Radio Groups In Virginia Join Forces

11-5-13

Rival radio groups in Hampton Roads, VA, joined forces for a great cause sponsored by the Hampton Roads Automobile Dealers Association to raise funds for its Youth Automotive Training Program. The program is called Drive For The Dream and it brought together 17 stations from Saga, Max Media, Entercom, and Sinclair. The stations provided a month-long, pro-bono campaign valued at almost $300,000 to support scholarships in automotive technology at two local colleges.

For an entire month, each person test driving a new vehicle at any participating HRADA dealership on a Tuesday or Wednesday was entered to win a $5,000 dream vacation from a random drawing. Each test drive generated $25 from the dealer toward the HRADA scholarship fund. The radio campaign included almost 2,000 60-second spots, on-air live promotion, online, e-blasts, and in-store materials at the dealerships.

Students receiving these scholarships earn two-year degrees at TCC or TNCC. On the day of graduation, they also receive fulltime employment with an HRADA dealer of their choice. Many graduates receive up to a dozen job offers. Graduates agree to work for an HRADA dealer for at least two years as a condition of the scholarship.
Winners of the $5,000 Drive For The Dream drawing were Kimberly and Raymond Wilson of Virginia Beach. They test drove and had purchased a new vehicle at Priority Chevrolet in Chesapeake.

Pictured  left to right are Wayne Leland Saga Communications, Dave Paulus Max Media, prize winners, George Ranson Hall Automotive and HRADA president,  Lisa Sinclair of Sinclair Communications, and Bennett Zier, Entercom.

About the collaboration, Saga Communications' Wayne Leland said, "At the beginning of the year the HR ADA invited me to join their board as an Allied member. George Ransom the Board President had a vision to grow the scholarship program to unprecedented levels. A subcommittee of the board, Along with Dave Paulus from MaxMedia, came up with this idea to raise money through a test drive program. I contacted the general managers of the other three groups to see if they were willing to invest in the organizations vision. Everybody was quick to join. All of the radio groups saw the potential to be able to help out the organization that represents our largest advertising category and to do some good in the community.  Not only did we help them out as a group, we began to forge relationships that could help grow the radio industry in Hampton Roads."

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(SALES) Groups or Communities -- Which Are you Attracting?

9-25-2013

Twice in the last five days I've had very positive experiences at Starbucks. Oddly, neither of them had to do with the product or service.

I placed my order at the drive-thru, pulled up to pay, and discovered my order was paid for by the person in front of me. Instinctively I wanted to return the favor so I tried to pay for the person behind me but was told that as many as five cars back were all paid for. Luckily there was a sixth car and I paid.

The second incidence happened at a Starbucks in O'Hare airport in Chicago when the man in front me turned around handed me a voucher. He said, "I've used as much as I can, they gave me this yesterday because of a flight delay, it would be a shame to let it go to waste, why don't you take it?" The $14 voucher covered our coffee.

Random acts of kindness; both at Starbucks. Coincidence or Brand Affinity? Did I just get lucky this week, or is Starbucks doing something to encourage such behavior? I was moved by both experiences. I tweeted, I LinkedIn, and I posted on Facebook. Now I'm writing about it here. Free advertising for Starbucks; an unsolicited testimonial and positive feelings tied to an experience they really had nothing to do with -- or did they?

Howard Schultz is the CEO of Starbucks. He was interviewed by USA Today. The article was about Schultz not changing the health insurance coverage for Starbucks employees despite greater costs due to the change in laws, and the fact that most other companies are making changes to "protect" their profitability.

The quote from Howard Schultz that resonated most with me was, "I think we have a greater responsibility beyond just the profit and loss of our business, to do the right thing not only for our employees, but the communities we serve... I say this through the lens of being a CEO of a public company, recognizing that I have a significant fiduciary responsibility to make a profit and build shareholder value. But after 30 years, what I've learned is that we can make a profit and perhaps do even greater by also demonstrating that we mean well in the world."

As a salesperson, you have a personal "brand identity." Are you seen as a person who means well in the world, cares about your clients, or is just out to make a buck? What actions do you take daily, weekly, and consistently to strengthen "your brand"?

Thomas Knoll is the Community Architect at Zappos. He talks about the difference between brands developing loyal crowds that follow them and communities of people that interact. "Crowds don't have a purpose" he said, "Communities do. Crowds show up and get stuff, communities like giving. Where crowds want benefits, communities want to belong. Crowds are powered by inspiration, communities are powered by influence. Crowds are sustained by service, communities are sustained by the story."

