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John Parikhal: How To Profit From Change

2011-06-16T17:42:00.010-04:00

Last month, John Parikhal of Joint Communications spoke at the annual British Columbia Association of Broadcasters convention about the opportunities of digital media and how all broadcasters can profit from the change digital media provides. BroadcastDialogue magazine covered his speech and wrote the following article abut it:

Once upon a time, life was easy.

Radio was the theatre of the mind. Families gathered around the television set. Selling radio and television advertising happened more often on the golf course or over lunches than via phone calls or e-mails. Companies planned three, five, 10 years down the road.

Life was predictable.

Life has changed!

At the recent British Columbia Association of Broadcasters convention, John Parikhal of Joint Communications talked about the causes of the media jungle: tech earthquakes, connected customers and “Googley” advertisers.

The tremors of tech earthquakes are felt throughout the industry. Things are faster: mobile, gathering, locating, processing. Things are getting easier: consuming, connecting, engaging, creating. Things are disintermediated: the middle disappears, the “broad” in broadcast is gone.

If you don’t like what you see or hear, you go somewhere else.

The second shift is the connected customer. Judging from conference participants’ behaviours – that’s YOU, too! Always on. Always connected and in control. Always multitasking, checking e-mails and voice-mails; always filtering – skimming and diving if you see something interesting.
Googley advertisers are confused and nervous because they are not sure how media works anymore. They are everywhere now. They experiment with social networking, try to be friends on Facebook. They want metrics, they want engagement, they want action and they want savings.

Parikhal offered five rules to manage and profit from this tectonic shift:

1. Love your customers.
2. It’s Not about you.
3. Help your advertisers and yourself.
4. Engage, engage, engage.
5. Good enough Isn’t good enough.

The BIG transformational new rule is Good enough isn’t good enough.

Back in the good old days choices were limited. Viewers and listeners were satisfied with the notion of “this is good enough”. Guess what? It’s no longer true because in this new world, people expect excellence, they have vastly more alternatives for their entertainment. The same holds true with customers – they expect excellence as well.

Parikhal’s Rule #1: Love your customers!

Love them! Make it faster. One click and they’re there without waiting. Give them control. Make it easier, don’t let them jump through hoops. Do a usability test for them. Have you tried to load your site? Have you tried to load it on your phone? If it takes more than two seconds, invest in reducing the load speed. You don’t want to lose your customers. Reward your customers, don’t disappoint them. Don’t make somebody listen to your radio station and write down a song at 1:10, 3:10 and 6:10 for a prize to win. Anyone who has the time to do that shouldn’t actually have a job. Don’t disappoint a lot of your listeners when they tried to phone you a thousand times to be the tenth caller.

Don’t block and drop connection and conversation. Let people who want to network with you do that, let them network with their friends through you, make it easy. Learn from the mistake that Michael Eisner did when the Internet first started: He lost the Mickey Mouse Fan Club when he prohibited Mickey fans to use Mickey's likeness on their fan pages online. There were hundreds of Mickey fan clubs. Eisner, said you can’t do that, Disney owns that. He crushed them, destroyed every Mickey Mouse fan club just by not letting people connect and not by facilitating the conversation.

Reward your customers with unexpected joys and hidden surprises. Parikhal mentioned the Ford Taurus into which 50 unexpected things were built without telling customers. Customers would discover these things and be absolutely delighted. “What unexpected joy and hidden surprises can you give your viewers and your listeners?” asked Parikhal.

Parikhal’s Rule #2: It’s not about you!

It’s only about your customers! Their only question is, “What’s in it for me?”. You simply cannot take anything or anyone for granted anymore. There are way too many other entertainment choices and you have to earn your customer every day.

On today’s game, there is no #2. But before puffing your chest, here is the sobering news: #1 doesn’t matter much, either.

Parikhal told the story about a station requiring imaging for a segment that dealt with children having been killed. It insisted that the imaging should deal with the concept of “We’re #1”. The voiceover talent declined and was threatened with being fired. Finally, he got his point across and the imaging said something along these lines: “When bad things happen we’re just like you, angry and confused and just like you we try to understand. That’s why the Channel x news team is working hard to get the news to you fast.”

The only big question your customer ever knows or cares about is what’s in it for me and you have to earn it everyday.

Parikhal’s Rule #3: Help your advertisers and yourself!

Parikhal suggests that this rule represents the biggest opportunity he has seen in this industry in maybe 25 years. Your advertisers need help to conquer the media jungle. They are confused and don’t really know what’s going on.

How? Get a point person in the organization who can answer all questions about media, whether it’s traditional or new. Train and educate all your sales staff and prepare them to cut a path through the jungle. Sell all customer touch points, including streams.

Get real with metrics. Determine how much do you expect the needle to move; on how many people they expect to show up; how much they are expected to spend; and what they expect them to do.

You’ve got to get to know your customers rather than sell a spot whether it’s radio or television. Talk to them about results.

Use iPads for presentations. Parikhal suggests handing it to the customers so that they can push the buttons, so that they’re in control. On top of your advertisers getting the answers they’re looking for, it looks incredibly cool and adds to your reputation that you must be understanding something that I as the advertiser do not.

Help yourself! Measure. Work to improve measurement. Measure every stream and source. Even if it’s not 100%, keep measuring. Think brand and plan a strategy across your platforms. Improve creative. It must create “water cooler talk” - virtually or actually. If your customers don’t send it, if they don’t talk about it, it’s not very good.

Think longer and act faster. Go beyond 90 days. Try it, and if it doesn’t work, get rid of it. If it works, move on.

Parikhal’s Rule #4: Engage, engage, engage!

First thing, meet customer needs, not your needs. Next thing - tell stories. Stories are very powerful. Think Gestalt and discovery. When you leave the middle, people try to close it and other people try and close the circle. They are much more engaged. What you don’t say is more powerful than what you do say, what people discover is much more important than what you tell them.

Give the URL. Engage people and let them discover more about you online. Give them what they want. Get beyond ”the box” and form partnerships.

What it boils down to...

Understand the change: Tech earthquakes aren’t predictable. Understand the connected customers: they’re skimmers and divers, are multitasking all the time, they want to be your friend if they choose to, not because you want them to be. It’s not about you, it’s all about them. “Googley advertisers” are a really good thing because there is nothing better than a scared advertiser. Now you can be the expert, the front person.

Apply the new rules:
Love your customer. Do you really have to love them? The answer is yes. Apple loves its customers. Honda loves its customers. They don’t even need slogans.

It’s not about you. #1 doesn’t matter. It’s all about them.

There are huge opportunities. Help your advertisers and help yourself.

Engage, engage, engage.

By understanding what’s going on out there and applying the rules, you have the opportunity, you’ve got the skills, you’ve got the brains, you’ve got the power – you can profit from this change.

- reprinted with permission from Howard Christensen and Broadcast Dialogue Magazine

Online Radio Streaming Hits Critical Mass

2011-06-16T09:09:00.003-04:00

As reported this morning by the guys at RAMP, they did a little reading during the intermission of last night's Stanley Cup Game 7 of the new Parks Associates/ TargetSpot research study about online radio usage...and make some great points (re-published below):

The old adage says, "Fish where the fish are." Pretty self-explanatory -- if the people you want to reach are somewhere, be where they are and don't wander off in another direction. With that in mind, it's mind-boggling that radio people still aren't acknowledging the draw of Internet radio streaming and not seeing the potential to reach listeners there. In a study that Parks Associates did recently for TargetSpot called Digital Audio Usage Trends: A Highly Engaged Listenership, the research company concluded that digital audio listening has indeed reached critical mass, with 39% of all broadband-equipped American households using Internet radio... though it's important to note that Parks included online simulcasts of terrestrial stations as part of their "Internet radio" figures. Online streaming mirrors broadcast radio usage, with around 80% of respondents consuming 1-7 hours of radio -- both Internet-based and online streams of broadcast stations -- daily on their laptops, desktops and tablets; the only device where online beat transmitter was via smartphones, which topped out at 84%. One bright spot in these figures was that 66% of Internet radio users actually listened to the same amount of -- or more broadcast radio as a result of streaming.

Here's where the money kicks in, so get your salespeople to read this next part: Listeners' ad-response rate was great for Internet radio, with 52% recalling seeing or hearing an ad online, and 40% actually responded to the commercial. Plus, Parks reports that "combining Internet radio with broadcast radio advertising boosts broadcast ad recall and increases response by 3.5 times over broadcast-only rates." Translation: If you're wasting your online stopsets, you're losing valuable revenue that can be used to reinforce your over-the-air spots. It's worth your while to check out the full report and to rally your troops to fish where the fish are -- because smartphones and Internet streaming aren't disappearing.

All Access: With Valerie Geller

2011-05-04T14:58:00.002-04:00

Valerie Geller is a top personality and talent coach for radio. In a nutshell, she helps build great communicators. She started working in newsrooms and eventually worked her way up to Program Director for WABC in New York. Since then, her consultancy has taken her around the world many times over. She's also proven be a highly-sought-after conference and seminar speaker as well as a highly-regarded author.

Her latest book in the Creating Powerful Radio series is titled "Beyond Powerful Radio - A Communicator's Guide to the Internet Age" - is fabulous, blending her own insights with thought pieces from leading radio experts - talent, managers, coaches, consultants, researchers and marketers (including a chapter on "Branding" by Joint Communications' John Parikhal).

AllAccess.com just interviewed her...here are some highlights:

AllAccess: Your new book "Beyond Powerful Radio - A Communicator's Guide to the Internet Age" is now available -- what's new compared to the previous (and still available) "Creating Powerful Radio?" What, and who, is the new book for?

Valerie's reply: Beyond Powerful Radio is for anyone trying to navigate and become a more powerful communicator in the digital age...It's meant to be for a diverse audience of working broadcasters, both managers and talent, and people aspiring to do creative work, manage creative people or market content in any platform.

AllAccess: Speaking of Internet content, are there similarities in producing talk audio content for podcasts or streaming as opposed to broadcast?

Valerie's reply: Powerful, relevant content always wins the day. Good storytelling always works and it applies in any medium. What the internet gives you is the ability to enhance your storytelling by working with the visual component to integrate still images and video with lengthier print pieces with your audio stream or podcast. The internet also offers a new component, but it's not new to talk radio - that's the constant conversation with your audience.

To master the digital world:

1) Adhere to the principles of powerful storytelling.

2) Entertain and inform whether it is live or on-demand.

3) Keep in mind that shows that are downloaded may not be heard right away.

4) Conversely, you should also expect that when there's news of an immediate nature, or a big break in a story, people will still go to their radios, TVs, and computers with the expectation that you will give them the most immediate up-to-the moment information.

To read the rest of the article, click here

Radio Can Expand Client Base By Thinking Media Mix

2011-03-07T17:28:00.003-05:00

Radio Ink posted a good article earlier today that is worth pointing out and sharing with you.

In it, David Gifford writes on why advertisers must still use radio as part of the overall media advertising mix for ad buys.

He also explains why salespeople should know how to sell a mix of media. It's the way successful salespeople are making money these days...not just by only selling your own radio station or cluster. As Radio Ink states, if you are involved with radio sales, this is an article you are going to want to make copies of and pass out to your salespeople for your next sales meeting.

The good news: radio is not dead...if you adapt (eg. innovate) the content and the value of the selling message.

Among the highlights:

Media Mix translates to adding more and different ad media. Adding more ad media increases reach. Increasing reach increases advertising's cost. And overspending on reach media at the expense of driving commercial messages home re-peat-ed-ly represents the biggest mistake in advertising today.

Witness: Whereas Procter & Gamble can afford reach, effective reach, and frequency, even with its $8 billion global ad budget, P&G can not afford "effective frequency” without radio. Inasmuch as radio is advertising's primary frequency medium, Media Mix campaigns need radio!

With advertisers becoming increasingly aware of the importance of Media Mix in all size markets, radio's obvious imperative is to get included in as many Media Mix campaigns as possible. Growth money!...

A proactive, radio-driven Media Mix campaign might include a spot radio schedule, promotions, and/or big event sponsorships, texting and Twitter, website tie-ins linked to prospects' websites, direct mail to your listener database, point-of-purchase merchandising, and partnering with outdoor to help advertisers reach those active Lifestyle consumers when they’re out shopping.

HOW TO SELL MEDIA MIX

1. Target the largest non-radio national/regional/local advertisers who can afford Media Mix.
2. Ask direct non-radio advertisers and media planners if they're open to learning about a new breakthrough approach for media planning.
3. Teach the concept of Media Mix advertising (see below to qualify which ad media apply).
4. Sell ideas and solutions to make that happen.

For the full article, click here.

A Smart Viral Commercial

2011-03-07T16:41:00.003-05:00

Love this online Smart Water commercial...great example of mocking viral videos while creating one. Does this mean 'Jen Aniston' can act as a spokesperson?

How Disruptive Will Spotify Be?

2011-03-06T12:40:00.005-05:00

Greg Nisbet says there is a "natural human compulsion to look for curators, human filters and processors".

That's why he thinks that Spotify and other on-demand services might not be as disruptive as the techno-leaders think they will be.

Good news for radio, storytellers and record company promo people.

More here

Better Design Can Innovate Stagnant Brands

2010-09-24T15:04:00.001-04:00

Even if your form of traditional media or product category is stuck and mired in stagnation, you can find new growth again. Innovation comes not just from ideas or changed paradigms; at the heart of innovation is DESIGN.

Give designers - for example, in radio, this would mean Program Directors - the authority and resources to change the design of your product. This means for everything - from your workflow and staffing to branding and marketing to the product itself. For radio, this includes the on-air product as well as the website and other digital applications.

Too often in the age of corporate ownership and consolidation, mature (and stagnant) products get managed "by de facto committee", where real decisions keep getting deflected upward, downward and elsewhere - delayed for yet another meeting for more discussion and review until the idea finally gets old, stale and killed. For lots of reasons -- including fear, budget, adverse environment against "change", and much more.

Here, in this Ted.com video, new and completely fresh design has helped increase circulation sales for newspapers. Substantially. It required management approval and the courage to try something not ever done in the past nor previously expected from the product. It meant no interference from corporate above.

It meant giving design leaders the power to lead change. It's not about copying what everyone else is doing in a stagnant industry. It's about creating unique value in your marketplace no other product can provide.

Radio can do this, too...it just needs the courage.

