. Shoppers, with Friday off, are always out looking for something to do and a big bargain. If you stayed at home, for sure, your e-mail was being bombarded with online specials from early Thanksgiving Day sales to black Friday specials to Cyber Monday deals. So, how did all that translate to early holiday sales? It depends on who you ask.

The National Retail Federation projected that sales fell 11 percent to $50.9 billion over the long weekend from $57.4 billion last year. Of course it's too soon to tell how the entire holiday shopping season will end up, with three weeks still to go. MediaPost reports comScore had U.S. consumers' online spending via desktops up 32% to $1.01 billion on Thanksgiving Day. Black Friday followed with $1.51 billion in sales, up 26%. Overall, according to comScore, consumers used desktops to spend $22.7 billion online from the start of the holidays to date, up 15% compared with the same days last year. comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni tells MediaPost more consumers want to stay home on Thanksgiving Day to enjoy family and friends, forgoing crowded stores, yet capitalizing on the deals. But not all the data agrees with the comScore figures.

Monetate, which tracks nearly 40 million Web site visits on Black Friday, reports that traditional desktop and laptop sales fell 10%, while tablets rose 7.5%. Tablet traffic accounted for 21.52% of all online traffic, an increase of 6.53% year-over-year. Smartphone commerce transitions rose 38.30%. Smartphone traffic accounted for 20.97% of all online traffic, up 37.06% compared with a year ago. Smartphones and tablets accounted for 42.49% of all online traffic -- up 20.77%. But revenue inched up and smartphone sales fell 34.40%, according to Monetate. Revenue via desktops rose 16.5%, and tablets, 12.20%.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Walmart said Thursday through Saturday represented its all-time highest three-day period in online orders. The world?s largest retailer discovered one fifth of its customers waited until after work to shop online. Visa said purchases by its U.S. account holders rose 17 percent Thursday and 18 percent Friday. The ChannelAdvisor Same Store Sales report for Cyber Saturday had total online sales outpacing projections, coming in at 27%. Amazon was the number one destination at 46% market share. eBay declined from Black Friday's 26.9% to 14.87%, and mobile held steady at 47%.

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The New DASH Puts The Impatient Consumer in Charge in the Car

10-22-13

That was the big message after day one of the Radio Ink/Jacobs Media DASH conference in Detroit Wednesday as auto manufacturers, content providers and radio CEO's discussed the importance of focusing on content and simplifying connectivity. While the smartphone is that key connection between the consumer and the automobile, having to spend time connecting the device still seems to give radio a slight advantage at the moment. Consumers, especially the younger generation, have no patience. They want things now and if that means having to go through several steps to connect to TuneIn, iHeartRadio or Slacker, they move on. With radio, consumers understand they hit a button and their favorite local station comes out of the speakers. Just listen to the challenges Pandora is having with the connection issue.

George Lynch is the Vice President of Automotive Business Development at Pandora. He says the company is disappointed with the number of people using the service in the car. It has to be just like turning on FM radio. As soon as you get into two or three buttons, it doesn't happen and that's a frustration for us. We've got to to educate the dealers to make it simpler. Like AM/FM and XM. One touch. When they do pair the phone, they do listen.

A big takeaway from day one was the understanding that there's a need to educate consumers about the link between the smartphone and in-dash media. Ford's Global Product Manager for SYNC AppLink Julius Marchwicki said it's something his company continues to work on. "How do we educate consumers on how to find the content they want." Until the ease of connection issue is completely figured out, or even easier, radio seems to have a window of opportunity to stay focused on creating the best content possible for listeners. Entercom CEO David Field, in his keynote, outlined exactly what radio is good at. "Companionship. News and information. We connect with local communities. We set the mood for people. We are the number one source to discover news. We are a lifeline in case of emergency. Listeners having a very active experience with radio. When we hold events people show up."

Today during day two at DASH, we'll hear from local car dealers, advertisers and consumers.
Follow the breaking news on Twitter at #DASHCONFERENCE
Check out some of the pictures from Day one of DASH on our Facebook page HERE

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The NextRadio App is Good For the Consumer

9-26-13

Sprint Vice President for Products David Owens, also on the NextRadio panel last night, said the reason Sprint signed a multi-year deal with the radio industry for the NextRadio app was because it's good for the consumer. Despite being peppered with questions from New York Times Technology columnist David Pogue about why Sprint was giving up revenue generated by consumer data usage, Owens insisted this was a positive for Sprint. "This is a multi-year agreement with tens of millions of Sprint phones. It's a really big deal." Owens went on to give some mind-boggling stats about mobile.