In a sales world, measuring dials, contacts, and appointments; presentations, packages, and closes, it can sometimes be difficult to keep the "long view" of your sales career. Intoxicating, and pleasing to the boss, is the package of the day or the short sale that gets immediate revenue on the books.

Do you want to assemble crowds looking for deals and stuff, or do you want to cultivate communities that have common beliefs, common values, and common interests? Ironically, both strategies work. The question is, "Which one is more appealing to you?"  Maybe it's true that nice guys finish last. However, they finish as winners, and most importantly they get to the finish line.

Howard Schultz's approach to health care for his employees is indicative of a company culture, a "brand consistency" whose purpose is to mean well in the world. Somehow paying $3.47 for my Venti Americano rather than $1.00 somewhere else, makes perfect sense.

When you mean well in the world, when you provide a business advantage to your customers, price doesn't seem to be an issue. You will also earn more referrals through word of mouth, and you will be creating communities of customers based on value.

The results are clear. Companies that take the "long view" approach, sellers who develop their "brand identity" around giving and being a "business advantage" to their clients, are ultimately more sustainable, profitable, and certainly more fulfilled than companies or sellers that take the short-term approach. I haven't figured out why companies take the short-view despite the evidence to support the long view. Maybe you have some thoughts on that. Comments encouraged.

Think Big, Make Big Things Happen.

Jeff Schmidt is EVP and Partner with Chris Lytle at Sparque, Inc. You can reach him at, Jeff.Schmidt@Sparque.biz, follow him on Twitter @JeffreyASchmidt, or connect via LinkedIn

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What Do The Big Groups Think Of The Deal?

12-18-2012

Radio group heads we spoke to were in a wait-and-see mode yesterday after the announcement was made that Nielsen would be purchasing Arbitron. Clear Channel Radio CEO John Hogan told Radio Ink, ?We think it?s a step in the right direction that Nielsen recognizes that radio, TV, and digital are the top three critical media to marketers, and that this combination has the potential to offer broader insights and better measurement across multiple platforms." And digital may be the key component to this deal for radio.

Arbitron has consistently stated it's been working on a measurement platform that would give advertisers a true number of radio listeners. That number would include over-the-air and online totals. Everyone agrees that listening is migrating to mobile devices and tablets and without that true combined number that can be easily presented to advertisers in an understandable and reliable presentation, radio pretty much gets robbed of those listeners.

Nielsen CEO David Calhoun spoke a lot about "streaming audio" and the importance of making that measurement platform happen for the radio industry. And Nielson has announced several digital partnerships, including one this week with Twitter, that certainly benefit its TV clients.

Then, of course, there's the Pandora problem. Some on the call yesterday seemed to think the radio industry was giving Arbitron grief about the possibility Arbitron would measure pure-play Internet companies. Radio is Arbitron's Golden Goose and Pandora's stated objective is too take revenue away from radio. Seems quite logical the radio industry would have a little problem with Arbitron providing a service to a direct competitor when it was radio that helped build a company that was ultimately sold for $1.2-plus billion.

Here's what soon-to-be Arbitron CEO Sean Creamer said about the Internet "disrupters." "Arbitron's job is to measure radio no matter how radio is defined. We need to measure pure-plays. We never said we would not measure anyone." Creamer said the marketplace is working out how radio is defined, clearly leaving the door open to measure Pandora and all other Internet radio companies.

At the end of the day, the major issues that the radio industry wants Arbitron to fix are still on the table. They are small sample sizes, wild swings in the data, and cross-platform measurement. Not to mention the cost. If those issues get fixed by Nielsen and the revenue that comes to radio increases, December 18 will have been a good day for radio. If one or two years from now the Arbitron Radio Advisory Council is still concerned about the same issues it seems its been concerned about for years, December 18 will go down in the record books as just another day.

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(SALES) Are Radio Groups Mis-Training Sellers?

10-16-2012

When I started selling radio advertising back in the Paleolithic Era (1979), the first thing my sales manager did was hand me one of Jason Jennings? books, which I promptly "devoured." As I moved on to each station, my managers continued to give me the good stuff, exposing me to the likes of Chris Lytle, Irwin Pollak, Pam Lontos and, of course, RAB sales training materials. One even fed me Roger Dawson, the great British expert on negotiating. When I became a general manager, I fed my troops? heads as well. We did it because we had to. Radio had to fight for every dollar it got. If you want the prize, you have to train hard for it.