The New Rules: A Power Shift Re-Shaping Media

2010-07-05T10:34:00.006-04:00

(republished from the July/August 2010 issue of Broadcast Dialogue Magazine)

John Parikhal, CEO of Joint Communications and author of The Baby Boom says there’s a power shift going on that’s re-shaping the media. As a result, old rules are being changed and new ones are being created.

The good news is that media can profit from the shift.

Five trends shaping everything are:

The demographic disconnect. The demographic shift is from young to old. For the first time, Canada is now producing more older people yet agencies still focus on 25-54s. Also, the population as a whole has much greater diversity.

The disappearing middle. There is nobody in the middle anymore. It is direct, and in a direct communication world it’s entirely different.

The always-on culture. The power shifts from the transmitter with its intrusiveness to the receiver who has the choice of how to do things, how to use information and how to communicate.

The chaos. The chaos is a shift from scarcity of advertising inventory to excess of ad units. Now there are so many different ways to reach people.

The filter factor. The final shift, says Parikhal, is hugely significant. The power shift has gone from reach to engagement. It’s no longer enough to just get to people, you have to get their attention and engage them. Simply buying reach is barely relevant because of this ability to unconsciously and habitually filter out people who’re trying to sell stuff.

So what does this mean?

Boomers are lepers. No one wants to engage them. Nobody seems to do anything for boomers, despite the fact that almost 10% (approximately four million) of the Canadian population is between 55 and 64.

The disappearing middle is almost gone. In its place is the new middleman—either what Parikhal calls “atomized” or “gigantic”. An atomized middleman is one person operating as a reseller or an intermediary on the web. The gigantic middlemen are the likes of Amazon or iTunes. They’re between you and whatever the deal is.

In the always-on culture, people are connected 24/7. Speed beats accuracy. Getting it quickly is more important than getting it right. How often have we heard something to the effect of “Unconfirmed reports say that …”

People like the feeling of being connected. Parikhal’s concern is that we become increasingly sloppy thinkers as a result of the speed at which information is thrown at us. We accept things quickly and don’t check for fact. We live in a “skim and dive” world where we fulfill the “tribe need” and “my need”. We need to know what everybody else is checking out and this is a skim. And then there are people who need details; the divers. Media businesses need to decide to either serve the skimmer or diver; sometimes it’s possible to serve both but not that often.

Parikhal cautions against these two chaos elements: Cost of point and PPM. Cost of point results in commoditizing the industry or, as he says, the death of a thousand cuts. PPM is a disaster, he says, due to the small sample size. Instead of saying that “PPM is here, go with it”, it would be smarter in his opinion to either not participate or increase the sample size.

He advises that educating your advertisers is the best thing you can do. Transparency is here to stay. They want to see whether it works or not. The filter factor means that we don’t even notice advertising anymore. We have a filter for time, for attention and engagement, utility, story, and novelty.

Parikhal describes it this way: “I have a filter for novelty. It wants to be stimulated, with something new and different and it doesn’t last very long. I have a filter for utility, what’s the time, what’s the weather, does the Loonie go up or down today. I have a filter for story where certain kinds of stories really engage me and my filter keeps everything else out. I have a filter for attention and engagement.”

There are a few generational differences — boomers, busters and boomer digerati. Boomers have learned to set filters. When boomers first started watching TV and listening to the radio, commercials were well done and the environment fit, with rock stations selling stereos, top 40 selling bubble gum and Pepsi. They didn’t put up any filters. As people got older and bombarded more and more, they developed the mute button, the channel shifter, the DVR. But every time a boomer turns on a filter, it requires energy, so they usually are angry about the commercials.

Younger listeners and viewers have developed finer filters. Commercials may be blaring but are ignored until they hear something that interests them and they immediately tune into it. This begs the question: 'Who has the power now?' Innovators in radio and television have the power to do something about this. Companies that have really grown had innovation built into their structure.

Parikhal warns that innovation and creation should not be confused. Innovation means making changes to something that already exists by introducing new methods and ideas.

He suggests having a formal innovation plan in place to get innovation baked into the organization. Most important, the best ideas come from the bottom up and not from the top down.

Think about the consequences of people getting older. What do they want, what do they need? Consider becoming a digital middleman. Middlemen look at all the products sold, create blogs, they twitter, they provide information and get a percentage for every sale they make. Re-image your station from scratch by looking at these trends and ask yourself what should my business look like? What talent do I need? Is a digital middle man a new function?

Social Networking vs Email

2010-05-07T13:28:00.001-04:00

As social media has risen the last 5 years, email has lost its leadership for online correspondence, both for overall usage as well as for time spent.

In the latest Morgan Stanley Internet trends report, it contained this eye-popping chart:

Social networking keeps growing and growing while time spent using email is flat. While email won't be going away anytime soon, more and more of it is getting repurposed just for heavier official or corporate/business documentation or simply just for spam.

Another way of looking at it is a division of "private sharing" vs "public sharing".

I encourage you to read the entire Morgan Stanley Internet trends report.

SF Chronicle: Facebook now directs more online users to portals than Google

2010-02-15T17:45:00.003-05:00

Facebook keeps on growing its influence. Looking at some of the latest comparative online web traffic analytics, Facebook is nearly as big for generating daily unique visitors as either Google or Yahoo (click here for Compete.com's results).

And now the San Francisco Chronicle reports Facebook directs more online users to the major portals (like Yahoo and MSN) than Google.

That's big. And that's big influence. Which explains why Google is feeling threatened by social media's powerful growth lately.

Reports Benny Evangelista from the SF Chronicle @SFGate.com today:

A big part of the Facebook experience is how friends and family share Web links to interesting news stories, photos, videos and Internet sites.

This "friend-casting" of information has helped propel Facebook into a major force in directing traffic around the Web.

According to Web measurement firm Compete Inc., Facebook has passed search-engine giant Google to become the top source for traffic to major portals like Yahoo and MSN, and is among the leaders for other types of sites.

This trend is shifting the way Web site operators approach online marketing, even as Google takes steps to move into the social-media world.

Some experts say social media could become the Internet's next search engine.

"People are spending less time navigating the Internet on their own and are now navigating the Internet based on their friends' recommendations or their friends' activities," said Dave Yovanno, chief executive of Gigya Inc., a Palo Alto firm that offers social-media services. "That's one of the big trends we started picking up on probably four or five months ago."

For years, Web content creators had to worry whether they had the proper level of search-engine optimization to make sure search engines listed them among the top results. Now, they have to consider what companies like Gigya offer - social-media optimization.

"Marketers must focus on social marketing in addition to traditional search, as customers have a multi-pronged way of finding information," said Jeremiah Owyang, a Web strategist for the Altimeter Group, a San Mateo consulting firm with clients like Gigya. "The clear-cut channels of yesteryear are now an intricate set of connections."

Using a snapshot of Web traffic from December, Compete's director of online media and search, Jessica Ong, found that 15 percent of traffic to major Web portals like Yahoo, MSN and AOL came from Facebook and MySpace. The lion's share of that traffic, 13 percent came from Facebook.

Google, which has profited handsomely from directing Web surfers to their destinations during the past decade, was third with 7 percent, just behind e-commerce site eBay, which had 7.61 percent. MySpace was fourth with just under 2 percent.

Surprise gain

The numbers proved eye-opening because Google used to dominate most Web-referral categories. "I was surprised to see Facebook has become No. 1," Ong said.

In other categories, Compete's data showed Mountain View's Google still on top, but Palo Alto's Facebook was not far behind. For example, Google accounted for 21.3 percent of referrals to sites catering to movie fans, but Facebook was second with 12.4 percent. And in a video category, Google - which owns YouTube - was first with 22.9 percent, but Facebook was next at 12.7 percent.

Facebook's meteoric growth as a Web destination was a factor. Facebook says it has 400 million active members, including about 225 million added in just the past 12 months. Its size now rivals that of major Web portals and its demographics mirror those of the Internet in general, Ong said.

"Putting all this information together, we can say that Facebook has become an integral part of the consumer Web experience, similar to how portals like Yahoo and MSN are part of most consumers' online sessions," Ong said. "So the message for the advertising industry is that more serious attention needs to be paid to social-networking sites like Facebook, and advertisers need to figure out how to leverage this traffic."

The Economy Did Not Cause Radio’s Problems

2009-11-23T16:11:00.013-05:00

Joint Communications CEO John Parikhal was rummaging through some old cyber-files in his office over the weekend and came across an interview he did with legendary radio programmer Steve Rivers in 2005.

In the article, John put on his "hat" as a longtime media guru and futurist and shared some predictions about radio's future, which clearly came true.

Asked what he saw as true "radio killers" between then and 2010 Parikhal (pictured) replied,

"The biggest killer of all will be current management, unless they: Stop dancing to Wall Street's whip, institute formal training and recruitment, start surrounding themselves with smart people who challenge them, create cultures of formal innovation and begin to get serious about spot loads. Radio can control this. They can't control [Apple CEO] Steve Jobs, the Internet or any other of the so-called "killers" of the medium."

Parikhal says that while many in radio today are blaming the economy for the industry’s woes, re-reading what he said five years ago suggests otherwise.

"This was all predictable, long before the current economic crisis," he says. "You could see it coming, yet irresponsible people — who didn’t want to invest the necessary time and money — caused terrible pain for so many in the industry."

For a re-read of the full article, click here.

And what about some other past predictions? Here's some more thinking from 2006 about the pending state of radio just prior to the economic ad rev meltdown.

As a reminder, here is what John said in September 2009 at this year's annual NAB on how radio to get back its growth.

Branding: Share-Able and Share-Worthy

2009-11-12T17:53:00.011-05:00

More and more, brands are "opening up" their brands by making them "share-able" -- how they get used and where they show up, to be enjoyed by various online user communities.

Being "share-able" is not enough.

"Share-worthy" should be the goal.

Such as the picture at right. The Montreal Canadiens know exactly how to draw your eyes to their logo. And now that it is on the Internet, that brand logo placement can be shared with far more than just the people who saw the woman wearing the outfit that day.

BMW Mini Cooper advertising may have started the trend of placing brands in unusual settings a decade ago, later explained by media thinker Seth Godin as a form of unusual and remarkable "purple cow" marketing.

With online viral content, user-generated customized mash-ups, "green screen challenges", customized theme avatars and various social media platforms, brand "sharing" among people is stronger than ever...allowing marketers to participate and engage in meaningful advertising campaigns by giving people a chance to develop a deeper relationship with their favorite brands.

Brands know they have to be part of the action online by offering their brands in "share-able" and "share-worthy" ways.

In the end, brand logo placement online impacts marketing bottom line results...and cheeky social media buzz campaigns often keep brands from falling behind the competition.

24 - The Unaired 1994 Pilot

2009-10-07T10:52:00.005-04:00

My, how times have changed.

15 years ago, there were an estimated 38 million Internet users worldwide, mostly in the U.S. (IDC).

As of June 2009, approximately 1.67 billion people worldwide use the Internet, according to studies by Miniwatts Marketing Group.

Humor often can be insightful. "Insightful" isn't a typical description for the humor found on CollegeHumor.com; however, the site's content is often damn funny.

My media friend Dan Forth of ClassicRockForever.com discovered something both "funny" and "insightful" from CollegeHumor: the "unaired pilot" of '24'.

Ever wonder how Jack Bauer could save the world and stop the bomb from exploding back in the day when we relied on payphones, slow modem dial-up, and AOL/Prodigy chatroom for online conversations?

Well, now you can see...and marvel at how fast our world operates online now. Times have changed.

John Parikhal at the NAB: How To Stimulate Radio’s Growth

2009-10-04T17:57:00.006-04:00

At the NAB in Philadelphia on September 25, 2009, Greg Solk hosted a panel of 'stimulus Czars' to see what could be done to help radio.

These are John Parikhal’s notes for his contribution to the discussion:

Two Things Before You Even Start

• Get rid of all Czars. They screwed up everything in Russia and exploited the people. So, why do we put Czars in charge and expect things to get better?

Why don't we think about stuff like this? We don't question words, even when they don’t make sense.

If we are going to fix radio, we have to think more. Which means the first step is...

• Stop lying to yourself. Things are bad. The top people in radio made a lot of mistakes. You can’t take true action till you are honest with yourself. Things can get better – but not if you don't face the truth. It’s like the 12 step program. Start with honesty.

Describe your 'current reality' – honestly. The tension between 'current reality' and what you want to create (your Outcome Statement) is what creates action.

Then, if you still want to take action, use 3 Tools.

Three Tools for Being Proactive Around Growth

• Use Strategic Thinking. This is the most powerful strategic tool in business. Create an Outcome Statement – what 'outcome' do you want to create? Once you have identified what you want to create, identify what you have to 'do differently' to get there. Start making the changes.

• Use a '90 Days' summary. Work with your direct reports and, for each of them agree on what they have to do in the next 90 days.

And, demand that your boss meet with you (in person or on the phone) every 90 days to determine what you have to get done in the next 90 days.

This is the best get-it-scheduled-and-done tool in the business. It worked for Lee Iacocca.

• Practice Listenomics. Get rid of all Czars and be like Lego and Nokia. Empower your fans. Don’t try to control them. Listen to the conversation. More details at gomediafix.com.

The Most Important Thing To Do On-Air

• Focus on what's immediately relevant. Relevant is more important than local. Even though local is important, it is a subset of immediate – not the other way around.

Get rid of all the Czars – the same ones who said HD was the next big thing. The same ones who say the only future is local. They are playing follow-the-leader.

The Litmus Test

• Sell a 20 year old on working in radio. Write a speech to persuade them to come into the radio business. Think your speech through. Write it down. Try it out. Be honest.

If you can't persuade them, ask the 20 year old - 'What would have to change in order for me to be able to encourage you to work in radio?'

Next, ask yourself – 'What would I want to change in radio to make it more attractive to a 20 year old?'

Then, look at your answers and theirs - and set to work immediately on influencing the necessary changes. One step at a time. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

For additional coverage of the NAB 2009, click here: RBR, RadioToday, and Inside Radio.

What the F**k is Social Media (One Year Later)

2009-08-11T19:02:00.003-04:00

Social media is no longer just a new marketing experiment. Nor is it just a hot fad. 3 out of 4 Americans and 2 out of 3 worldwide web users are on it. Yet, corporations still only think of it as a marketing tool. It is much more than that. It's a chance for business to communicate with its fans; to create, build and satisfy new audiences; it's a chance to brand. Yes, all those things. But that's just on the business side. It's also a chance for listening, sharing, exchanging with fans, who will in turn help promote you more.