Owens said the stats on mobile phone usage is staggering and that's a good thing for the company's new relationship with radio. "People look at their phone 150 times per day. That's every six minutes. Mobile advertising is still very young. So we think about those stats and we think about what radio's trying to do and it's a great partnership. Every Android or Windows device we launch going forward will have it. We have 53 million customers upgrading every 16 months."

When radio stations decide to offer more than just a logo and jump onboard with Tagstation, they will be able to offer consumers enhanced ads and coupons. Emmis' Paul Brenner, also on the panel said, "We're radio people. The enhanced ads are what we do every day in radio."

(9/28/2013 10:15:10 PM)
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(9/28/2013 2:05:33 AM)
This is a complete joke. Consumers want to listen to Pandots, not "advsnced ads with coupons!
(9/27/2013 4:52:18 PM)
As a consumer I am so excited about this! I've been waiting for enhanced ads! Not only that but with Pandora I've only been getting 4 minutes of ads per hour and I feel cheated. Now, finally, I'll be able to get my full 18-20 spots per hour! What an experience.
(9/27/2013 4:49:22 PM)
I think it is painfully obvious why Sprint signed up for Next Radio for all of two phones, btw., the HUGE check that radio is writing to the #3 carrier, that's why!!

Carriers, despite Jeff's best efforts, weren't exactly falling all over themselves to sign up, you'll will recall. It was only after a giant check and tons of inventory was offered up that this became a reality.

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(SALES) A Simple Consumer Needs Analysis Clients Love

8-2-2013

Local direct decision-makers often find broadcast seller?s Customer Needs Analysis forms awkward, especially if you?re the third media rep this week that?s asked them to help fill one out. Many business owners would rather snack on wasps than help you fill out a lengthy form. The best way to get the information you need from local direct clients is by asking good questions and then listening very carefully to responses during the course of normal conversation.

Here are seven questions you can ask to get the information you need for a great custom proposal. Even though I may already know the answers to many of these questions, I like to hear the answers from the client?s lips. By listening carefully to their responses, I learn a lot about what they know (but maybe aren?t advertising) about their business?as well as what they know and don?t know about our business.

1.   Regarding advertising and marketing, what are you doing or what have you done in the past?
2.   Why are you doing it?
3.   Who are you trying to reach?
4.   What do those people you?re trying to reach know now about your business?
5.   What do you want those people to know?
6.   What is your average sale?
7.   What is your gross margin of profit?

Again, even if I believe I already know the answer to any of these questions, I ask it anyway. I ask so I can listen carefully to their responses and determine their level of ignorance or sophistication about marketing, advertising, and my station in particular. I am looking for holes in their perceptions. I?m looking for correctable untruths that they may have about advertising, or about my station. I?m also digging for the client?s true strengths and weaknesses, as well as her perceived notions of the strengths and weaknesses of her competitors. I will use this information to create commercials that will really get consumer?s attention.

When I ask about her average sale and her gross margin of profit, I?m getting information I can use to calculate return on advertising investment and show her that advertising on my station is a good calculated risk, not gambling. I?ll also use that same information to manage her expectations about results on my station.

Later, I?ll put what I?ve learned into a concise one- to two-page proposal that the client will understand and appreciate.

Here is an example of a conversation with a business owner. She owns a gardening center. 