Has Radio Derailed Training?
What happened to the training initiative? I recently queried several State Broadcasters? Associations on the subject of training. A few were dabbling in online training programs?you know, the ones everyone bails out on when their Blackberry or Smartphone rings. I used to help train new folks at one of the rep firms?face to face. As for the stations themselves, well, I?m hard pressed to believe there?s much training going on. The first words out of the mouths of every sales rep that visits our agency are, ?Our 25-54 numbers are?? Excuse me, but you didn?t ask me if that was even my target demo. As it happens, our agency does a lot of 55-plus business. These days, the next words are, ?We have a great digital package?? But, is your audience that digitally active? Not always.

Somewhere, as big consolidated radio groups began to dominate the landscape, the focus changed. As stations were forced to pay the debt service on their acquisitions, they shifted their model. Sales managers turned their staffs into ?inventory managers.? Sorry, but that?s not really your sellers? job. As a radio seller, your primary job is to sell your clients? inventory. In the process, you?ll get yours sold. What a concept.

Neither agencies nor direct clients really want to know about your antenna height, your personalities, your wattage, your contests. So what do we care about? We care about your audience?s buying power and their level of engagement with your station. If your station cumes 250,000 and each listener spends an average of $40,000 a year in your marketplace, then your audience is spending $10,000,000,000 (yes, that?s ten billion!) dollars a year. Your only questions to the prospect should be, ?How much of that would you like them to spend with you? And how much are you willing and able to invest to get your (un)fair share of that??

The radio industry trains people to sell and trains them how to sell radio. It doesn?t train them on how business works and on how to make advertising work. Young people are hired into the industry and often have no business experience. They don?t understand the client?s needs because they?ve never run a business. And, the management attitude is, ?Copy? Don?t worry about it; that?s the agency?s job. Just get the order.? But if the agency doesn?t really know your audience and the copy approach or the production (execution style) doesn?t resonate with your audience, the campaign bombs and you lose the account. If we trained our sellers with a grounding in business and in advertising, we would increase our client retention rate. Now, that?s a beautiful thing.

Barry Cohen is the Managing Member of AdLab Media Communications, LLC in Clifton, NJ. (www.adlabcreative.com)  He is also the author of "10 Ways to Screw Up an Ad Campaign," and co-author of "Startup Smarts." He has conducted two RAB workshops and served as a panelist at the Mid-year Radio Symposium. Contact: barry@adlabcreative.com  Ph: 973-472-6304

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NAB Says Groups Distorting FM Chip Position

2-7-2012

The NAB says the Consumer Electronics Association and the Wirelss Association (also known as CTIA) are being less than truthful when talking about the FM Chip issue. NAB Executive VP of Communications Dennis Wharton says the groups sent a letter to the Congressional Black Caucus claiming broadcasters are looking for FM chips to be mandated in cellphones and that just isn't true. Broadcasters want the chip included in all cellphones because they say it's a safety issue for consumers who need the kind of community servicethat only radio can deliver in times of an emergency.

Wharton writes, "It's disappointing that CEA, CTIA and musicFirst are falsely claiming that NAB is seeking a mandated radio chip in cellphones. We have said repeatedly to these organizations that NAB supports a market solution to this issue, and even CTIA admits as much in the attached fact sheet."

Organizations opposed to the FM chip idea, such as the CTIA, say "as devices continue to evolve, chip and antenna space is at a premium. Requiring that devices carry an FM chip may foreclose opportunities to include other functionality that may be more highly valued by consumers and harm competition among device makers by limiting opportunities for differentiation. NAB is already well aware that there are dozens of mobile devices currently offered with enabled FM radio. Literally dozens of phones ? including the latest and hottest-selling smartphones ? are offered with enabled FM radio and that number continues to grow, as NAB itself acknowledges."

Wharton says chip opponents are distorting the NAB's position. "CEA, CTIA and musicFirst are doing a disservice to policymakers who deserve open and honest information. From a public safety perspective alone, voluntary introduction of radio chips in cellphones makes perfect sense. It would be our hope that when it comes to saving lives in times of emergency, our friends at CEA, CTIA and musicFirst would move beyond intimidation tactics and special interest politics and encourage a substantive debate on the merits of this issue."

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