So why the f**k is social media so important? This updated report from Marta Kagan really explains it well.

Get on it.

What the F**K is Social Media: One Year Later

View more documents from Marta Kagan.

AdAge.com: Do African-Americans Need a Separate Search Engine?

2009-06-25T18:03:00.002-04:00

What Went Wrong With Rushmore Drive

As posted on AdAge.com today, an article co-written by Pepper Miller and John Parikhal:

RushmoreDrive.com, the first black search engine, recently shut down only a year after its launch. This raised the question about whether there is a market for a black version of Google.

Rushmore Drive was the brainchild of Barry Diller's IAC, which just reported a "first-quarter net loss of $28.4 million compared to a profit of $52.8 million in the same quarter a year ago."

Too bad. Rushmore's failure is not only another negative statistic from the fallout of the economic downturn, but also from questionable planning.

Early on, several folks from both the black and mainstream blogosphere balked at the idea of Rushmore. Bloggers criticized Rushmore for being racist and separatist while others didn't understand the concept at all. Additionally, a few questioned why IAC, whose focus is e-commerce websites, would even consider such an idea. Importantly, naysayers wondered how Rushmore would compete with the powerful Google brand?

At Hunter-Miller, we understand why and how Rushmore (and even Blackbird, the black web browser) traveled down that path. Many African-Americans -- be they business owners who target African-American consumers, students or those who want a deeper understanding of black culture -- look for specific black content, resources and stats. These black-consumer information searchers often complain that the web isn't delivering. We discovered several types of African-American content that appeared on earlier pages of Rushmore's site but appear a lot, lot later on Google and on Bing, Microsoft's new search engine. Thus, it appeared that Rushmore was better than Google at collecting, organizing and disseminating Black information.

There are some who are sorry to see Rushmore go.

Donna Smith-Bellinger, co-founder-VP of PCG Technology Services, a digital strategy company, says: "We need special search engines like Rushmore Drive to make it easier to identify and locate African-American information online. An African-American search engine not only helps other African Americans find Black-owned business websites, but it can also aid corporations looking for minority companies to hire."

Additionally, Donald Moore, newly appointed president of Burrell Digital, added: "I believe that ethnic search engines have a place in the digital space. What I do question is how will they build scale and sustainable profitability?"

However, business strategist Jaclynn Topping doesn't agree. After learning about Rushmore's failure on Huffington Post, Topping questioned Rushmore's strategy. "There was nothing missing [from using Google] as a Black person. The concept of a race-based search engine (or browser) is ridiculous, especially in the face of the move to open platforms. The world-wide-web is color-blind, gender-blind, disability-blind. No barriers. It's all about the tag, keyword density and linking strategy. It's the Internet's greatest strength. What is Rushmore giving me? What's Black about browsing?"

John Parikhal, co-author of this post, and an expert on both the internet and black consumer preferences, provides another perspective: "Rushmore's failure is really about a lack of consumer understanding. They didn't recognize the difference between search and engagement. Search usually starts with utility -- just give me something I want. That's what Google, Yahoo and Bing are fighting over. It has less to do with color. But engagement (which really makes ads work) is different. That's where understanding Black America really pays off."

~ ~ ~
John Parikhal is a "practical futurist" and consultant specializing in media strategy, marketing, research and consumer trends.

Pepper Miller is founder and president of the Hunter-Miller Group, Chicago.

Parikhal on Radio-Info and the Return on Inveatment of the Mercurys

2009-06-22T08:47:00.006-04:00

As reported in this morning's Radio-Info.com, Joint Communications' John Parikhal had come choice words about how Mercury radio advertising award competition need a big re-think. Says Parikhal:"Return On Investment really shouldn't be a measure for the Mercurys. A radio ad can be engaging and persuasive, but the product packaging might turn customers off at the store. Or the price might be too high, etc. In other words, the ad worked, but the rest of the chain didn't.

For serious marketers like Procter & Gamble or Coke, ROI is a complex equation in which the ad medium and the dollars spent are only a part of the formula. But if by ROI, you mean - can I tie the ad to a sale? - then take a page from the best awards ever - the Effies. They measured 'effectiveness', asking participants to submit their 'before and after' case studies with the ad.

The Mercurys should be about 'effective' radio ads - not 'creativity.' And, an effective ad starts with 'engagement.’ Often, judges confuse engagement with entertainment when they are asked to decide what is most 'creative.' They choose 'entertaining' ads and call them 'creative.’ Some very engaging ads are not entertaining. But they work. Just check out spoken word ads on News and Talk stations. Bring back the Effies.”

Formats are the Internet's Killer App

2009-06-08T11:52:00.003-04:00

Formats are the internet’s killer app. Yet, they get little attention and even less respect.

Formats create more value online than content. Yet, content gets all the press.

There’s already a mountain of content available online – most of it free. We don’t need more content. We need better formats.

Formats have been around for a long time, packaging and organizing ‘content’ to make it worth a lot more.

Top 40 radio is a format. It takes about 40 songs that are ‘worth’ 99 cents each at iTunes and packages them so that can be worth millions in advertising. The Top 40 format adds millions in value.

We can see the same format power at work for Amazon, eBay, Zappos, YouTube, and Facebook . Formats have added billions in value online.

Amazon is a format. It doesn’t create content – it formats or packages it.

Amazon made a fortune because it formatted the department store online.

It formatted (organized) its store as a simple, one-stop shopping experience - with a series of ‘departments’ ranging from books and electronics to garden tools into -just as Sears had done in the physical world 40 years earlier.

And, Amazon made millions without manufacturing any ‘content’

Even eBay is a format. They are worth billions because they formatted the flea market. eBay simply created the packaging that sold someone else’s ‘content’.

iTunes formatted the online music store. And, the iPod re-formatted the record player.

Zappos formatted the shoe store. They don’t make shoes. They format the experience of the world’s best shoe store to appeal to shoe junkies. And, it works.

Or, consider Facebook. It formatted the reunion. It hasn’t earned much profit but it could sell today for billions of dollars even though there is no clear business model. That’s the power of formats.

The same is true about YouTube. It formatted the ‘home’ movie, never made much money and got sold to Google for over $1 billion.

Not surprisingly, the biggest online business of all, Google, makes most of its money from formatting, not from content.

Google makes enormous profits by formatting the ‘library’ experience for users and then selling ‘knowledge’ about user interests to advertisers. That’s the power of formats.

One could even make the case that the Mac operating system (OSX) and Windows are both a form of format. They organize the way we can use a computer.

If you make that case, then the ‘format’ that jumpstarted the world wide web – Netscape, is the granddaddy of them all. And, it sold for billions of dollars.

That’s why we’re bullish on formats and formatting. Because, there’s already a staggering amount of content available online – most of it free – and, most of it is not formatted well, if at all.

We see big growth opportunities for companies that get better at formatting. And, lost opportunities for those who don’t.

Most Popular Canadian Radio Stations Online (By Alexa, June 2009)

2009-06-02T14:57:00.009-04:00

Alexa.com is an Amazon.com-owned web traffic analytic tool that estimates website usage. It's not as precise or accurate as comScore, MediaMetrics, Nielsen or other more sophisticated Internet measurement tools...but Alexa is good for getting an idea of what search engines are considering "top performers."

The higher a websites Alexa ranking, the higher "authority" that site receives from search engines.

Having higher search engine authority means it is much easily to get found online through search engines.

Viewing the latest rankings, News & Info stations lead the pack with ten within the Top 20. Corus has 9 in the Top 20, while CBC has 4, Astral has 2, NewCap has 2, CTV has 1 and Rogers has 1. Toronto's airport and business station is also in the Top 20 (in March 2007, it was the "station" with the most Alexa web traffic).

Curiously, Virgin Radio doesn't appear to be captured accurately by Alexa. It doesn't include any of the Virgin station on their list. When searching Alexa for the individual Virgin station traffic rankings, each market's stations (Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Vancouver) don't show up. Instead, only the main domain (virginradio.com) appears (the station sites are found their sub-domains). Collectively, all Virgin Radio station would rank 26th, just behind CHOM and ahead of Rock 101.

Prior to the Virgin flip, Mix 96 in Montreal was a Top 20 online web traffic radio station.

Here's the latest Alexa search for Canada's top 20 radio station traffic rankings (June 2009):

1) CBC Radio - British Columbia (www.cbc.ca/bc) (CBC)
2) Radio Énergie (www.radioenergie.com) (Astral/Anglo & French AC)
3) CKOI FM 96.9 (ckoi.com) (Corus/Anglo & French Hot AC)
4) CKWX - News 1130 (www.news1130.com) (Rogers/News)
5) VOCM Radio (www.vocm.com) (NewCap/News & Info)
6) CFYZ 1280 AM (www.gtaa.com) (Toronto airport & business)
7) 102.1FM The Edge (www.edge.ca) (Corus/New Rock)
8) CBC Radio (www.cbc.ca/radio) (CBC)
9) Country 105 (www.country105.com) (Corus/Country)
10) Q107 FM (www.q107.com) (Corus/Classic Rock)
11) CKNW 980 AM - Vancouver (www.cknw.com) (Corus/News & Info)
12) CBC Radio 3 (radio3.cbc.ca) (CBC)
13) CHUM 104.5 FM (www.chumfm.com) (CTVglobemedia/Adult CHR/Hot AC)
14) HOT 89.9 FM (www.hot899.com) (NewCap/Rhythmic CHR)
15) CFOX 99.3 - The Fox (www.cfox.com) (Corus/Rock)
16) CBC 102.1 FM Calgary (www.cbc.ca/calgary) (CBC)
17) CJAD 800 AM (www.cjad.com) (Astral/News & Info)
18) CJOB 680 (www.cjob.com) (Corus/News & Info)
19) CISN 103 FM (www.cisnfm.com) (Corus/Country)
20) AM 770 CHQR (www.am770chqr.com) (Corus/News & Info)

Here's a quick link to find all Canadian radio stations streaming online. Or here's another good link.

Debut of The Tonight Show With Conan O'Brien

2009-06-02T13:47:00.005-04:00

Last night was the debut of the new Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien, following in the historic path of Steve Allen, Jack Parr, Johnny Carson and Jay Leno. He's off to a good start...with strong opening ratings and plenty of funny. He kept Max Weinberg and his band (along with the opening theme from the Late Show), brought back his original co-host Andy Richter and even kept his trademark cutting of the puppet strings move.

Liked the run-across-America move to open the show, his hanging with new fabulous LA friends watching a Lakers game, the entrance of first guest Will Ferrell and first musical guest Pearl Jam.

Very different first show than his debut on The Late Show September 1993.

With all the changes in late night programming (Leno earlier, Jimmy Fallon replacing Conan), late night just got fresher.

Good of NBC to open up the show video clips to share and embed on their site instead of containing it only on Hulu.

Heeeeere's Conan!

Google Squared

2009-05-14T14:36:00.003-04:00

Google just announced it improved its search tools. They call it Google Squared, allowing Google searchers to fine-tune and filter their search results with greater precision. All you have to do is click the "More options" link right below the search field.

Check out the explanation of the new tool below or click here:

I Think, Therefore I Am

2009-05-06T18:01:00.012-04:00

"Cogito ergo sum"

"Je pense, donc je suis"

"I think, therefore I am"

In whatever language you speak it, Rene Descartes's famous self-analysis phrase on existence speaks volumes about the shape of radio, the ad industry and media itself.

With the latest ad revenue results for the last 6 months (down 15% to 32% year-to-year, depending on the radio group in the U.S.), the radio industry (and media in general) thinks the market sucks...and therefore it continues to be.

The industry/market seems to be in a vicious self-perpetuating cycle: huge operating/financial debt loads, dramatic downturn in economy, smaller ad budgets, more media competition for fewer $$$, staff cutbacks, weakened local programming, more syndicated/voice-tracked content, missed budget goals, forced unpaid days off, speculation about inevitable radio group bankruptcies, more cutbacks -- leaving remaining staff with work overloads, etc.

Execs are even turning down their contracted bonuses and stock options. When it gets to that, you know things can't be good. With times like this, everybody hurts.

Gosh, all that bad news does wonders for industry self-confidence.

"I think therefore I am"

We are all living in the "aftermath of a go-go economy." As Peter Drucker, father of modern management practices, once said: "Every such era believed there would be no limit to growth. And every one ended in debacle and left behind a massive hang-over."

For the last year or so, this is the massive collective hang-over.

Now that the NAB is looking for a new chairman, Radio could use someone with serious vision mojo to help the industry see out of this morass. Someone who can take a room of radio CEOs and get them to see past this mess they helped create on their own watch.

But whom?

Who is that person?

As the expression says, "Go where there is growth." (as said by Google CEO Eric Schmidt and countless others.)

As another well-known expression goes, this time from Albert Einstein: "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

Who can avoid doing the same thing as radio has done before and go where there is growth in order to expect different (better) results?

On the Jointblog, we've already suggested Stuart Smalley...but he is busy trying get to formally accepted into the Senate.

What about the return Eddie Fritts? Doubtful, as Fritts left due to the board's need for change and who now heads The Fritts Group, a D.C.-based lobbying operation that represents Fortune 500 companies on Capitol Hill.

Too bad Bill Clinton is also busy with political conflicts.

Jack Welch? He seems to have time on his hands.

Someone smart who can think different, express change and the new reality...and lead others to growth...

Tony Robbins?

Tom Peters? (if ever there a need to returning searching for excellence, this is that time)

Donny Deutsch

Guy Kawasaki?

Jeff Jaffe?

Chris Anderson?

Walt Mossberg?

Steven Covey?

Seth Godin?

Chris Brogan?

Or, to be really contrarian, how about Jerry Del Colliano?

Who do you nominate for the NAB search committee to replace the resigning David Rehr?

New NAB chief: "I think, therefore I am."

Motivations For Using Twitter

2009-04-22T12:15:00.006-04:00

Twitter's growth in the past 6 months has been remarkable. For most of the two years prior to November 2008, it had between a million and two million active users. Since November, it has grown to an estimated 8 million users as of last month and is poised to top 10 million users by the end of April.