Salesperson: Regarding marketing and advertising, what are you doing?
Client: We use the newspaper and the Yellow Pages.
Salesperson: Why are you using those mediums?
Client: Because they work. We?re doing couponing and the people come in with the coupons.
OBSERVATION: All media work. We?ll deal with that later. And, I wonder how much of her advertising is dedicated to price only? She can?t win long-term against her price-slashing national discount competitors. Maybe in the future we can focus her advertising on creating value for her products and services and less on cutting her prices.
Salesperson: Who are you trying to reach when you advertise?
Client: We?re trying to reach everybody we can.
OBSERVATION: No medium can reach everybody and we don?t have to. Just a percentage of those people who will buy plants and garden supplies this week.
Salesperson: Helen, those people you?re trying to reach?what do they know about your business now? [At this point the client usually begins to open up. I start to observe some of her frustrations.]
Client: We have a good reputation and we sell good stuff but we?re steadily losing business to Lowe?s, Home Depot, and Menard?s. And it?s hard to compete with all of their advertised low prices.
Salesperson: Helen, what do you want people to know about your business?
Client: Well, our soil in Southwestern Michigan is different. And, we don?t sell things that don?t grow in Southwestern Michigan. They sell a lot of stuff that just won?t do well here with our weather and our soil.
OBSERVATION: Here come some golden nuggets I can use later in commercials.
Client: And we have a horrible unemployment problem in Michigan. Whenever possible, I only buy from Michigan growers and Michigan vendors, so we can keep jobs here in Michigan.
OBSERVATION: What great commercials these statements are going to make. And, we can focus value propositions like these, instead of trolling for bottom-feeders that would only buy her because of price.
Client: And, we don?t have one of those great big parking lots. There?s plenty of free parking at the door and we even help load up your car for you.
Salesperson: What?s your average sale?
Client: Considering everything, about sixty dollars per customer.
Salesperson: What?s your gross margin of profit? Is it keystone (50 percent)?
Client: Actually, it?s a little higher than keystone, about 60 percent.

Great. Now I have the information I need to come up with a custom proposal. It will include a long-term creative strategy as well as a long-term schedule. My budget will be created from real numbers, which include her average sale figure and her gross margin of profit.

We?ll deal with how to write these proposals next time.

Paul Weyland is a broadcast sales trainer, author, and hired gun. Learn more about bringing Paul into your market by visiting www.paulweyland.com or by calling him at 512 236 1222.

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Wooing The Hispanic Consumer

5-14-13

That's easier said than done, according to the Economist. "As they grow richer and more numerous, their tastes are changing, too. One sign of the shift is language. When Latino advertising was born in the 1980s, a largely immigrant audience could safely be addressed in Spanish. Today, most Hispanics were born in the United States and only 23% of young ones prefer Spanish to English." Today, one in six Americans is Hispanic and between 2000 and 2010 Hispanic buying power has doubled.

The Economist piece says some brands target young Latinos via social-media because they love to browse on smartphones. "Savvy advertisers also find ways, in Mr Morse?s phrase, to ?wink? at Latinos without alienating others. Salvador Padron, who runs a multicultural research team at PepsiCo, describes a global ad campaign that showed images of a football game on a Brazilian beach. Other advertisers aim for accurate depictions of contemporary Latino life. A recent spot for Tide shows a middle-aged Latina lauding her detergent in Spanish while her teenage granddaughter glances up from her phone to translate her abuelita?s eulogy into unaccented English."

"Large firms such as Pepsi and Procter & Gamble make campaigns Latino-friendly from the start, rather than adding a Hispanic tweak later or simply translating an ad into Spanish. For example, ads for Pepsi Next featured William Levy, a Latino star, in both English and Spanish versions. They touted the fizzy drink as having ?less sugar? rather than fewer calories, since few Hispanics consciously count calories."

Read the full Economist article HERE and join us this week for the 2013 Hispanic Radio Conference in Miami

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(MOBILE) Consumer Products, Mobile, Radio And You

10-29-2012

For just around a year now, I?ve been contributing this ?Mobile Column? to RadioInk. And most of the pieces I?ve submitted have been offering up suggestions on how our industry can better use the medium to help our own medium not just survive, but thrive.

I?m taking a bit of a departure for this one and turning to a totally different industry for inspiration: consumer packaged goods. More specifically, ones from Clorox.

There?s a broadly-quoted statistic from the Chief Marketing Officer Council: just 16 percent of companies have a strategy for using mobile for meaningful customer engagement. Well, if you?ve read this column for the past year, you probably know what I?m going to say next: this is way, way too low, but also characterizes the huge potential still untapped for you and your sponsors to reach your listeners on a device that?s always at arm?s length.

