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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COPYWRITING)Emotional Charge

9-11-2013

You know that stories are one of the most powerful ways to get and keep your audience?s attention, to motivate them, and instill your message in their memories. Emotion is the electricity that does the work.

Inside each of us is a universe of stories. They all have helped make us who we are, most especially the emotionally charged ones. Want to always have stories to use in your radio commercials? Think back and make a list of those emotional markers in your life. 

What times in your life were the most emotional, defining, powerful, or life changing? You?ll know because when you mentally relive them, you?ll feel them in your heart and gut. Interestingly, if your commercial stories are told well, that?s exactly where the listener will feel them. And coincidentally, that?s where buying decisions are made.

Here are some emotional starter questions to ask yourself:

?When was I a know-it-all? When have I let someone down? When have I lost a love? When didn?t I take responsibility? When have I lied, cheated, misjudged? When have I disappointed myself??

?When did I overcome obstacles? When have I stepped out of my comfort zone to succeed? When have I lifted someone up? When has someone?s example changed my life? When did I discover a hidden talent? When have I surprised myself with my own abilities??

If you ask yourself these questions, or similar ones, you?ll unearth memories which you can use to craft stories for your advertisers. They?ll have power because they?re real.

Your memory could be about your first day at school, when you first fell in love, something you remember that your Grandpa told you, a funny saying from one of your kids. Write just enough description so you can recall the story later. 

Although each of us is a unique individual, there are some experiences we all share. Surprisingly, the more detail you recall and use in the story, the more specifically it seems to apply only to you and your circumstances, the more your audience will be able to identify with it. If you can touch the hearts of listeners with one that resonates with them, it will trigger the specific memory in their lives.

If you set aside five minutes every day to write down a short description of a few of those stories, you?ll never run out of material for effective commercials. If you do more than five minutes, you might be tempted to quit after a few days because of the time commitment, so set a timer and just do five.

Then, when it?s time to write a spot, try matching a story with the advertiser and target audience and see what happens ? storytelling, memory-making, result-getting magic.

To learn How To Sell More On the Radio Using Stories, visit
http://www.hedquist.com/stories

(9/13/2013 10:51:32 AM)
WY0YbT Appreciate you sharing, great post.Thanks Again. Really Cool.

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What Brands Are Leading the Q3 Advertising Charge?

The new Katz report highlighted several key advertisers who are showing an increase in spending on radio. In our interview Gray was sure to mention Burger King quite a few times also stating the burger chain made some significant purchases in markets 76 and lower. It's interesting to note that McDonalds is not mentioned in the top 10. Historically McDonalds had been a huge radio user. Other key advertisers for radio continue to be: Walmart, Comcast, Dodge and American Family Insurance. The Katz report also says there is increased momentum in the use of online, on-demand, mobile and digital broadcasts, which provides broadcasters with the ability to secure a greater share of digital dollars.

92% of 2010's national advertisers have returned to radio this year, a number of those advertisers have ramped up their spending in the third quarter, including Burger King, Sears and T-Mobile. Below are the largest individual advertisers within each core category for the third quarter.

These top seven categories represent 85% of all National Spot Radio revenue. Specific brands listed below.
#1) Retail, #2) Automotive, #3) Finance, #4) Telecom/Utilities, #5) Fast Food, #6) Professional Services, #7) Entertainment.

In the Retail sector, the top spenders on radio are:
Safeway, Walmart, Supervalu, Mattress Firm, Home Depot, Kohl's, Target, Sears, Staples
In Automotive:
O?Reilly Auto Parts, Dodge, Chevron, Chrysler, Jeep, Exxon Mobil
In Finance:
GEICO, Amer. Family Insurance, Allstate, PNC Bank, JP Morgan Chase, US Auto Assoc, Citibank, Farmers Insurance, Navy Federal Credit
In Telecomm/Utilities:
Verizon, Comcast, T-Mobile, US Cellular, AT&T, Comcast Cable
Fast Food
 Burger King, Panera, Bonefish, Denny?s, Sonic, Taco Bell, Jack in the Box, Buffalo Wild Wings, Dunkin? Donuts
Professional Services
 Horizon BCBS, Kaiser Permanente, Portfolio Media Mgmt, Cephalon, LCA Vision, Ace Cash Express, Living Essentials
Entertainment
Sony Pictures, Fox Broadcasting, ESPN, USA Network, Walt Disney Motion Pictures, Half Price Books, NBC

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Powell Broadcasting Takes Charge of Flood Coverage

July 7, 2011

by Carl Magnuson

As an unprecedented amount of water moved down the Missouri river toward Sioux City, Iowa, Powell Broadcasting?s cluster of stations activated a digital asset and married the strengths of broadcast and online to super serve their community during their flooding crisis. I spoke with Grant Wittstruck, the creative director at Powell?s internal Interactive/NTR division they call iCast. Grant details how the Powell stations went into Super-serve mode for the local community. The first thing they did was keep listeners OFF their station website.