Last week's Ashton Kutcher vs CNN follower battle (won by Ashton) and Oprah's "Welcome to the 21st Century" tweet should give Twitter all the publicity it needs to convert into a mainstream social media tool. Due to all this explosive user growth, many tracking experts predict that Twitter will reach 100 million users within the next year, placing it in MySpace usage territory.

What exactly is the motivation for people to join and use Twitter? What is causing all this excitement about micro-blogging at 140 characters or less?

MarketingProfs (Allen Weiss of USC’s Marshall School) just released a new study of Twitter followers and identified the primary motivators for using Twitter. It's not really about obtaining the most followers. It's not really about saying something brilliant to the world and getting responses.

What it's really about this: "It's cool to learn new things from people."

As reported in Mashable:

People use Twitter for all sorts of reasons. But what are those reasons, exactly? Is it about marketing, gathering intelligence, connecting, community? Is it for social reasons?

In a word: Yes.

Twitter may be used as just another lead-generation tool. Or it may be about connecting with new friends. But above all, people on Twitter are truly motivated by learning new things and getting information real-time, as it’s developing.

Howard Stern 25 Years Ago: NBC TV in 1984

2009-04-21T21:46:00.005-04:00

25 years ago, Howard Stern was just starting his reign of New York radio, working afternoons at W-eNN-B-C. A lot has changed in radio and in media since 1984...but Stern's ability to respond to "fan opportunity" and break the audience barrier was just as strong as it is today.

Take a look at this YouTube video of Stern's guest appearance on a NYC local daytime TV talk show. In just a few minutes, he 'thinks like a fan, and treats them like the star' (even if the audience participant is treated like a porn star).

Engaged with the audience.

Interactive.

Responding to immediate opportunity.

Delivering creativity.

All things you can do, too, whether through radio programming, TV interviewing, blogging or social networking.

With today's technology, it's much easier to engage, interact, respond and deliver content to an audience than 25 years ago. And you can do it with or without the embarrassing moustache, heinous haircut and goggle glasses.

Radio's 5 Customers

2009-04-16T11:13:00.006-04:00

"Radio is at the tipping point, and it doesn’t want to know much about the way its customers are changing."

Joint Communications' John Parikhal tells Tom Taylor of Radio-Info.com in yesterday's daily newsletter he's worried about radio tuning out its listeners:

"Internet companies are checking out the customer six ways to Sunday. But radio will tell you they don't have the money to research their customer. I truly think we’re at the tipping point, because for any business, you have to know who your customers are.

For radio, it's 5 different customers:

#1 - Wall Street or another 'lender'.

#2 – The advertiser. And radio should focus a lot more on the advertiser, because it has given them very short shrift. The more innovative companies are trying to become the digital and media marketing experts for the local guy, to help them move more product. Their competition is Craigslist and emerging online city directories.

#3 - The FCC, and I sense that radio will be hearing from them within a year.

#4 - The employees. With a few notable exceptions, they have been treated the way no customer should ever be treated. This whirlwind of firings and layoffs has nothing to do with performance, and the message it sends is very negative. People are now very, very wary about making radio a career.

#5 - The listener. But radio thinks 'all we have to do is keep the listeners we’ve got.' That’s a fool's game. You have to grow the pie, and to do that, you need to know more about your listener than their favorite songs or that they like sports on the radio. The listener doesn't care that radio is in a recession and won't invest in understanding their changing needs."

Using Customized Social Media: The Celebrity Apprentice

2009-04-13T14:12:00.004-04:00

It's not often The Celebrity Apprentice gets credited with doing something hip and contemporary.

This weekend, the show partnered with an identify theft protection product called LifeLock. As part of the marketing, they came up with this social media campaign that is designed to be viral, shared and used for social media profiles.

Take a look at this Global Tribune news report I received from a friend today...it caught my attention:

It's content designed to be shared. It's easy to share. It's customizable to include the viewer when emailed to friends. All good objectives.

The Action Test: This viral video actually got me interested in testing out their product...I've posted it on my Facebook to share with my friends...and I've now blogged on it. That's good impact!

Trump that!

Radio and April Fool's Day: What Will Google Do?

2009-03-31T12:27:00.013-04:00

For decades, radio station morning shows have pulled pranks and stunts on April 1st designed to be fun, to get maximum attention in their communities, and enjoy a little springtime April foolery.

Sometimes they swap hosts with competing stations...or changes languages...or their entire format for a day.

Some become famous, some infamous. Some are just bad.

Why do they do it? Well, at its best, radio is mental theatre for listeners, painting imagines and pictures in our minds. With a station's normal format, it can get a little stale-feeling and repetitious, especially to the programmers and announcers. By stunting for a day, it can freshen things for everyone and have some fun.

Mostly harmless, although not always.

This link has a quick history of April Fool's Day.

I wonder what crazy pranks will happen when we wake up tomorrow and turn on the radio? At the time of this blog post, it's a Twittering Trend for social media chat today.

Then again, office pranksters are pretty good, too...maybe you'll walk into work and see a surprise there...

For a list of the Top 100 all-time best radio pranks, click here (MuseumOfHoaxes.com).

And a few more here and here.

Googleheads know that Google takes radio's April Fool's Day pranks to heart and does their own versions of them. Since 2000, they've done some excellent ones, including showing exactly how their search algorithms work (hint: pigeons at terminals).

Here's a rundown from the BusinessInsider detailing Google's annual pranks.

Just like on the radio, I wonder what Google has in store for us tomorrow...

Will Facebook or Twitter pranks us next?

Current TV and the Twouble With Twitters

2009-03-23T18:17:00.004-04:00

Current TV goes media trend watching into the Twitterverse explaining the Twouble with Twitters. Beware of causing a Fail Whale!

It seems everyone is suddenly a-twittering...even The Ellen Show. Yes, even The View, too.

Radio still is slow to join the conversation...but I am noticing more coming on board lately.

Screw You Recession: Using Social Media With Brands -- Virgin Mobile

2009-03-20T10:16:00.011-04:00

Traditional brands have had a hard time figuring out social media. They are used to old marketing models where they keep firm control of the message.

Create a brand phrase or concept and then repeat it millions of time on whatever media platforms, getting as much exposure as possible. The adage "If they say it often enough, it must be true" has been the prevailing wisdom for decades. The hoped-for by-product? "Gosh, if they are willing to spend so much money to tell me something about their product, it must be true...so I'll buy it."

All the traditional ad markets have softened: TV, newspapers, radio, magazines. And the projections for the next few years look tough.

For decades, consumers have been sold, pitched, cajoled, and almost guilted in buying products through the magic of marketing and advertising.

Why are the ad markets hurting? Psychologically, making a purchase satisfies many possible things: taking care of a need; a want; a desire; or for preventing something they fear. That is no different today than from previous generations. Traditional media still "sells" needs, wants, desire and fear-fixers.

It's just that today's consumers want more than simply being told to buy something before they make a purchase.

They want to engage.

They want to hear from other consumers to validate their own thinking about the brand choice.

They want their own voice heard.

So far, traditional brand marketing has been slow and inconsistent in its success using social (or user-generated) media for marketing.

Remember the user-generated Dorito's Super Bowl TV ads?

What about the GM's Chevy Tahoe SUV ad contest?

Just in the last few weeks, Skittles set the Twitterverse afire by changing their main brand homepage to their Twitter profile, then to their Facebook profile. To help their customers "Interweb the rainbow", users create custom "garageband-like" audio themes using various Skittles audio clips. What did it get them? Lots of social media hype, more than 630,000 Facebook friends (M&M's Facebook site only has 25,000 fans)...and an increase of their web traffic by more than 1,325% the first day it launched the campaign.

So can a brand do well by saying "Screw You, Recession"? One is trying...and using social media to do it.

Here's a site blending social media merged with an established brand. Go to ScrewTheRecession.ca/ and it comes from the new thinkers over at Virgin. Virgin tends to embrace marketing experiments; I think it's worthwhile to check it out. Tying in recession concerns with younger people, it's a blog with a heavy user comment section, simple Virgin Mobile advertising and various topics sections on money, living, fashion, going out, tech and more. Plus they Twitter and Facebook it tying it together.

The impact: How can you (the consumer) screw the recession? You need your cellphone. Screw the recession by using a Virgin Mobile cellphone.

They've done some cool research through the site on their users.

As reported this week in Virgin Mobile press release of their JD Power study:

"Virgin Mobile Canada has created a mood meter that ranges from "Everything Sucks Huge" (red) to "The Recession Ain't Getting Me Down" (green). The five-stage colourcoded system shows that – this week – young Canadians are on Yellow Alert ("Sorta' Freaking Out Right Now"), which means:
* Biting nails - 72% are anxious about their future
* Brand disloyalty - 41% have given up a brand they love
* Show me the value! - 52% are open to trying value brands
* Chic-onomics - 88% have changed their shopping habits
* Recessionistas - 42% are making "noticeable sacrifices"
* Unemployment - 42% fear being unemployed
* Politics - 57% say they don't believe a change in government would change anything
* The Simple Life - 75% want a simpler life.

The Mood Meter looks exclusively at the impact the recession is having on young people's (17-35s) lives, how they're feeling about the state of the economy and what the recession means to them. It's also a barometer of their thoughts and shopping habits, as well as their feelings on how brands are behaving. See Virgin Mobile’s www.screwyourecession.ca."

The only thing they miss is not tying it into their Virgin Radio sites. It's a natural partner.

Cross-platform connection on contemporary consumer demands, needs, desires or fears...with the consumer front-and-centre contributing and sharing the content.

The audience (listeners/customers) are the drivers...all we in media have to do is provide the proper vehicles for them to get where they want to go and what they want right now.

That's how brand marketing can use social media to its advantage.

What Is Twitter? A Quick How-To In Plain English

2009-03-19T10:27:00.016-04:00

Did you know that of all adult Internet users in North America, one-in-three maintained a social networking profile last year (according to Nielsen Media Research? Despite its sudden rise in popularity, lots of people are still asking "What is Twitter?" (now the #3 social networking site on the web).

Twitter, as twitheads know it, is a micro-blogging website where ideas can be shared with friends (or "followers"), 140 characters at a time -- from your computer or smart phone. Some think of it as a tool that bridges the gap between your social profile (like UnHub, Facebook, MySpace or LinkedIn) and your blog. Others think of it as something that shares "behind-the-scenes" thoughts in real-time (where I'm at, what I'm doing right now).

So, what is twitter to me? I see it as the today's smarter form of old-school "water cooler talk".

It's collaboration and shared conversation, like seeing and participating in Seth Godin's "Tribes" concept as it happens.

And a great way for brands to take care of customers (by listening).

Additional media trend watchers even think Twitter could challenge Google in the search business, because Twittering is real-time search.

In business, it can be a great way to boost your company's online brand reputation, build your business and establish a closer interactive link with your customers.

However, advertisers still view social as an experimental business model, which means traditional media remains a little slow embracing it.

Twitter is whatever you want it to be. A public "instant message" forum, a professional marketing or PR tool, a job hunt assistant, or a buzz monitor on what's hot right now. It all depends on the network you build of people you follow and who follows you.

Most major news sources (both national and local) are there for breaking news and web updates (@CNN, @ABCnews, @CBSnews, @NBCnews, @CBCnews, as well as online sources like @DrudgeReport, @HuffingtonPost, @The Daily Show, @The Colbert Report, @The Onion, @Gawker, etc.).

Celebrities are doing it (@Aston Kutcher, @Demi Moore, @Jimmy Fallon). Celebrity impersonators are doing it (a sexy fake @Megan Fox or a drunk @Lindsay Lohan). @Paris Hilton doesn't use it as much lately; maybe that's because gossip blogger @Perez Hilton is now there (with 240,000 followers).

Marketing gurus (@Guy Kawasaki, @Chris Brogan) are doing it. AOL's founder and creator of the Instant Message is tweeting instead of IMing (@Steve Case). Major brands are doing (@Skittles). Even @Barack Obama was doing it on the campaign trail, helping him build up grass-roots support.

So what exactly is Twitter? View this simple explanation video below and get twittering:

Even NBC's The Today Show shows you how to do it:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Tweet on!

Twittering Canadian Music Week 2009: Lefsetz vs Gene Simmons

2009-03-14T10:24:00.007-04:00

Over the years, music analyst Bob Lefsetz has built up a brand name as a media gadfly, straight-shooting from his point-of-view and taking on the powers-that-be. He knows how to stir it up.

On Thursday, Bob decided to comment -- throwing lots of punches through his newsletter -- about one of the keynote speakers at this week's Canadian Music Week conference in Toronto: rock star and master promoter Gene Simmons of KISS.

Of course, Gene responded...with a lot of humour and more self-promotion.

This sent the conference attendees into a twitter frenzy.

Conference organizer Neill Dixon quickly set up a head-to-head discussion setting the conference abuzz, as everyone got ready for a cage match.

The event happened at 4PM Friday at the Royal York Hotel in downtown Toronto in front of a very large audience. The video below shows the discussion (NSFW; caution - explicit language):

In the end, this head-to-head confrontation may not have changed anything about the music industry. It certainly didn't solve anything, including their differences. It did entertain and it generated some attention both for the Bob and Gene as well as for the conference. Promotionally, it worked.

Bob's assessment in retrospect?

"What an asshole."

Tribes and Brand Building...Plus Seth Godin about Twitter

2009-03-11T19:00:00.010-04:00

Twitter just jumped its total number of users in the last couple of weeks -- from 6 million to 8 million -- due to more mainstream media coverage (The Daily Show, morning radio shows, newspapers, many others). Leading "Tribes" maven and Senior Purple Cow Seth Godin refuses to tweet. To find out why, go to the 9:15 mark of this Ted 2009 conference interview (February 5, 2009):

Whether or not you use Twitter, social media needs to be part of your modern marketing plan. To marketing messages to have impact today, they need to feed into consumer's needs for convenience, connection, community and control. They want to be fans and to share through positive word of mouth. The key is provide content for your brand's most passionate users to help spread the word and praise.

That's how you get customers in your store today.

Marketing Sherpa says in a recent survey that over 90% of companies believe social media is most effective in building brand reputation and awareness, with direct marketing objectives falling into the second tier expectations.

Spotting upcoming social networking trends is important in the world of word-of-mouth campaigning. Brand enthusiasm is an essential ingredient when building brand awareness. It immediately has the strongest potential of converting into sales and extended customer loyalty.