Recently, one of the 16 percent?Sarah Ortman, the senior group manager, customer and shopper promotions for The Clorox Company (and, in the spirit of full disclosure, a Hipcricket client)?spoke at the Shopper Marketing Expo and outlined the case for mobile marketing through a discussion of mobile shopping at Clorox, the ?mobile path to purchase.? Now, clearly, I?m not trying to draw a straight line between radio, bleach, and other consumer products; but there are some common truths from her talk I?d like to share with you, ones to keep in mind when trying to figure out how to bring mobile into your marketing mix.

In order to create the ultimate mobile experience, brands need to focus on four key benefits: utility, relevance, location, and convenience. And I believe these hold true for us in the radio industry:

? Utility: Enhance your audience via services and tools on their mobile devices, and provide multiple touch points. For radio, this could mean mobile loyalty clubs, special content on mobile websites, news alerts via SMS, branded content with your sponsors?ultimately, finding as many ways as possible to interact meaningfully  with them on their mobile devices.

? Relevance: Make certain your content is highly contextual and personal?and mobile is a medium that allows for this more than almost any other. Your listeners will opt in for content that is meaningful to them?and you, and your sponsors, should keep that in mind. The minute you start making them feel like they are being ?marketed to? rather than ?engaged,? you?ve lost them.

? Location: Use the location-based technologies of mobile to your advantage. Precise location data allows for highly-effective targeting?of content, of advertisements, and of means by which you can engage. For example, a local sponsor could end their spots with a call-to-action to register for a mobile loyalty club that utilizes ?geofencing? capabilities?the opted-in listener receives, say, a 20-percent-off coupon every time they are near the sponsor.

? Convenience: Mobile is an always-accessible channel?both in hours (24/7/365) and reach (it?s as far away as your listeners? phones, which means, typically, arm?s length. For your retail sponsors, it?s important to recognize that studies show a whopping 97 percent of consumers have their devices turned on when they are in a retail setting. There are tremendous opportunities here to reach an always-on audience well beyond the realm of traditional radio and spots.

There?s a great deal we can learn by taking some cues from the world?s leader in consumer products?by using mobile for the benefit of our listeners, our sponsors, and our medium.

Ivan Braiker is the president of mobile marketing company Hipcricket. He can be reached at ivan@hipcricket.com.
Read more articles from Ivan HERE

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(AUDIO) Pandora or iHeart. Which is a Better Consumer Experience?

This week Pandora executives will speak at the RAIN conference in Chicago and they, for sure, will reiterate how the Pandora experience is exactly what consumers want. The Pandora curation model is built on the employment of real people to help consumers create playlists. The iHeartradio model is a combination of computer automation incorporated into the product by a company called The Echo Nest and real programmers, according to Brian Lakamp who is the head of digital for Clear Channel. Lakamp tells Radio Ink the iHeartRadio app will be released in beta today. We spoke to Lakamp about the app and why he believes it will be better than Pandora.

Radio Ink Editor Ed Ryan Interview Brian Lakamp HERE

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Irene, Consumer Confidence Put Damper on Auto Sales

You can always tell how strong (or weak) a month (or quarter) is going for radio when you hear stopsets full (or empty) of car ads on a station. And while it's different from market-to-market there's no doubt that when car ads are in abundance, General Managers are much happier. The hope was a steady increase in auto sales through 2011 which would lead to a steady increase in automotive advertising for the radio industry. However, according to Automotive News a lack of consumer confidence and Hurricane Irene are putting a damper on any steady increase in automotive sales.

The paper says total automotive sales were flat in July compared to 2010  with approximately 1,059,000 vehicles sold. In the first 7 months of 2011 automotive sales are up 11% with 7.3 million units sold. Many analysts surveyed by Automotive News are now downgrading their annual projections for the rest of the year to about 12.1 million units sold. By comparison, The U.S. averaged annual sales of 16.8 million vehicles from 2000 to 2007, according to Autodata.

"With the economic woes, summer vacations and Hurricane Irene taking center stage, August may be a lost month for vehicle sales," said Jeff Schuster, executive director of global forecasting at J.D. Power, in a statement. Irene interfered with auto deliveries in states that represent about 30 percent of the total U.S. sales, said Paul Taylor, chief economist at the National Automobile Dealers Association.

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