Ep 28 Radio Advertising in 2018

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Kym: Welcome  to  Today’s  Marketing  Strategy  Show!

The  Marketing  Strategy  Show  is  all  about  getting  the  right  marketing  for  your  business.

In  our  Marketing  Strategy  episodes,  we  pull  back  the  curtain  with  an  expert  on  a  specialised  topic  or  someone  who  has  great  experience  with  the  topic.

And  today,  we  are  going  to  look  at  doing  something  a  little  different  as  we  are  going  to  focus  on  what  some  may  say  is  an  old  school  marketing  channel  – traditional  media  – and  in  particular  Radio  Advertising .

Why?  Because  you  need  a  broad  range  of  marketing  strategies  to  reach  your  prospects  and  even your  customers.  You  need  a  multi-channel  approach  that  doesn’t  rely  on  the  whims  of  Facebook  or  Google  that  change  their  algorithms  so  your  content  or  listing  no  longer  appears.

You  also  need  to  blend  digital  and  social  with  traditional  marketing  and  sales  strategies.

Finally,  every  business  is  different  and  their  prospective  customer  base  is  different.  So  you  need  to  be  present  where  you  customers  are  – whether it be on radio,  in  website  searches  or  on  social  media channels.

So  today,  I’m  lucky  to  have  literally  one  of  Australia’s  most  experienced  Radio  Advertising  gurus  –  Brian  Blacklock  from  the  Macquarie Network  to  talk  us  through  what’s  changed  in  Radio  Advertising  and  how  it’s  still  very  relevant  today  for  many  businesses.  But  more  importantly  what  you  need to  do  when assessing  if  radio is  right  for  you  and  how  to  make  it  successful.

Brian  are  you  there…..

Brian: Yup Kym, I am. Thanks very much for inviting me.

Kym: No worries at all! Glad to have you on board. Look, we might kick off a little bit with a Brian Blacklock journey not the whole journey from once upon a time but a bit of your background on radio. You’ve got a long history in radio, haven’t you?

Brian: It’s a long history since it’s pretty much other than a short period of driving a tractor when I was about 19.

Kym: Hahaha!

Brian: I’ve done radio and I’m into my 37^th year now in the industry and have worked across all states in direct and with advertising agencies and worked in pretty much every department of a radio station other than engineering. I have no idea what those blokes do.

Kym: Hahaha! (2:49)

Brian: (2:50) And finance but so… I pretty much had the opportunity to be on air to go and sell to customers to record their ads, to write their ads. So, you know, I feel like I have fairly good knowledge of how the industry works.

Kym: So, over that 37 years, you have obviously seen a bucket-load of changes. I mean, you and I are talking before this interview today about how the pundits have been saying I think it was 1950 something in that radio’s dead?

Brian: I, people have been predicting the death of radio since 1956 when television first came to Australia. The thing about radio is that it’s always been able to adapt and improvise and overcome whatever situation has been thrown out.

With television, radio went from being a night time meeting where people sat around the radio and listened to being very much a daytime media. And then it evolved over the years and there’s popular music through the 60’s and someone took off. You started to get things like top 40 radio stations and they found a niche. And then from there, you sort of grew into the other’s genre such as talkback and rock stations and so on.

And then, FM coming along you know. People sort of predicted when people started carrying their own portable devices like you remember the old Sony Walkman and things like that. Then people would stop listening to radio and listen to that. Well they didn’t, in fact radio went from strength to strength. And part of that reason is one of the great strengths of radio which is the ability that you don’t have to curate your own music. It’s done for you.

(4.19) There are so many genres and formats to choose from that there’s going to be something there. Also, there’s very much a personal relationship that you have with your radio station and your favourite radio presenters which is far more personal than you have with any other medium with the possible exception of magazines. We still get that kind of, this is my mag and all those read it kind of feeling. And even all the way through videos shows, such as MTV and then YouTube and so on, radio has still has gone from strength to strength. In fact, the most recent study that has just been released has shown (5:00) that radio has increased audience in Australia for the last 5 consecutive years and it’s actually still growing in the 10-17 demographics so that young demographic that you think would be you know, more switched on to more digital delivery of their media or their music or whatever they are after are still tuning in to commercial radio because of all those points that I mentioned before – its relevance. And even with the advent of the music streaming services, people would start to think, well, surely radios losing audience to them and it’s not. Radio is still, of all listening that’s done in Australia to… Well, all listening I suppose 65% of it is still done to radio.