Just as Seth Godin believes. You may not see him posting Twitter...but, believe me, he loves seeing his fans tweet about him and his books.

Hey, if you are a fan of this article, tweet it!

Radio in the White House: Example of Radio Seizing Opportunity

2009-03-06T18:11:00.010-05:00

Yesterday, we posted on how radio needs to listen more to its fans and give them what they need and want. The need to grow interaction opportunities. To be opportunistic.

Well, a station just did an excellent job doing exactly that. When it was reported earlier this week that Barack Obama didn't even own a radio (not exactly sure how that is even possible in today's world where radios are naturally part of several common products), radio station WIHT (the top-notch station Hot 99.5) came to the rescue, delivering several different kinds of radios, including an iPod with a radio adapter, a new HD Radio device, a new iPhone with ClearChannel "iheartradio" streaming app, and even a traditional counter-top radio.

Hot 99.5FM's morning man is Kane. Kane, you've done it again. Kudos for another outstanding example of reacting to news and turning it into a major opportunity to connect with your audience!

As reported by Radio and Records's Kevin Carter (hey, that's two straight days of referencing you, buddy...good work!):

A few days ago, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs casually remarked that he didn’t own a radio ... which immediately opened up a whole world of promotional opportunities for certain enterprising radio types who generously wanted to help remedy Gibbs’ dire situation — with full brass-band press coverage, of course.

Yesterday afternoon, it was WIHT (Hot 99.5)/Washington morning personality Kane to the rescue! With the help of Clear Channel Communications Queen Lisa Dollinger, Kane organized a motorcade to the White House to personally deliver to Gibbs an assortment of gadgets and doohickeys that pick up radio signals, including an iPod with radio adapter, HD Radio and Clear Channel’s iheartradio app for the iPhone. Before the motorcade departed, Kane explained his bold actions: “Radio played a crucial role in getting Mr. Gibbs his current job. The Obama campaign outspent all others on radio and ran more ads than any other campaign. And while we realize that government salaries don’t always match those in the private sector, Clear Channel Radio believes that’s no reason to be without the most ubiquitous form of media in the country.”

Kane was one of several alert media types, including Ann Compton of ABC Radio News and WTOP/Washington’s Mark Plotkin, who were able to evade the Secret Service long enough to deliver their radios to Gibbs.

Give Your Fans What They Need and Want

2009-03-05T13:26:00.010-05:00

Being Program Director of Montreal's Q92, I can attest to the following story as reported in this morning's R&R STREET TALK DAILY. Everyday the station receives phone calls from listeners offering tips, local observations or simply asking questions about things they needed answered. I would get them directly to my phone line, too.

It's one of radio's remaining secret success ingredients that needs protecting and better positioning against competing media. Local Connection and Immediate Feedback.

In other words, it's called Customer Satisfaction.

How well is your station actually responding and interacting with your active listeners? These 'actives' -- your fans -- want immediate connection. Are you giving it to them?

Here's WNCI/Columbus, OH PD Michael McCoy's great email (thanks to R&R's Kevin Carter):

"The other day, I was in the studio, talking to my afternoon jock Chris Davis, when a listener called to tell him about a bad accident that would be sure to snarl traffic for the afternoon commute. They had a brief conversation, and Chris quickly edited and aired it within five minutes. We may take that brief listener interaction for granted, but it is truly unique when compared to competing media.

A few quick thoughts: 1) We already have a relationship with that listener. They thought to call us about the accident. 2) It was that human-to-human interaction that helped create the relationship. 3) There’s an immediacy in which the information was relayed to other listeners, setting the foundation for and/or furthering other relationships. 4) Central Ohio listeners trust in WNCI.

Later, in my office, I wanted to see if my iPod had anything to say about relationship-building, but it just stared blankly back at me. I wanted to talk to someone at Sirius XM about it, but I’m fairly sure they have no idea where '23 & Home Road' is. I then Googled 'human-to-human interaction', but all I got were porn sites...."

Social Media: Something Positive Has To Happen

2009-03-04T10:51:00.004-05:00

With all this blogging, twittering and online yelling at strangers, something positive has got to happen. Right? As this great social media graphic shows, it must be true. Yes...?

Did You Know?

2009-03-02T22:01:00.004-05:00

Here's a viral video to get you to re-think where you stand in your job, your industry and within our world.

Radio Legend Paul Harvey Passes On

2009-02-28T21:39:00.005-05:00

Thank you for giving us the rest of the story. Good day!

Update: Paul Harvey's final news commentary broadcast, March 3, 2009 here

Update #2: ABC Radio Network Tribute page

Googling You and Me

2009-02-27T12:28:00.012-05:00

With all the talk about social media and micro-blogging, Twitter is catching a serious amount of online buzz as being the new tool for the next level of search: "real-time, conversational search".

It's great to have those you follow help you scour the web for news that matters and is customized for your needs. Will it only get more important in the next stage of web search development. Absolutely yes, especially when it comes to super-serving your "audience" and for overall web brand reputation building.

That being said, findability is still the most important aspect of search and online brand building. If you can't get found, your fabulous content ain't going a whole lot of places.

Google remains the 800lb gorilla of search...and it has no plans of releasing its dominance.

For the Jointblog, we are #1, #4, #6, #9 and #10 out of 29,000 webpage Google results.

For Media Trend Watching, the Jointblog is #2, #7 and #9 on Google out of 56 million results...need to get it back up to #1!

What about Chris Kennedy radio trend? As the editor of the Jointblog covering radio trends as an important subject, I'm very happy having all Top 10 first-page results on Google out of 60,000 results -- including my Twitter @KennedyCS for following.

Or just Chris Kennedy radio? Google shows we have #1, #2, #7 and #10 -- all on the first page, among 513,000 results.

Even just Chris Kennedy trend works on Google, where I am #1, #2, #3, #5 and #7 on the first-page out of 214,000 Google search results (again, Twitter shows up).

But just Chris Kennedy? Only #2 on the second page of Google out of 12 million results for posted articles from me...and #39 (page 4) for my LinkedIn profile. Need to use social media more to build up organic search results.

Using other search engines for Chris Kennedy Radio, Clusty has me as #1, #4, #5 and #7 on first-page results. MSN's Live Search, meanwhile, lists me as #1, #3, #4 and #10.

Looking good!

Getting to the top of the first page of Google organic keyword search results still is essential in order to reach your target.

When you google yourself or your company or your targeted interested, what do you find? Have you googled yourself lately? If you're not get the SEO results you need, what are you doing to fix the result?

Interestingly, using those social media and Twitter micro-blogging can help boost you to the top of the page.

Radio: Practice Your Stuart Smalley

2009-02-13T09:46:00.002-05:00

As Jaye Albright writes on her Breakfast Blog, radio hasn't had much good news lately. But Canada's Radio Marketing Bureau has something good to report. Looks like people with active lifestyles also are active radio listeners...exactly the kind of consumers radio wants as listeners as well as for advertisers. Sharing the good news, the RMB reports:

According to the annual Foundation Research study of 1,012 Canadians, radio reaches 90% of adults 18+ every week. Lifestyle plays a big role in radio’s performance - the more active you are the more radio you listen to; working Canadians, parents and the affluent are all above average in terms of radio tuning with weekly reach of 94% or better.

"Radio plays an integral part in everyday life; it accompanies every activity, from driving and working to surfing online. No other single media can match radio for its versatility, audience characteristics and its unique ability to reach consumers anytime, anywhere." -- Chris Bandak of Foundation Research.

Radio, do a little Stuart Smalley, would ya? Get that mirror and work on the self-esteem. "I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and dog-gone it, people like me."

More highlights of the study include:

· 81% of adults listen to radio daily, second only to TV in reach potential. The percentage listening increases to 84% or more for working adults, wealthy Canadians and women with children.

· For 83% of adults, radio use in 2008 increased or stayed the same as the previous year; that percentage is equal to the internet and higher than newspapers (79%) and TV (76%).

· Adults spend more time with radio than any other media during a typical work day. They listen to traditional radio an average of 125 minutes and online radio for 34 minutes. Radio’s total of 159 minutes is 23% more than TV and approximately double that of the Internet.

· Radio accompanies Canadians throughout their busy day. 70% of Canadians listen to radio on the drive to work, school or shopping; Radio ranks highest of all media reaching consumers prior to a shopping occasion; 36% listen to radio while surfing the internet

Apple Without Steve Jobs

2009-02-11T12:27:00.008-05:00

This YouTube video tracks the entire universe of Apple throughout its history --- with and without Steve Jobs and back again with Steve Jobs.

Taran Swan from The Media Fix just posted a blog piece on Apple and the current questions circulating around the iconic company and their ailing founder/CEO Steve Jobs, who is on a 6-month leave to focus on his health issues.

It centers around the limitations of companies that are led by charismatic leaders which overshadow the talent below the leadership. She writes:

What is Apple without Steve Jobs? This unanswered question … caused their stock to take a hit (though it has since recovered a bit)...generated critical editorials, and...now the SEC is investigating whether the Company properly handled disclosures.

This all happened because the market thinks Steve Jobs IS Apple, which means any risk to Jobs is a risk to Apple.

How did Apple get into this situation and what can they do about it?

Steve Jobs is only the most extreme example of what happens when a company builds its brand around one person and doesn’t showcase its “people depth”.

The iconic Steve Jobs was effective in giving Apple a face and a mystique. But the focus on Jobs took the spotlight off the team that makes Apple great.

Jobs health woes give Apple an honest opportunity to showcase their management depth and their strong team of “up and comers.”

Apple could take a page from GE – which has benefited for years by publicly acknowledging their succession planning. And, then making the necessary investments to back up the talk.

So, what can Apple do? Here are a few suggestions…

1) Take the succession planning exercise seriously.

2) Cultivate and promote a culture of leadership development and sustained investment in building a deep management bench.

3) Make management comfortable with competition by smoothing a path to an appropriate consolation prize for those who don’t take the brass ring.

4) Nurture your relationship with the press – use it to effectively get the new message out about its brilliant team.

This would probably make both Steve Jobs and Apple’s shareholders feel better. And, it would reassure millions of Apple fans around the world.

What do you think?

Radio Ink: Convergence Conference Day Two Video Highlights

2009-02-11T12:09:00.002-05:00

Radio Ink: Convergence Conference Day One Video Highlights

2009-02-10T01:11:00.003-05:00

Online Brand Reputation Management

2009-02-09T17:41:00.007-05:00

Building and managing your brand online is not always easy. With the thousands of new tools, widgets and social media platforms, getting found online -- and getting found with the right brand message -- is much harder than the good ole days (nee: 2 years ago) when all you had to do was get to the top of the first page of Google keyword search results.

AdAge has a great strategic planning "AIDE" (pictured above) explaining how to create and maintain positive word-of-mouth reputation in 6 months. What do you do?

Analyze.
Identify.
Deploy.
Evaluate.

Okay, now get started.

Where? How about here.

aMap: Can Radio Get Better?

2009-02-04T08:30:00.007-05:00

There are some great graphic visualization tools available on-line that give a whole new way to interpret comments, news, speeches and more. One great tool I found is from aMap. Using their free visualizer, you can ask any question you like, type in some logical answers with supporting comments. Then you can email your argument or position to your friends or blog readers to have them extend the argument and add in their own answers.

It's a cool way for a social community to get in the conversation.

Here's an example. Click on it to add in your own comments or answers:

A Different Look At Social Media and Important Changes Coming

2009-01-28T12:00:00.008-05:00

ReadWriteWeb is a fantastic blogsite...informative and broad-reaching in its coverage of new media. Great resource worth a bookmark. Yesterday, they posted an article with a bit of a contrarian point of view on social media.

"Making Money" is perhaps the biggest challenge social media must face.

Here were some of their posted thoughts:

"Social media" was the term du jour in 2008. Consumers, companies, and marketers were all talking about it. We have social media gurus, social media startups, social media books, and social media firms. It is now common practice among corporations to hire social media strategists, assign community managers, and launch social media campaigns, all designed to tap into the power of social media.

But social media today is a pure mess: it has become a collection of countless features, tools, and applications fighting for a piece of the pie.

Facebook, a once groundbreaking online community, has become the ant colony of third-party applications. Twitter users now have a dozen or so additional applications they can use to overcome Twitter's ever-present shortcomings. People spread themselves across a number of tools and maintain different networks on each (large portions of which they don't even know), making it nearly impossible to decide what to share and with whom.

Users, marketers, and companies face an incredible amount of noise, too. For every new application that relies on a network, another crops up that helps users manage it. While "eyeballs" used to be the coveted metric, both ad publishers and investors now realize that having smaller well-targeted niches can lead to much better returns than marketing to one large undifferentiated mass of users.

Meaning and connection -- two key anchors of all things social media -- are corroding by the day as people's ability to organize their experiences and find the relevance of their networks declines. Social media, in essence, is bumping up against its own ceiling, no longer able to serve the needs of those living within its walls; and for these reasons, social media as we know it is changing course.

With all the great excitement of social media lately, yes, they are right. It is noisy and messy, filled with an endless array of tools and gadgets.

So what needs to change? Again, some of ReadWrite Web's top thoughts as social media continues to evolve:

1) It's About People. We're moving away from "users," "customers," and "shoppers": social media is bringing back the human element to all digital interaction.

2) Creating Meaning and Value. Social media will no longer be about features and applications. These have become a dime a dozen. People will be looking to get tangible and relevant value out of their social experience; they'll be looking for meaning and for order.

3) Enabling Convergence. People are at a loss when it comes to pulling their conversations together from various sources and assigning meaning to them.

4) Building a Truly Cross-Platform Experience. In the new landscape of social media, people are seeking solutions that seamlessly cut across mobile, web, and live interaction.

5) Creating Relevant Social Networks. People will create, join, and seek social networks that enable them to have meaningful and relevant experiences with each other. They will measure their return on investment (time spent, level of disclosure, etc.) in replies, comments, their ability to influence, and the value of their learning.

6) Innovating in the Advertising Space. Ad publishers and the attached ecosystem will continue to lose revenue until they realign their understanding of what appeals to people who are conversing, connecting, and expressing. The next phase of social media is a gold mine of targeted niche demographics.