?This was a weird flood" Grant (pictured left) said. "We knew 2 weeks in advance from the Army Corps of Engineers that this was coming so we had time to prepare. After the announcement our PD?s and news department sat down and said, ?With all the rumors and misinformation spreading around town we really need to find a way to help the community stay accurately informed. That is how the idea for http://floodinginsiouxland.com was formed.?

Why did you decide to create a separate website rather than having your station sites host the information?
?We felt that it would serve our community best if there was a single resource all our stations could direct listeners to for information. We wanted it to be clean and easy to navigate and we decided early on to leave the ads out. There?s nothing worse than trying to get important news and having to navigate through lots pages and pop-up ads. Plus we didn?t want to be seen as capitalizing in any way from this.?

How did that strategy work?
?Community response has been great. We got more traffic in the first week the site was live than all our station sites get in an average month combined. We?ve really emerged as the news leader in the region beating out the TV stations and local newspapers. Listeners have been very vocal in thanking us for our in depth and accurate coverage.?

What kind of coverage have your stations been able to provide?
?Every kind we can. A maxim for us at Powell Broadcasting is, ?Combining media for maximum results,? and that was in full effect on floodinginsouixland.com. Beyond just posting news reports we sent our news team out to record interviews with incident commanders, emergency officials and people in the community. Our jocks hit the street when they weren?t on the air to do reporting and interviews. I have professional photography experience and I got some really impressive images of the flooding and the emergency response. We also asked listeners to send photos in and we posted those as well.?

You also streamed live footage of the flood from an airplane using your iPhone. That seems like great radio to me when some might argue that isn?t radio at all. How did you make that happen?
?One of the station jocks has a friend who owns a plane. I really wanted to get some aerial footage of the city because there hadn?t been any to that point. The TV stations don?t have helicopters in a market this size. So using the uStream app for my iPhone we were able to tell our listeners on-air that if they wanted to see live aerial footage of the flooding that they could go to the website right now.? (SEE VIDEO BELOW)

Why do you think your flood coverage and response was so successful?
?Because we have a great team here and we were able to give it everything we had. Also we?ve built a trusted long term relationship with our listeners and they really do care and depend on us. Then working for a company like Powell we have the freedom and resources to do what will serve the community best whether that is on-air or online or on the street. That?s how it?s done."

Have a question or two on how Powell pulled off this coverage? Email Grant at grantwittstruck@powelliowa.com.

(7/8/2011 12:29:01 AM)
I,for one, appreciate everything that Powell Broadcasting has done for our community. They were a huge asset in this event, from their inspirational commercials to promoting and building a better community for all of us. Thank all of you for your contributions to keeping the public informed and safe. We could not have done what we did if it wasnt for you guys supporting this community.
(7/7/2011 9:19:02 PM)
Powell Broadcasting continues to dominate the local Radio Market!!! Not just w/ their wide array of Formats & Programming, but w/ their News & Information offered to the loyal listeners!!! Thanks for your commitment to Siouxland!!!
(7/7/2011 8:32:13 PM)
I wanted to say thank you to Grant and to Powell Broadcasting for helping our Community Siouxland during the Siouxland Floods of 2011. Grant and the team has spend endless hours, putting all this flood information together to assist and help all the flood victims in our area. We count on them during this time to give us the updated information and it means so much to all of us volunteers, sandbaggers and flood victims. They deserve award for the time and effort for giving us the true facts during this crisis..Thank you so much again for being there for us in Siouxland, we can never ever repay you enought for the support and kindness and help from this team at Powell Broadcasting.

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ESPN Radio's Harry Teinowitz Pleads Guilty to DUI Charge.

May 27, 2011

Teinowitz pleaded guilty Thursday to the misdemeanor and said to the judge the arrest ?was probably the best thing that ever happened to me.? The 50 year old host of the ?The Afternoon Saloon? on WMVP-AM 1000 Chicago pleaded guilty at the Skokie branch of Cook County Circuit Court to one count of misdemeanor DUI. Police say back in March Teinowitz failed a field sobriety test and was cited for DUI and improper lane usage. Police said that breathalyzer results showed that his blood-alcohol content was 0.131, above the 0.08 legal limit. Teinowitz was given 18 months conditional discharge and sentenced to 240 hours of community service. He must also pay court fees and fines totaling $2,175 and take part in a victim impact panel on the dangers of drinking and driving.

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