The next highest level is your own music, so stuff you have on your phone or if you still play CDs or what. Well, that’s the next highest at 13%. And all of the streaming services combined and Pandora, Spotify, I heart, the whole lot only total up to 11%. So, 65% (radio) is still the most listened to source of audio in Australia.

Kym: Look, I think that’s really interesting. I know from a personal viewpoint when I was a young kid, I used to listen to radio at night and I have always been I guess attracted to radio and podcast for the same reason. I think that whole auditory type thing whether be with earphones in or radio on. It’s really a more engaging experience than watching tv or googling something (6:35).

Brian: (6:36) Very much! Because you form an opinion in your mind of what’s going on in the background. They used to call it a theater of the mind and there’s a number of great things here. I searched that on Google, you find a couple of great examples by Stan Freberg who’s an American comedian and broadcaster. He can demonstrate the theater of the mind but you instantly picture in your mind what the person looks like that’s talking through the radio. And you identify very much with them or you argue with them yourself.

Kym: Hahaha!

Brian: You think the person you like. That’s stupid. And so, you said some people engage with it and it’s very much of a one on one relationship that you form with the radio station which is what – still makes it a very very effective advertising medium.

Kym: Yeah. So it’s bit like a reading a book in the same ways that you imagine the characters and you put a face to them. And I guess that you must see this a lot on radio when people hear a radio personality and then see them in the flesh, I didn’t think you would look like that. Hahaha!

Brian: That’s what they’re saying. You’ve got a great head for radio. (7:38)

Kym: Hahaha! I know I have, that’s why I’m doing a podcast mate. Hahaha!

Kym: So, tell me in terms of radio advertising. What’s changed? Has it become a lot more fragmented, a lot more targeted or not integrated with other channels? What’s changed on radio?

Brian: Okay. Well, the essential things of radio haven‘t changed. And that is, you need to have a sufficient reach, the right frequency and the right message in order to get a response back. You are correct when you say there are now a lot more opportunities to do that. So, let’s say back in the 80’s in say Sydney or Melbourne, you might have had a choice of maybe 5 or 6 radio stations that set proper broadcast so you can reach a large section of the correlation. It is more fragmented with AM and FM radio stations and DAB+ (Digital Audio Broadcasting). But each of them do have a very very strong niche audience. And some of the big radio stations are still pulling weekly audiences of around a million people.

The share number that you often hear is actually just a share of the listening that’s been done, it’s an algorithm that they run. So you might have stations that have high number of listeners who don’t listen for very long and then you’ve got say station like 2GB that I work for has a lesser number but it’s still more than 600,000 different listeners a week but they listen for a long period of time.

So, the way you advertise on say KIIS FM that has close to a million weekly listeners, you are tuning in and out a lot, you would need theoretically more commercials to be able to get the effective frequency that you need. That is frequency being the number of times that the message is heard on average.

Kym: Yup!

Brian: And then you would, at 2GB where the listeners are listening for much longer. And then you’ve got to take into account demographics. So, a station like KIIS in Sydney and Melbourne (9:37) for that matter (9:38) is targeting an audience of females largely, aged somewhere between 30 and 49 or 45 whereas at 2GB is targeting more slightly males skew and probably more 45 to 65 is the core demographic. So, each station knows who they’re targeting. So, they program to that audience and that’s part of the job I suppose of an advertiser is to sort of discern where is my target audience and what stations or combination of stations are going to work best to reach that target demographic.

Kym: And I guess that comes back to the fact that a lot of businesses that struggle with that. They actually need to know who the target demographic is, to start with, hahaha!

Brian: I can give you a… There was a Len Potts who was one of the great advertising gurus. He was a Kiwi guy and he ended up becoming Head of Worldwide Creative Director for Saatchi & Saatchi in London. And he gave me one time a very very simple couple of questions that he said he used to base entire marketing strategies on.

The first question is to ask yourself, who is my customer and what is their problem? And when you say that’s a simple question but you need to really drill down who is my customer. It’s not people, age 25-54. 25 to 54 is a family reunion not a demographic.