7) Helping People Organize Their "Old" Social Media Ecosystem. As aggregating platforms enter the field, people will seek to bring order to the endless bits of information available to them. Video tagging, conversation archiving, taking cloud computing to the next stage, and making search more relevant are some of the new baseline requirements. These represent a significant opportunity for companies willing to undertake this massive endeavor.

8) Connecting with the Rest of the US and the World. With some exceptions, today's active social media users are early adopters. In the next one to two years, the benefits of social media will cross the chasm and reach the mainstream.

9) Preparing for New Social Media Jobs. Social media's new job descriptions will call on subject-matter experts who can plan for relevant interaction within networks and aggregating platforms and bring together products, services, and people.

10) Making Money. The next phase of social media will bring plenty of lucrative opportunities. With the rise of aggregating platforms, social networks, and new mobile and location-based features, we're bound to see an increase in targeted and personalized ads, "freemium" packaging, revenue sharing between strategic partners, and a flow from the offline world to online social engagement (such as when real goods complement virtual ones).

While this year be the year social media and "making money" converge successfully? Or is that still years away?

Social Media Tips: A Quick List of Helpful Links

2009-01-27T11:27:00.012-05:00

2008 was the year social media networking sites and micro-blogging tools exploded to near-mainstream usage. This year promises only more growth for social media.

In Canada, there are 8 million Facebook members...for a country with 24 million on the Internet. That's one-third of Canada found on just one site!

Just this month, Facebook became twice as large in usage than MySpace...with a total of 150 million active users.

Twitter was no longer just a tool to track celebrities on their rhinestone-encrusted smartphones; it became THE way to pre-promote for any savvy marketer.

Whether you are just now getting into social media or you are already in the know, these current articles should be great idea generator and navigators for you:

>> 50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Business

>> ...And here's a list of 42 quick and cool social media tips...

>> Understanding and Aligning the Value of Social media

>> Why You Should Be Looking at Twitter

>> How To Sell Social Media to Cynics, Skeptics and Luddites

>> Social Media Rule #1: Always Give 'Em Something To Talk About

>> A Guide to Media Tweeter Lists

>> Web 2.0 is So Over, Welcome to Web 3.0

>> Want to See Where The Media Is Going? Follow the Money

>> FlowingData -- one of the better tweeting social media leaders. FlowingData.com is the website...

>> ...Oh, and this guy is pretty good, too.

>> Track the top twitter elite users, get twitsnips, badges, button makers and search by region, topic and more at TwitterGrader

>> Create free customizable Twitter backgrounds

But...is Twitter killing blogs and blogging?

Make A Difference - A Secret for Success

2009-01-25T15:11:00.003-05:00

There's a documentary series providing examples of how failures can lead to success...a tweet recommend from Guy Kawasaki.

Social Media and Traditional Media: Seize the Opportunity

2009-01-23T15:51:00.009-05:00

Social media is all the rage online.

But do you know what it means or how it works? How much time have you spent "digging" in and learning from the latest tools? Webinars are available almost daily from hundreds of online businesses exploring the infant power of micro-blogging and interlacing all of a company's online and traditional media platforms.

And how exactly do you "sell" it...to your CFO or other financial decision makers, let alone to the marketplace for revenue?

Traditional media -- radio, TV and newspapers -- are far behind the curve here. And sadly, the good people still slugging it out in traditional media hardly have the time to learn on their own as they've been saddled with staff cuts and more than one-job-to-many to cover for the people let go.

For the past few weeks, I've been re-immersing myself in social media. Had to...I was a staff cut. It's fascinating and exciting. You can literally "see" the growth right there in front of you. Online. But what about with radio...any growth happening there?

Sure, in places, but it's not so easy to see it. While radio groups generally continue to record strong quarterly cash-flow/EBITA profits and are maintaining healthy revenues, all the weak economic forecasts for the entire advertising industry eclipse (at least for now) any good news stories about radio. While initiatives like Virgin Radio in Canada could bear positive fruit, it was immediately followed up with 23 job cuts for Astral. On the same day it was announced Clear Channel in the U.S. cut 1,850 jobs. After a year where CBS Radio has cut 750 cuts from their 140 station group.

The public knows -- and the market knows -- growth industries don't cut jobs. When industries are hiring -- when companies have a hard time filling their open slots for talent -- the public and the market gives that industry their confidence and can see the growth. They want to invest because they see the companies investing in themselves. Cutbacks only mean one thing -- growth is somewhere else.

You want to see growth? Just look at these stats.

So where can radio get growth again? Where can it invest?

Social media.

Right now.

Oh, and it might want to consider a few more things. Here's some suggestions:

• Treat your station like a social media website...a place that consistently refreshes and surprises with new content, supplied by the talent, programming and, most importantly, by the listeners (through twitter, IM, email comments, etc. and recorded and live messages). Let THEM contribute; tear down the wall between the station and the listener. Make sure your website includes all the tools for your talent AND your listeners to participate and contribute new ideas and general commentary on whatever THEY choose (of course, staying within community standards).

• Make sure your website is the center of multiple destinations all related and pointed to each other on the web, through fans and group profiles on Facebook and MySpace, etc, Twitter, blogs, and more.

• Be the most local media for your community and, specifically, your target audience.

• Pay attention to what your listeners need and make sure you remain flexible as an organization to give listeners what they need...not maybe sometime in the near future.

• Avoid template formatting. Keep every station locally-distinctive to that market, even if it voice-tracks or uses syndicated programming. Your sound and your unique content (even it is re-packaged) is your unique selling proposition.

• Stop sounding exactly the same every day with your announcers using nearly the same 180 words during their show as they used the day before, only in a slightly different order. Your listeners want to know "what's new", not "what's the same".

• Get away from auto pilot programming. Yes, it is cheaper to run in auto pilot and it does create short-term operating gains...but radio is reaching (or already has reached) the tipping point of being forever branded as stale -- to the public, to advertisers, and to investors -- as new media (and the universal praise for new media) constantly remains new -- and even more new tomorrow. Build more custom programming (even when pre-produced) and adapt operational structures to manage it.

• Encourage talent to do new things, to explore...even within mostly music/tight formats. Encourage them to try and to seek out...and allow them the room to apply that on-air. Nurture them more to grow, learn and apply in fresh ways.

• While we need brand consistency, that doesn't mean what we program on Tuesday should sound exactly like it did on Monday. Around the set playlist, the local, live and fresh content matters! The question talent needs to ask itself before every show is "What does my listener need to know about today?"

• If you choose to promote something, never do it halfway (or less). Promote it with all your muscle and creativity, with no excuses. And never water it down by trying to promote more than one major thing at a time. If it's important, it should become what all of your audience is talking about.

Radio is a healthier media platform than it realizes. It is still a heavyweight of the media class. But it needs a new training program that can help it keep up with the times. It needs the leadership and the courage to invest in the right areas for present and future growth. Where do you want to go today?

Here's some more suggestions...and a great primer to catch you up on the reasons why.

Hold on a second, I just got tweeted...

Chris Kennedy is a media trend watcher, radio program director, market researcher, change agent and strategist serving media companies throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe and South America. Look for him his at twitter.com/kennedycs, facebook.com, the Jointblog for media trend watching, email him at kennedycs@yahoo.com or call 514-826-9250.

A Look Ahead to 2009 From John Parikhal

2009-01-04T18:51:00.004-05:00

Last month, fmqb published their year-end issue asking various media leaders their thoughts on the state of the radio industry. Here is what John Parikhal wrote:

The necessary steps the radio industry should take to ensure the future growth and viability of the business begins with low-hanging fruit: cheap and easy ways for radio to make more money.

1. Dump bad initiatives and start good ones: HD is DOA. Spend your time and energy tapping everyone except the most senior executives, who seem to spend too much time with each other and not enough in the trenches. Stop surrounding yourselves with `suck-ups' who agree with bad ideas because they are afraid for their jobs.
2. Push hard for a 30-59 demo buy: For decades, radio has been driven by advertiser's demands for 25-54. It's so out of date. Get modern. Already, 16 million Baby Boomers are 55-59. They spend billions and radio ignores them. In the next four years, another 16 million will be 55-59. Meanwhile, 25-29 year-olds are less interested in radio than ever. Get real. And, if I hear `we can't tell advertisers what to do'- stop acting like a victim.
3. Encode song ID: A simple, inexpensive fix. Make sure that when you play a song, the title shows up on car radios. iPod does it. Satellite does it. But some stations won't spend the money, even though 50% of radio listeners want to know the titles each time they are played.
4. Tap into your 2.0 employees: Get serious about innovation. It's usually `bottom up'. Radio has proven you can't do it top down. The best ideas come from those closest to the customer. Put a process in place to listen to your employees who actually interact with your listeners and advertisers.
5. Advertise: Stop acting like poverty stricken corner stores who cut their ad budgets when sales are down. Act like serious players. Let people know what you're doing, what's new and why you matter. You have to spend the money! Build it into the budget and don't cut it if times get a bit tough. Yes, it's a financial crisis now. If you plan to be here in three years, you have to act like it now or you won't be here in three years.
6. Learn about your customers: Do you know that fewer than 4% of your listeners ever text a radio station? Do you know that almost 25% of those who go to a station Web site are also listening to at least one other Internet-only station too? You learn this by researching your customers. I do a lot of market research for clients ranging from radio to Internet companies. The reason for the market research is because I learned 40 years ago that if you take your eye off the customer, they take their eye (and ear) off you.
7. Get serious about your Web site: Update at least every day. Optimize search. Make it easy to find the `listen' button. Include a phone number in your `contact us' information. Post lots of photos. Do usability testing.
8. Adapt to the new world: Drop the clichéd slogans and connect with the real world. Accept that 30+ listeners are the future for at least another 5-10 years and figure out how to make them really happy with you.

Leaders today have to find broadcasters who want to encourage younger people to come into the industry. Decide if you plan to be in business in three years. If you do, then stop getting rid of your intellectual capital like human beings who actually come up with the ideas and do the work. Without fresh blood, the industry will become almost completely networked and syndicated. At that point, it's nothing more than a transmitter business. Like the oil pipeline business instead of the business of finding oil.

Toronto tops the Twittersphere

2008-12-26T13:54:00.006-05:00

What are you doing?

If you are in Toronto, there's a good chance you're on Twitter.

According to the Globe and Mail, not just fans of Barack Obama are on Twitter. Torontonians are totally tethered to Twitter.

Canada's largest city is the Twitter capital of the Great White North and home to one of the largest collections of Twitter users in the world, according to a new report from market tracking firm HubSpot Inc.

In the company's quarterly “State of the Twittersphere” report, Toronto places eighth on a list of the Top 30 locations on Twitter, based on the supplied biographical information of Twitter users, while Canada ranks No. 13.

London tops the list, followed by the United States generally, then San Francisco, New York and Chicago.

The popularity of Twitter – a micro-blogging service which allows users to update their status, create friend lists and post mini messages limited to 140 characters or less using either a computer or a cellphone – has exploded in 2008, with the service's user base jumping 600 per cent this year.

There are now an estimated 5 million Twitter users around the world, 70 per cent of whom joined the service in the past 12 months, HubSpot said.

For more, click here.

Jointblog update

2008-12-17T20:20:00.003-05:00

For the past 20 months or so, the Jointblog has remained relatively inactive as I've been involved in additional media business activities. Interestingly, the Jointblog remains tops in Google among many strong keyword searches, including media media trend watching (where the Jointblog is still #1 in search results). So the content seems to remain relevant (at least by search standards).

The 600 posts and articles contained within the Jointblog are still accessible as archives and easily searchable here on the site.

Over the next few weeks, I'll be reactivating the Jointblog and revamping it with fresh perspectives earned from my recent media field work and other insights. Stay tuned...meanwhile, enjoy and happy holidays!

--Chris Kennedy

40 Inspirational Speeches in 2 Minutes

2008-12-17T13:40:00.000-05:00

Get inspired!

40 Inspirational Speeches in 2 Minutes @ Yahoo! Video

Artie Quits Stern, Consumers Demand Control

2008-04-14T21:59:00.009-04:00

Among the many comments being posted online on message boards about Artie Lange quitting the Howard Stern show last Friday? (editor note: he shortly thereafter apologized, went into rehab, and returned) Outrage that the audio clips were found on YouTube and not provided for free from Sirius.

Yet another example of where consumers demand Control and Convenience for their Content.

Stern fans will find out after Artie's week off holiday in Amsterdam whether this is real or not...and if Artie's next gig will be in rehab.

The bigger question we wait to see answered: Will it create a Sirius backlash being a gated subscription service, where the consumer isn't getting the control it wants? What happens if Sirius demands the audio get removed from YouTube?

Below are the uncensored audio links on YouTube:

TED Has Ideas Worth Spreading

2008-03-17T20:19:00.007-04:00

Ted.com is truly an cool site.

If you are into media trend watching like we are, you'll love checking out this site on a regular basis.

One of the hot new media technologies being discussed on Ted.com is the new Photosynth application, which will help lead Web 2.0 to Web 3.0.

Imagine all Flickr photos being able to automatically inter-relate?

Or reading newspapers and magazines all the way down to the microprint -- easily zoomed with no loss in resolution>

Check out this video demo and be wowed with the possible future of the web.

Album Sales down 21% from a year ago

2007-12-28T09:06:00.000-05:00

According to the entertainment trade mag Variety, Josh Groban is one of few people in the music industry singing a happy jolly tune this holiday season.

While Groban's "Noel" has crossed 3.5 million in sales to become the top-selling disc of the year (and the #1 album for the past 5 weeks), there's no denying this music trend: overall music sales during the Christmas shopping season were down an astounding 21% from last year.

From the week of Thanksgiving up through the day before Christmas Eve, Soundscan sales tracking report 83.9 million albums were sold, a decrease of 21.38 million from 2006's 105.28 million.

The week leading up to Christmas saw sales rise a 42% over the previous week. But when the week's sales of 25.57 million are compared to the same week from '06, they represent an 18% drop.

Can online music gift cards for online music close some of that lost sales gap?

Is the CD part of the music industry on its way to becoming only a $20 billion industry even earlier than predicted last year?

Happy Holidays from the Jointblog

2007-12-21T00:01:00.000-05:00

It's the holiday season...here's a classic Christmas video for some viral viewing to help put you in the mood. Snoopy vs. the Red Baron, as sung by the Royal Guardsmen. Happy holidays...and look for more Jointblogging in 2008.