Kym: Hahaha!

Brian: So, my ideal customer, my central customer is a woman. She’s 42. She has 2 kids. She works part-time. Her husband works in the city. So, you really drill down as to who is that person. And then the next part of that first question is what is their problem, what’s her problem? And so, you got to think about… Well, in the context of what you are providing is a product or service, what is her problem? So, it might be she’s confused by the choices that there are in healthfunds or she doesn’t know where she can shop online safely for certain goods. Whatever the problem is. So, you ask that part of the question first. That’s the first. Who is my customer and what’s the problem?

The second question to ask is, what is the one thing I can say that will solve that problem. So, it’s not a multiple of things and you know, people love to chuck in who’d been here for 30 years and we’ve got personal service and all that stuff. It’s irrelevant. What is the key thing in your business or the key attribute or answer that you have that will solve that problem that that particular person has.

Then, once you decided what that is and it’s got to be unique and it’s got to be something that’s pretty much only available through you. And that’s what unique pretty much means. Ahaha!

Kym: Hahaha!

Brian: So, the next question to ask yourself is why should she believe me? Or why should the person believe me? Because at that stage, you really sort of hold a mirror up to yourself and say, well, are we just like our competitors. Is there something here that I’m going to be able to offer that’s going to set me apart that’s going to solve that problem. So, you need to think of how I can build that into the strategy.

Kym: Yes!

Brian: The reason is just to pick one out, the winner of the Canstar Blue Award, for instance. Says okay, well, in order to win that award, you’ve got to be fair dinkham and you’ve got to have achieved over a period of time . (13:07)

Kym: (13:09) Or we serve 10,000 customers or whatever it might be. Some sort…

Brian: Exactly!

Kym: Yeah!

Brian: Exactly, we’ve now got 10,000 people, we can’t be wrong that sort of thing,. So that’s for why should I believe you. And then the final question that you need to ask yourself is how do I want them to feel? That’s the final bit. Do you want them to feel relieved? Do you want them to feel anxious in the sense of a call to action. What’s the emotion that you want them to feel? That there, those four questions – Who’s my customer and what’s their problem? What’s the one thing I can tell them they’ll solve their problem? Why should they believe me? How do I want them to feel? That’s 4 questions.

Is the basis for writing any great radio commercial and I’ll once again give credit to the late Len Pots, a lot most successful campaigns That I’ve ever seen. So, that’s it. Once you got that, that will even help you decide on which is the best radio station or mix of stations to complement with your other media because I think we in radio now very much realize that we are not the be all and end all (14:16) And that we are part of, quite a complex media landscape and we work well with other me. We need to… What we do understand what I roll is which is once again the delivery of reach and frequency in the target demographic and with the call to action. And so, depending on what your current media mix is, is how does radio play the part in that.

And one of the things that we work particularly well with these online. You know, study that was done by Colmar Brunton in I think it was 2016. So, it’s only a couple of years old. They did a return of investment test across main media. And what they found that in terms of return of investment on the subjects that they chose over a 12-month period. The average rate of return on radio was 17%. Our 17% ROI, television is 13%. And online, digital advertising and all its forms was 14%. So, radio actually outperformed digital but when you combined radio and digital, that ROI jumps to 23%.

Kym: Wow!

Brian: So, most people are doing some form of digital advertising now whether it’s display or whether it’s paid search or using Facebook or whatever. When you can combine the two, run them at the same time, they amplify each other. So, if you kind of think of it as a massive funnel. And when you’re on radio, you are chucking a whole stack of people into that funnel. And then when they go and do the search because they are looking mostly for your name, the chances of them finding your name on a Google search much much greater because that will identify with something that already heard. And if you do paid search on Google, if you can buy keywords out of your radio ads, so if you have words in your ads that are particular to you and you buy them, you bid for those words just as part of the digital buying process, then once again, your rates of success go absolutely through the roof.

I know an example of a company without giving them away that they run seminars in order to generate leads. It’s quite an intimate product that they’re selling. So, when they were just doing radio alone, they we’re getting something like a 5% rate of people, in terms of people reached responding to the ad, doing digital alone now getting the next digital average of .1%. When the radio and digital combined, so radio and search combined, it jumped to 22% return on the digital performance. (17:07)

(17:08) So, from .1 to 22% click through rate which ended up resulting in, obviously them, having to… And actually cost us money because they end up cancelling the campaign a week and a half in because they’d fully subscribed. And so, that’s a real recent phenomenon where of the last couple of years, we are able to combine radio and digital and get those sorts of incredible, measurable results.

Kym: I think that’s really an interesting point you raise there because the trouble with… Well, AdWords is fantastic medium to use. The problem with AdWords is you are going to reach people who are searching for that keyword at that point in time whereas with radio already more broadcast type media reaching people aren’t necessary searching for that keyword or that haven’t got around to the search or they haven’t gone on to Google or whatever. You are actually reaching a much broader audience, aren’t you.

Brian: Yeah, exactly right. And radio is such a medium as I said before, that you can consume whilst you’re doing other things. And you’re not always… Well, while listening you’re not necessarily tuned in but if you are in the market for a new Mercedes and an ad came on a radio for Mercedes Benz Parramatta. You would tune in to that. So, even if you are not in the market for a new car, it’s subliminally getting onto your mind shelf because studies have shown in advertising that people sort of prioritise. If I was to ask you a brand of anything, you probably rattle off 1 or 2 possibly 3 but after that, it’s not there. And so, if you over a long period of time have been branding as a particular model of car or make or product or brand of toothpaste or whatever. Over time as the old Colgate ads that it does get in and it sits in your mind shelf so that when you go to actually become a customer and select, you will likely to go and select from number 1,2 or 3 on your mind shelf as a first point. So, radio does that. It provides long-term positioning on a mind shelf and you can advertise long-term on radio far more cost-effectively that you can see on TV or in other forms of broadcast media. Because of the low unit rate etcetera and a low production cost etc.

And then when it comes to call to action, you can very quickly do that and implement a call to action strategy which then gets people into that search mode. So, they go into as I said before the top of the funnel, and when they get into down and dirty on the search, if you done the job right in terms of getting the words right and getting the buying right on AdWords then your chances of performance is going through the roof are multiples of what would they have been otherwise.

Kym: Absolutely! Because when you are doing the search, you’ve got a couple organic, where you have got 2 ads at the top, we got organic stuff underneath, you got some search on the right, you still got to choose on that search engine result page which of those 6 ads are you going to click on. And I guess if you created awareness of that product, that service through radio advertising, you’re going to click on that one logically because it’s top of mind. There’s no difference if you are going to supermarket, right?

Brian: Yeah, exactly! That’s the one that, you got to grab the one that you are familiar with.

Kym: Yeah. I’d like to come back if I can.  There was two points you raised earlier, I love that formula by the way. If you got a document or something I’ll put in the show notes. I think, I’ve otherwise we’ll just put the points in there but there are 2 points you raised that I thought really resonated with me about radio. The first one was where you talked about credibility. I think if you advertise you on a radio station that they like the programs, inherently, even it’s not a red ad, there’s some credibility attached that ad because it’s appearing in that program on that station because the relationship with the listener is there. (21:07)

Brian: (21:08) Absolutely! That’s why you form a person relationship with a radio station and with radio presenters. Let’s see get two people at the opposite ends Kyle Sandilands and Alan Jones.

Kym: Yup!

Brian: You couldn’t get two more apart people in terms of the way that they go about broadcasting but they both have that unique following where people who listen to Kyle or listen to Alan are fans. But sometimes they’re not, sometimes they’re listening in to be offended or to be outraged.

Kym: Hahaha! People like to do that these days, don’t they?

Brian: Yeah but the thing is the same as I said when you listen to the radio, you are either getting along and loving what you are listening to or you’re not. And both of them elicit some sort of the emotional response that makes you more susceptible to the messaging that comes forward. As I said before, you don’t have a favorite television station. You’re not a channel 7 fan, you are fan of shows, particular shows on that network that you might also be on another network whereas with radio, you have your favorite radio station. And everybody has their favorite radio station and it’s a trusted friend and it’s… That you feel because it’s live. It’s local and it’s topical and it’s targeted that you feel part of it. That’s why people have long-term relationships with radio stations and you know stay listeners for years and years. And why people like both Kyle and Alan have been a top of their game for 20 or 30 years because of that long-term relationship that they have.