Imagine, It's Been 27 Years

2007-12-08T12:08:00.000-05:00

December 8th has become a day we measure our imagination. It's been 27 years since John Lennon -- a martyr for idealism, peace and love -- was killed by someone with an imagination filled with violence. Mr. Imagine, slain by a madman's delusions.

Meanwhile, Lennon's imagination lives on through his words and his music.

Can you imagine...it's been 27 years.

Here Comes Another Bubble?

2007-12-04T19:07:00.000-05:00

It's been awfully quiet in WebWorld lately.

No aggressive major recent acquisitions. Consistent strong share values. Maturing market-leading brand name web destinations. No new loud threats from hyped upstarts as the next new great thing online.

Thanks to websites like Google, Facebook and many others, web valuations are through the roof, just like the financial marketplace saw during the portal heydays of AOL and Yahoo! in the late 90s.

A spoofing group from Silicon Valley called The Richter Scales have put together a parody video reworking Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" openly wondering (or stating in a backhanded way) that the Web is poised for another bubble burst.

Which begs the question: if too many people blog about a possible Web 2.0 bubble, will the Web become its own version of a celebrity meltdown?

Tip of the Hat to Evel Knieval

2007-12-03T09:09:00.001-05:00

When it comes to setting media trends, there are very few people who can be called innovators.

Evel Knieval was one.

He was a walking (and jumping) media trend maker.

While daredevils have often captured the public's imagination (especially magicians), Evel Knieval was the first to bring extreme sports to TV and create a merchandising empire from it.

He had it all -- the name (you HAVE to use both words in his name for due respect, unlike the first-name casual basis of modern-day celebs); the look of red-white-and-blue icon costume; the personality of someone larger than life, even if reckless; and the greatest toy line ever made for kids around the world.

Evel Knieval passed away Friday...he was a huge Wide World of Sports icon and daredevil, motorcycle jumping just about everything he could. The Caeser's Palace Fountain, shark tanks, rows of 18-wheel transportation trucks, even the famous Snake River canyon jump.

He also licensed his fame to create one of the greatest toys ever! Remember this?

Beginning to look at 2007 Year-Ends

2007-12-01T12:39:00.000-05:00

So it is December already.

2007 is wrapping up and Christmas songs are playing on the radio again while winter storms bring out the worst drivers on the road.

Lots to process through evaluating what happened in media for 2007...and what's in store for us in 2008:

If there is one phase that captures the biggest movement, it is this: Social networking. This is THE trend of media. Those that get it and those that don't. If you aren't on Facebook, guess which label between get it/don't get it applies to you.

As our friend Jerry Del Colliano explains it:

Social networking is bigger than the Internet itself. More important than email. More pervasive than text messaging. This generation defines itself by making friendships and associations with each other."

Agreed.

Radio and social networking? Sadly, still misunderstood and still not even a boardroom agenda item, let alone the R&D initiative plans.

How'd we do with other media trends?

Media revenues? Internet ad revenues still surging, as predicted...almost on par with radio in the U.S. Meanwhile, total radio revenues slipped in the U.S. (still growing slightly in Canada), while the big American consolidators continued their property sell-offs (radio still viewed as a positive acquisition north of the border by the media analysts).

The XM-Sirius merger? Almost a done deal.

The iPhone and Touch? Big hits, with radio still unable to capture any real estate on the device. But are Zunes picking up some steam?

Apple ads? Still cool. Chocolate Rain? Still weird.

Clear Channel firings and layoffs to clean up the books to boost "performance"? Yep, right on schedule, as usual.

Resolution on royalty rates for web streaming of music and radio in the U.S.? Nope, of course not. And now Yahoo! and AOL are considering plugging their radio plugs. too.

PPMs? More announced rollout delays...but still coming...

Colbert? I TOLD you so!

And Katie Couric's legs? Still mysteriously searchable online...

CBS Radio? More relevant again. Opie & Anthony? Less so. Imus? We'll see (nice tan, though).

Howard Stern? More and more...who?

AOL? Parsons moves on, with very little innovation to show for his leadership. He stopped the bleeding...but the patient may not ever recover.

Celebrity meltdowns? Wow, we've actually gone a few months without a scandal! Look out...we're due. And there's still one month left till 2008...

Wii, XBox or PSP? All three are winning.

Political YouTube debates? A curious new toy...

What are YOU seeing? We value your feedback.

Media Trend Watching: Students and Education

2007-10-25T07:11:00.000-04:00

"Today's child is bewildered when he enters the 19th century environment that still characterizes the educational establishment where information is scarce but ordered and structured by fragmented, classified patterns, subjects and schedules."
-Marshall McLuhan 1967

My daughter just got her school-issued wireless notebook tablet PC. She's a 9th grader at a new high tech high school which is taking a leadership role giving students an innovative modern form of learning. No text books to take home. Learn and advance computer skills. Important world languages like Chinese and Japanese.

After seeing this new university-produced cultural research viral video on "a day in the life of a college student", I'm glad she's getting this great opportunity to learn.

Will other schools go more high tech? Will your own child crack open a text book or a notebook today? According to this video, it seems children will still be left behind if 19th century lecture techniques aren't removed from the classroom.

Get Approval First: A Few Good Creative Men

2007-10-13T13:30:00.000-04:00

New media challenges the power and effectiveness of traditional advertising. One thing remains true when deciding which brand building platform to use: make sure you get your approvals first before you "court" public opinion and spend those ad dollars.

Radiohead To Give Away New Album; Major Labels Freak Out

2007-10-01T19:23:00.000-04:00

The digital age causes headaches for all traditional media companies trying to hold onto their business models. They like the control of their content which they distribute through their owned connections to their consumers at the prices they decide, all at the media company's convenience.

Control, Content, Connection, Convenience -- the consumer battle over the four C's which the Jointblog and Joint Communications has referred to for years.

The digital age reverses these rules.

In the digital age, it is the consumer making the decisions.

The consumer decides the content they want -- how, when, were and even if it is consumed.

The consumer decides the price they want -- if they don't like the price, they find it for less (or for free) somewhere online.

The consumer decides -- at their own convenience -- what matters and what doesn't.

It is the consumer that is in control.

Now, there's news a major recording act -- considered by many fans and music critics to be among the best bands in the world over the last decade -- is offering their brand new album for free download. And the consumer can choose how much they want to pay for it, if they want to even pay anything at all.

The band: Radiohead.

It's an unusual -- but brilliant -- step to tell fans that they can pay as much or as little as they like for the band's new album "In Rainbows". In essence, they are telling their fans "it's up to you" what they pay to digitally download the album.

And they make it easy, without ripping anyone off or wasting anyone's time forcing them to watch an embedded commercial the consumer doesn't want to see.

As The Telegraph reports:

Radiohead is free to sell its album directly from its official website because it is no longer tied to a record label. So far the album is only available to pre-order from the website, where it can be downloaded on release on October 10.

While loyal fans are likely to want to pay the band something, customers could opt to pay as little (as) the credit card handling fee.

What exactly does this get Radiohead, since it doesn't guarantee revenue or profits?

Credibility.

And it strikes a blow against corporate dominance.

It makes Radiohead fans love the band more.

And, my bet is plenty of fans will pay comparable fair value for a new CD anyway...because they know what is fair and what isn't.

Mainstream Media, are you listening?

Do you hear the rules changing?

Fairness in a Viral Video World

2007-09-25T19:56:00.000-04:00

One media trend needing repair is the trend of instantaneous public shaming. The YouTube viral video media machine is constantly hungry, demanding more and more servings of content.

When is enough enough?

Celebrities melt down, insult innocent people in a stereotypical way and show off their private indiscretions in viral video that spreads around the world: the public eats it up. Or elected politicians make boneheaded and hypocritical decisions, spurring bloggers and other amateur "journalists" to mock them endlessly while attracting a mob mentality that happily add their own comments. Jackass thrill seekers record on digital video their idiot stunts so we can laugh at them.

These are all legit candidates for public shaming.

Some people get dragged in through no fault of their own. And mainstream media often joins in the flogging practice favored by viral video sites and blogs. Sometimes someone has to step in to say "enough is enough", as this football coach did this past weekend. We need more of this action from the public and less misplaced shaming.

More Internet People -- What a wonderful world!

2007-09-14T09:14:00.000-04:00

Fun with shadow puppets brings the Louie Armstrong out for all of us to enjoy. Good if you need some warm and fuzzy viral video viewing.

Internet People

2007-09-14T07:59:00.000-04:00

Yes, this includes you.

http://view.break.com/362585 - Watch more free videos

Twin Light Beams of 9/11: 2007

2007-09-11T23:25:00.000-04:00

6 years of remembrance and many thoughts about the impact of 9/11 here...plus this spectacular image Tuesday night of the memorial light beams.

Transitions in Media Trend Watching

2007-09-05T09:13:00.000-04:00

Recently, the Jointblog passed 500,000 total page views to our site – and we are less than 3 years old. It’s hard to believe that our site is older than YouTube.

This blog was started and developed by Chris Kennedy as a way to focus on Media Trend Watching – a core competency at Joint Communications.

It surfs the wave between pop culture and business insight, a world of instant fame or shame where old media power is challenged by new media behaviors. There’s never a dull moment.

After working with me for over 15 years, Chris decided to return to his first love -- radio -- joining Corus Entertainment, a multi-media leader in old and new media, as Program Director of Montreal's Q92.

Chris has kindly agreed to continue the Jointblog so that we can keep an eye on media trends – big or small - from NBC’s rearguard action against Apple (refusing them content) to YouTube’s unpredictable effect on the upcoming Presidential elections.

And, the most significant trend we’re watching right now is the digital divide – the gap between those who are online (especially with high speed connections) and those who aren’t. America's lagging behind many developed countries in broadband per capita, including South Korea and Iceland.

The beauty of today's digital world means Chris and I will maintain our high-speed association with one another -- efficiently transitioning us from the Joint connection to a new digital connection.

Miss Teen USA 2007 - South Carolina answers a question

2007-08-27T07:58:00.000-04:00

Looking at the world of media trend watching through viral video, here's our education system on display at this weekend's Miss Teen USA 2007 pageant. Uploaded on YouTube just two days ago, it already has more than 2 million total views...and the number is quickly rising.

This is how South Carolina's Miss Teen USA Lauren Caitlin Upton answered her question from the judges hoping to show her "substance" beyond her beauty.

Blonde jokes can now begin.

Wa-wha-what?

click here to view directly.

The Joys of Drawing With MS Paint?

2007-08-19T11:27:00.000-04:00

Some Sunday funnies for you...just found this wacky satire from freeloveforum reviewing the joys of MS Paint, where apparently the world is turning digital, the future is now and the future is in the past at the same time. In case you'd like to catch up, consider the amazing MS Paint to help get you there (tutorial here).

How? Make sure you follow that squiggly-drawn circle you draw with your mouse. Really! Or simply use that fancy erase tool if you get lost and start again.

Brilliant!

The media trend? User-generated viral video content -- especially ironic humor -- remains frequently smarter and more funny than what we get from TV.

Media Trending: Spending Up, Usage Slightly Declining

2007-08-18T10:57:00.000-04:00

Has media reached a new usage plateau? A new level of consumer saturation? What's a new view of the future for media?

Private equity firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson (VSS) has released a new study forecasting spending in the media industry into 2011. The study found that while communications spending increased in 2006, consumer media usage actually dropped after multiple years of growth.

Total communications spending grew 6.8 percent to $885.2 billion in 2006. VSS predicts that in the first half of 2007, the industry will grow by 6.4 percent, making it among the fastest growing sectors of the U.S. economy.

VSS also predicts that Internet advertising will replace newspapers as the largest ad medium by 2011.

Meanwhile, media usage per person declined last year by 0.5 percent, according to their data, due to changing consumer behavior and the efficiency of digital media. VSS found that digital alternatives for news and entertainment require less time investment than traditional media. VSS predicts consumer media usage to stabilize this year and slightly increase through 2011.

Consumers are also moving away from ad-supported media, such as broadcast TV and newspapers. VSS labels options such as video games and cable TV "consumer-supported platforms," and says their usage is increasing as time with ad-supported media decreases.

"We are in the midst of a major shift in the media landscape that is being fueled by changes in technology, end-user behaviors and the response by brand marketers and communications companies," said James Rutherfurd, EVP and Managing Director for VSS. "We expect these shifts to continue over the next five years, as time and place shifting accelerate while consumers and businesses utilize more digital media alternatives, strengthening the new media pull model at the expense of the traditional media push model."

If we have reached a new plateau of media consumption, it is worthwhile to take a look around the media landscape right now. Who has survived? Which platforms are still thriving? Still hanging on?

More specifically, take a look at radio. Good news...radio still operates with strength. It is simple, reliable, cost-effective and still is used weekly by 94% of the population. Radio has gone through tremendous industry change and competitive challenge from new media options...and radio still survives.

Is radio ready to rev it back up and go after the demographic it has nearly lost (teens) or the demographic it has turned away from (Boomers)?

Web Analytics: The Actives and Less Actives

2007-08-05T16:41:00.000-04:00

Digital life makes everything easier. Right?

Sure, for many...but not all. First of all, the technology needs to work. When it works, being digital can mean greater productivity...or it can be overwhelming just trying to keep up with the upgrades. Or frustrating to fix when there's a glitch or interface problem, even among those who know what they are doing. And shopping!

Just consider all the different number of gadgets and digital options. To many, it remains very intimidating.

If you consider yourself a "wired" person, it is easy to forget the rest of the population. Not everyone is as happy with this digital life as you might be.

According to the latest update in the PEW Internet & American Life Project, 59% of us are less than thrilled with new digital connections and options, as illustrated in the graphic table above ("The Digital Less-Actives").

Based on their on-going national panel study:

- 10% of us are "connected but hassled"

- 8% are "inexperienced experimenters"

- 15% are "light but satisfed" digital users

- 11% are digital "indifferents"

Meanwhile, 15% are completely "off the network". They have neither a cell phone nor internet connectivity.

Add all those user segment groups together, that's 59% of the total population describing themselves as either non- or light-users. 59% that currently are not active digital users.

Meanwhile, only 41% of us are "The Digital Actives" (left graphic). 41% is not the majority...yet, based on media coverage, and Time Magazine's appointment of "You" as the 2006's Person of the Year, it might be easy to get confused.

Does that surprise you in 2007? Being a digital person (after all, you are reading this Jointblog post), wouldn't you expect to see more people being digital?