Kym: I guess the second part that the fourth point in your formula was how do you want people feel after they hear or after they do it. And you don’t get that sort of emotional response from an online ad. Video, maybe? But certainly you don’t get that emotional response and because you’re on radio with that intimate type of relationship. You have an emotional response or are engaging with it, aren’t you?

Brian: Yeah, it all might be depending on what’s being advertised that the emotion could be everything from, god I’ve got to get on this now because it ends tomorrow to you know what I’m going to really think about that and when the time comes, I’m going to go and talk to these guys because I trust them or whatever, you know. And so, it’s the emotion that you want your potential customers to have in relation to you. I know, I think I’ll give a good example I’ll say Harvey Norman as they are the biggest advertiser on all media, I think, in Australia. And every single one of their ads is call to action. They never do branding which is fine. That in fact, the fact that they’re always got an offer is in fact their brand.

Kym: Yup.

Brian: And so, the feeling you get if you’re in the market when you hear our Harvey Norman ad, if they’re talking about flat screen TV’s – the biggest and best and you can get 5 years interest free. If you are in the market, you are saying to yourself, I’m going to get in there before that 5 years interest free ends because I want one of those TV’s.

Kym: Yeah yeah.

Brian: On the other end of the scale just trying to think of… Well, there’s another advertiser a car dealer based out in Penrith who never did-call to action. All she ever did was talk about her brands, her 5 acres of cars and what a great place it was to shop and she was part of the ads and so… (24:30) And they’ve (24:31) sort of sold cars to generations of families. And so you have this feeling all the while that geez, if I need to buy a car, I might check these guys out whenever it’s done a very long period of time. So that’s sort of feeling that we talked about before and how do you want to be positioned on how do you want your customers to feel about it. (24:50)

(24:51) Kym: It also just occurred to me as well Brian that one of the biggest challenges with advertisers today is adblocking. Digital TV (you’re probably like me) if you’re watching TV shows, it’s probably recorded, you skip through the Ad and you never watched it. You can’t adblock radio?

Brian: No, you can’t or you can flick, you know, in fact, that’s why, some of the younger targeted radio stations actually have what we call “High Queue” with their volume, so high number of different listeners but they won’t listen for a long period of time that’s because being a bit more fickle if a song comes on that they don’t like they’ll flick so they’ll go from KIIS to Nova or whatever and similarly if an Ad what comes out on their mind flick as well but as I said earlier with that study that was done recently, more than about 2/3 listens to radio are open to the advertising messages so they’re not likely to flick and the older you get the more tolerant you become strangely, it seems to be sort of the opposite but you will sit through a block of ads, a song or even a topic being presented by a talk host that you’re not particularly into in order you get to the next one (26:07)

Kym: Yeah

Brian: And so, you may or you may not be influenced by an Ad depending if you’re in the market or not or if you’re in the fringe of getting into market even when you’re not particularly engaged with what’s happening on the radio. So, less likely for the people, skipping and blocking on radio than a there are and of course programmers get very clever in dragging people through so like in television they’ll tease what’s coming up next and make you want to sit there and wait for what’s coming up after the break. So, that is the strategy there but you’re right, people consume radio live and the opportunities to record and block as you say much less than they are on television. (27:03)

Kym: The other thing I guess we touched on very, very briefly call to action. I hear and see a lot of Ads more particularly in print more than radio where a person is just talking about let’s say they are law firms for example or an IT company or whatever they might be, they’re just talking about their products and services and it doesn’t have that formula you spoke about. Are these days the call to action to visit my website? What are the main calls to action that you are seeing that people should be focusing on? Does it have to have and offer in there for example like the Harvey Norman thing of getting in there for five years’ interest free and act? (27:40)

Brian: Well again, it depends on what you are about. If you’re a low unit turnover but a high yield item, in other words an expensive item that takes some, has a long in sales cycle like a car but it depends also. You can also swing into call to action mode if you’ve got the opportunity to shift or the need to shift products at a discount or at some sort of bonus you can switch in to call to action but a good one I would say a servicing like a plumber or say a funeral director, you only need when you need one. And not a lot of point, a plumber advertising some kind of call to action specials. So, what a plumber has to do is build that trust in that reputation on radio, online, whichever way they are advertising over a lengthy period of time so it gets on that mind shelf that I mentioned before. Whereas if you are having a call to action campaign such as the click frenzy that was just on the other day you’ve only got the, there’s 90% off for a certain item and its between a certain hours and people will respond. So, it depends on what your objective is. Is it to get immediate sales over a short period of time? Remember, for a call to action campaign, the call to action has to be believable and it has to be deliverable and it has to be for a limited time even though as I’ve said before Harvey Norman always have a call to action, their call to action is always different. So, they change it pretty much every week but if you are having a sale or a call to action event then it has to be all of those things it has going to be deliverable, believable and has to be for a limited time because if you continue on with what people thought was only a limited sale period and they moved and it was still available 2 -3 weeks later then your credibility starts to become tested there.

So, consistency in brand message and then that delivery of that call to action is pretty critical and again if you’ve got an account manager at a radio station, they should be able to work that through with you and if they don’t get another radio network. (29:56)

Kym: Or another rep

Brian: I’d probably, 15 years ago it was very much a churn and burn mentality. When there was plenty of business and not may radio stations to go around, and it’s certainly changed from before. Then, what you mentioned before what was one of the big changes I think was the professionalism now of advertising sales people direct ad agencies was knowledge of all media and their understanding of radios role in that media mix and their ability to understand what businesses problems or opportunity is and to be able to tailor a campaign to achieve that. And that’s the thing, you’ve got to really understand before go into any campaign, what are my objectives? What am I trying to achieve here? A lot of people say I just want a brand. Well, no you don’t. If you’re spending x amount of money on branding it’s got to do a job for you. So, it’s got to be increasing your market share or its got to be increasing your web hits or your floor count. It has to be measurable and you have to be able to sit there and say these are the parameters in which I’m going to judge this campaign and then you’ve got to be hold the media accountable to because at the end of the day, all we can do is deliver leads we can’t make people come in and buy something off you. All we can do is get him in the door and get them interested in clicking on you. At the end of the day, you’ve got to be able to deliver. So, there’s a number in it but as I started off by saying your account manager should be able to deliver those things and if they don’t, then ask for another account manager. (31:38)

Kym: So really if you’re starting to look at radio as a possible option, I guess, you need to think about where it’s going to fit. First, we’ve got to identify who your customers are because you want to find the right radio station and the right program for those customers I guess that’s the first thing. The second thing is you need to think about the structure of what the message is and that’s what we talked about of those four points or five points wasn’t it? What was the guy’s name again? The advertising guy? (32:07)

Brian: Len Pots

(32:10) Kym: We’ll put him in the show notes. Think about that structure and I guess the final thing is what is the action that you them want to take up afterwards? So, you want them to feel great afterwards but what is it you want to achieve? Is it get website clicks? Is it sell this product? Is it to launch this? What is your main message?

(32:26) Brian: That’s right and that’s you know, really, I guess, ironically digital but online has helped radios stay very powerful as a medium because back in the day it was, you’re trying to pack a phone number in to a radio station and nobody puts numbers on radio ads, right? So, if you are doing it, stop! Because people just don’t remember it. I barely remember my own mobile number because you don’t need to. But what people need to understand is how do i get in touch with you the best way. For some people, it is a destination but for most people now, it’s check us out on our website. (33:04)

Kym: You don’t even have to say www.

Brian: Yeah, Harvey Norman com .au or whatever. You don’t even have to do the .com.au, just search Harvey Norman. That’s all you need to say in your Ad and people are very attune now to say, “that sounds interesting, I want more information and off they go. So, as I said radio piece just throws him at the top of the funnel and then they go through their selection process to buy select who they are going to deal with (33:15)

Kym: That’s a very interesting point you made there. So, if you’re going to run a radio Ad and same with any media I guess and take them to a website, you’ve got to make sure that website references it somehow, haven’t you? (33:45)

Brian: Yes. And there were so many awful websites out there. You’ve got to invest in a good website. If you are advertising a thing which might be you want people to call the phone number better be on the front and center of your webpage and you better have that linked, some sort of tracking mechanism that actually monitors the call as they come in. Similarly, if it’s an offer or if you want them to do something, it’s going to be on a website if you’re driving them to that because anything that’s below what they’d call the fold, everybody would know what that is (34:25)

Kym: What you see on the screen, yep.

Brian: Very few people will go below that because their patience is short, they’re searching, they’re accumulating information. So, if you’re advertising something it’s got to be front and center when they first go to your site. (34:39)

Kym: Yeah, I almost like to say to people, I mean in Google Adwords if you don’t land them on a page that’s relevant to the ad, you’d actually get penalized and pay more for it unfortunately but a lot of advertising people their home page won’t even mentioned what it is they are advertising. So, people it’s that consistency you spoke about right? So, I’m talking about this product, this service, this benefit i offer on a radio ad I go to their website it doesn’t even mentioned the same thing. (35:03)

Brian: Yeah, exactly. Sometimes you’ll strike staff within an advertiser you don’t even know that the advertising has been done and what they’re saying so often people are brief within the business who respond as well and say there’s any number of services where you can track phone calls coming to a business. You can actually listen back to how your staff are handling those calls and whether or not they’re promoting what you are trying to promote in terms of your advertising. You’re right! Consistency is key in everything. So, your branding from the way your business looks on the street or online, through to the way your ads sound and the way the people present themselves in the business has to be consistent all the way through. You know we’re getting into a whole new area here of things like what’s business’ purpose and all that sort of stuff but I think sometimes the message is can become confused and sometimes contradictory. So, you’ve got to really think about who are we, what do we stand for, how do we want to be seen and then be consistent in that delivery (36:17)

Kym: Brian it’s been, its been fascinating hearing how radio has changed. I think no matter what the medium is: digital, social channel. We’re in a multi-channel world. You can’t just rely on one way to get business or one way to reach customers because everything is so fragmented these days. So, it’s really a question on you taking a look at that. So Brian, if someone wants to take a look at radio, how can they connect with you for example? (36:42)

Brian: Well, there’s 2 ways. One is I just was going to recommend the Commercial Radio Australia website (MAKE LINK). So, if you just search Commercial Radio Australia it will take you to the website. Most of the stuff I’ve talked about today in terms of stats is all in there. And they also have a planning tool. I think you can just punch in some basic information about who you want to talk to in terms of audience and so on then I think (I haven’t look out the planning thing for a while) but I think it’s comes back with them you should talk to the following (37:16)

Kym: Excellent!

Brian: Other than that, just think about, just contact a radio station and speak to the sales people there and they will certainly send you on the right direction. When you think about it at around Australia, every market has pretty much the same structure in terms of radio stations you have. Younger targeted stations who or you can tell them by listening to their music. Have a look say the KIIS and the hit networks you’d be targeting younger people and even the Nova networks, the Triple M and Gold or WSFM networks. They sort of targeting that. So, baby boomer, younger, GenX type people get the talk, the news talk radio stations and there’s a couple of older music stations in various markets as well who are also targeting that sort of 50-65 sort of demographic. Who you don’t discount because they’re the ones with the disposable cash and funnily enough. A lot of marketers particularly and I strike on this all the time. Think that people are rusted on to their brands about the age of 35 and I’m about to turn 57 and I’m happily changing brands all of the time if it’s offering me a better experience. So, the days of thinking that somebody over 55 is not worth talking to is completely wrong because you’d be in the same boat “Kym, we’ve have a lot more money we had in our 30’s (38:57)

Kym: I think that’s the challenge these days because there is so much social opinions and chatter around and recommendations primarily via social media that you hear people’s opinions more So social impression is very important but before the old school was showing you and ad, you’d respond if you like it, you’d stick with it. Well those days are literally gone. (39:20)

Brian: Yeah, brand loyalty is not what used to be for sure and as I said, I’m more than happy to be influenced to switch a brand as are all of my contemporaries, 55 year-olds are very different now to what they were 15-20 years ago. (39:35)

Kym: Hundred percent. Brian It’s been an absolute pleasure to have you on The Marketing Strategy Show. Thank you so much for that insight into how the radio changed. I think like lot of lot of people say, I think very often pushed by people with their own media agendas I can say that. Email is dead as well but still the most effective method reaching B2B and radio no doubt is a very effective method for reaching people. Thanks again Brian and I appreciate your time. (39:59)

Brian: You’re welcome Kym, Good on ya.