What it means is we still haven't reached the peak for a full digital life in society. There continues to be opportunity to reach new consumers.

The key?

Make it simple.

Make it easy.

Take away fear and frustration.

How well are you connecting with your potential digital audience? Are you making it too hard for them to use your site? Too difficult to be interactive with your digital audience? Are you giving your audience too much choice, too many options?

What can you do to make their digital life more simple?

New Adventures in Media Trend Watching

2007-07-15T09:14:00.000-04:00

"Move forward, young man...while you are still young."

Not sure who said that but I do know a consulting associate from Joint Communications -- Bob Elliot -- who was once asked how he defined growth.

He said, "Well, if you are not growing, you're dead."

Perhaps a little blunt but there is truth in those words, both personally and professionally.

We all seek growth in various forms through our relationships, our businesses and careers, our learning, our finances...the list goes on and on.

As Peter Drucker has said (loosely paraphrased), an important key in growing successful long-term management is for executives, directors and managers to periodically return to day-to-day operations and get away from the "boardroom". It allows for managers to understand what has changed and what needs to happen for future growth.

In the rush-rush of decision making and strategic guidance throughout fiscal years following the pressures of meeting budget and performance expectations, managers can easily shift away from the realities out on the floor before they realize it.

Consultants are no different.

We fly in, work our magic, stir up the team toward growth and fly back home, following up to help make sure decisions stick into on-going action.

This ability to lend an outside perspective to operations allows consultants to see competitive challenges partner clients may not be able to see for themselves. It is a major strength for the consulting role, one that the rapidly-evolving media industry still needs for both the mature sectors of "traditional" media like radio, TV, the music industry, magazines and newspapers...as well as for "new" media, such as cable, modern telephony, wireless, satellite, and all-things related to the Internet.

But, over time, this outside role has its limitation, for the consultant remains on the "outside" of everyday operations. With so many constant and fast changes happening in media, getting back periodically into the daily functions of media business keeps the consultant up-to-date with industry realities.

Which is why I have made a new step forward.

For the last 15 years, I have worked and partnered with John Parikhal at Joint Communications consulting our international roster of media clients. An amazing thrill for me, allowing for constant learning, unique situational decision making, and cross-pollination experience throughout the media industry's up-phases, downturns, IPOs, mergers & acquistions and new tech advancements.

For the past couple months, I've been getting operational again, serving as Program Director for Montreal's Q92fm -- a heritage mainstream AC radio station and one of Corus Radio's many great stations across Canada. It's a new adventure for me, allowing me to pursue growth on a whole new level for a long-time client.

Of personal and professional importance, it also allows me to "get operational again" doing what I love to do: programming radio, coaching talent, building cooperation and communication between station departments, getting deeply involved with the community, building new station events and promotions, managing brand building efforts, and, ultimately, entertaining our audience in the best way possible while also serving as an effective advertising media choice among our station clients.

It's media trend watching on the street level. And I'm having a blast.

What better way to understand the "future of radio" than following Peter Drucker's advice and getting operational again?

I'm proud of what has been accomplished with Joint Communications and our clients. The Jointblog is the #1 destination online for people interested in media trend watching (according to all the search engine results and traffic meters)...these changes will offer a new new level of perspective for future Jointblog posts.

We encourage you to keep sharing your thoughts.

And keep Jointblogging!

We will.

I'm off now for our street festival concert event...literally getting back to street level...

Media Buyers: Why 40-59 Year Olds Still Should Matter

2007-05-12T00:09:00.000-04:00

Quick: which demographic has collective disposable income estimated at about $2 trillion a year...and yet are considered secondary targets by marketers and media buyers?

If you are a Baby Boomer, you're used to being the center of marketing attention. You expect it, since it's been that way most of your life. Today, though, you might be feeling a bit jilted. You...and more than 86 million "mature" consumers. Since the turn of the millennium, media buyers have shifted their advertising dollars more and more to younger consumers...especially to today's teens and other Echo Boomers.

Of course, the marketing game has long been a youth game. And 18-49 clearly is important. The "big generation" Boomers made sure of it.

Still, Baby Boomers represent more than 25% of the today's population in both the U.S. and Canada (down from 40% in 1967). Traditional media buying beliefs states the strongest marketing ROI comes from younger consumers still-moldable for brand building opportunities. It is believed older, smarter, wiser Boomer consumers are less susceptible to marketing messages.

Nonsense.

Do you really think Boomers are ready to retire and become irrelevant?

Baby Boomers have money, they aren't afraid to spend it and their minds aren't locked on life-long brands. They want content and marketing geared for them. And they can be influenced, too.

Here's why:

More than three-quarters of advertising buys for all media today targets consumers younger than 49. The only major media buys that are "boomer friendly" are newspapers and magazines (to a lesser extent).

TV, radio, the Internet, billboards, etc...they all seem to consider Boomers less "valuable" than 18-49s, teens or younger...even though Boomers remain heavy users of all media.

This means there is over-saturation of "young" media messages (especially on TV, the Internet and even radio). Since Boomers are getting targeted less, they also have fewer marketing messages "in their zone".

What do they see or hear?

Ads on retirement, pension plans, vacations, Big Pharma and Depends.

Come on now!

These are Boomers. They only started turning 60 this year. And they strongly want to hold onto whatever youth they still have. They mostly still need to earn a living and probably will keep working at least another 7-10 years. They are healthier and wealthier than any generation previously in this age demo.

And, surprise, the "aging" baby boom generation still LOVE media -- including new media and the latest gadgets, embracing the Internet, high-speed and everything related to it.

A new national study by BoomerEyes found:

• Nearly 40% of those with kids said they’re now “Empty Nesters”;

• In addition to having the time to do what they want and when, the Empty Nesters also report financial freedom. On average, they said they have $315 more per month to spend;

• Some 71% of 50-64 year olds and 84% of 30-49 year olds report high Internet usage. Even among those 65 and over, regular Net usage is reported by 32%;

• Boomers who took the online survey say they most often shop online for travel (58%), books (57%), clothes (57%) and electronics (50%).

Echos reverberate. Could Baby Boomers attract back marketing attention as Reverse Echo Boomers? This new advertising "generational gap" represents a massive opportunity. What are you doing to tap into it?

Hi, I'm a Marvel...and I'm a DC (Mac/PC Parody)

2007-05-06T16:44:00.000-04:00

With box office records being set this weekend for the new Spider-Man 3 movie (an estimated $148 million in the U.S. and $375 million in global gate), everyone seems to have Spidey Fever.

It looks like we all got caught in last week's Spider-Man Web Week...it's been unavoidable.

Being a fan, I certainly don't mind.

I've also been a big fan of the "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" commercials from Apple...still not tired of them. Nor am I tired of the great user-generated spoof parodies they've inspired.

So, in the spirit of Spider-Man Mania, enjoy this "I'm a Marvel, I'm a DC" Apple parody as Spider-Man (Marvel) and Superman (DC) discuss the state of their respective film divisions. It's fun (and geeky) viral video.

Radio Finally Realizes It Can Do Social Networking, Too

2007-04-30T09:38:00.000-04:00

The success of MySpace has spun off an emerging trend of new social networking startup site based on specific themes and custom labels. And now radio is joining the online marketing action.

Billboard.biz reports today that America's largest radio company Clear Channel is starting up its own radio-branded social networking websites, with plans to get them up and running throughout this summer.

The concept? "Mini-MySpace" sites associated with a major market's radio brand logo targeting that stations' local community audience, allowing users to create and customize their profiles, upload their user-generated content and viral video, form friendship links, post comments and generally connect with other like-minded people.

At the same time, the radio stations with have a new opportunity to promote its activities and contests as well as community events, gossip, new music releases and even on-air podcasts.

Finally.

It's only a decade late.

But at least it finally getting done.

How about the other radio groups?

Some Clear Channel example sites launched today: The Wild Space for Rhythmic CHR Wild FM in San Francisco; The Mob for Top 40 Kiss FM in Chicago; The Z-Zone for New York's Top 40 Z100; Kiss Nation for Top 40 Kiss FM in Dallas; and many more to come from stations across the country based on new music formats.

Will they just be LateSpace?

What took radio so long to wake up to the social networking phenomenon of the last decade? The Internet started as a community connector to share information (digitally) back when it was bulletin board Dos-based postings accessed via slow-baud dial-ups -- long before AOL IMs, or even chat rooms in CompuServe or Prodigy.

Radio could have -- and should have -- established online social networkings long before MySpace, Facebook, Friendster, Bebo, Zanga, Eons, UrbanBaby or any of the others popular places online today. Radio already had (and still has) established built-in interactive communities, including local fans as well as listeners who've relocated to other cities who remain fans.

Clear Channel's plans will "monetize the sites with targeted online spots from local advertisers" while helping people connect with others locally. Meanwhile, users will be able to click on the user profiles in the chat area to enter and explore the social network.

According to the news release:

Each social network will have a user experience similar to that offered by MySpace, Facebook, Bebo and others. Users can create and customize profiles; upload photos, music and video; blog; and add friends. Users will also be able to enhance their profile pages with videos from Clear Channel's catalog of over 6,000 music videos licensed from major and independent labels.

Yes, social websites are one of Top 10 things teens love to do. The timing is good for radio to step in and offer something fresh, especially since MySpace is turning more and more into a junkyard mess.

But it's not just teens that want to socially network online.

It's grownups, too -- GenXers and Boomers alike. Adult Contemporary, Classic Rock, Oldies and other adult music formats should also be included.

There's lots of competition among the most active social networking websites. Breaking through will be tough. Corporate Radio is slow joining the bandwagon when it comes to online social networking...perhaps its expertise in formating and its built-in on-air audience can help radio stations get the word out while creating a unique online community destination.

Just help users cut through the clutter!

It does lead to an interesting modern-day question: How many online profiles can a person possibly have and keep up-to-date while still keeping up real-life responsibilities? Three? Five? A dozen? More? How many multiple personalities are we all living every day?

And another question: what will radio do about mobile social networking (like Twitter, etc.)?

Media Trend Watching: Radio Right Now

2007-04-27T21:09:00.000-04:00

Joint Communications marks 30 years this month advising the radio industry through format programming, consulting, market research, marketing development and media strategy services.

The month of April also means it's time for John Parikhal's annual spring check-up as this week's featured FMQB cover story to discuss radio and the evolving mediaspace challenges radio faces in the immediate future.

Among the discussed topics:

> The proposed XM/Sirius merger -- including the financial and competitive implications as well as Mel Karmazin's catalyst role (puzzling; Stern probably helped save Sirius; Mel sees opportunities)

> The trend led by Clear Channel and other big groups toward privatization (more squeeze and bleed? And Clear Channel gets rewarded?)

> HD Radio (just another local spectrum)

> PPM ratings measurements (consistency of measurement will help)

> The cellphone (risky for electronic ratings measurement)

> Blink spots and other "Less is More" initiatives (applaud the experimentation; spare listener energy; don't invade the consumer)

> Radio's needed presence on the Internet and its mishandling of opportunities that went to MySpace instead (getting better...but still behind due to insufficient support staffing and streaming fee penalties)

> Google's new deal selling radio ads ("It's nonsense")

> The lucrative potential of selling and targeting the 30-59 year old demographic (so much money radio could grab)

> An updated look at radio's emerging trends (demographics!)

FMQB's chief editor Fred Deane gets it all started by saying:

As the radio industry evolves at a rapid pace, critical decisions about the medium’s future become increasingly more urgent. Technology issues have enveloped the industry to such a challenging extent, that the call for radio leaders to be actionable has never resonated so loudly. John Parikhal has never met a challenge he didn’t like, he relishes the very concept. While Parikhal’s client list continues to remain firmly entrenched in radio, the macro version finds him involved with a variety of media and marketing companies. His latest foray with strategic Internet initiatives with some large clients has him thinking about the future 24/7. It’s spring and time for our annual check-up with one of our industry’s deep thinkers.

Thanks, Fred. All that and more...just click here for some great reading. Then come back and add your thoughts here on the Jointblog.

Additional reading: Thinking Through The Decision Making Process

No va? Free FM is stuck in the repair shop

2007-04-23T18:22:00.000-04:00

Since its launch 16 months ago, Free FM has spent more time in the repair shop than out on the open road.

Firings, content train wrecks, show suspensions, schedule changes, weak ratings, weak revenues...

Is Free FM running out of gas?

In branding, words often contain more than one meaning. Take the word "Nova". Chevy thought it sounded good for a line of small-muscle sport cars back in the 70s. Of course, as the well-worn urban legend goes, the "Nova" became "No Va"...a "Doesn't Go" joke. Soon after, sales dropped and Chevy stopped producing the car.

CBS Radio is facing their own "Nova" problem trying to find life after Howard Stern.

Or, at least they're getting very familiar with the phrase "Don't Go There".

When Stern left in late-December 2005, CBS (then known as Infinity Broadcasting) installed a new "Hot Talk on FM" format in its major markets across the nation that formerly broadcast Stern's morning show.

In a not-so-subtle move countering satellite radio (Stern's orbital home for the past 16 months), CBS decided to name the new format "Free FM".

Hot talk on satellite radio = you pay.

Hot talk on traditional radio = it's free radio. Or, Free FM.

Get it?

Get the difference? The advantage? The Free-dom?

Nope, me neither. Nor have millions of radio listeners in NYC, Los Angeles, Chicago and other markets.

The problem with naming the new national format "Free FM" in this post-9/11 traumatized society is that America is not feeling quite so free. Rather, among the Homeland Security warning lights, anthrax dustings, relentless White House manipulation scandals, a no-end-in-sight War on Terror, wardrobe malfunctions, celebrity meltdowns (physical, verbal and mental), global warming doom-gloom, likely $4-a-gallon gasoline...all the way to Imus ho's, Virginia Tech slayings and Karl Rove's screams at Sheryl Crow, America's mood feels less than free lately.

America seems more obsessed with Fear (on Fox) than with Free (on FM or elsewhere) right now.

Formerly known as WXRK K-Rock for 30 years, WFNY in New York City became the flagship for Free FM post-Stern.

The ratings? (mired at a 1.2 Arbitron rating 12+ all persons).

The revenue? (from $50.8 million in revenue 2005 down to $18.7 million in 2006).

Imagine the costs to operate, advertise and manage...

One thing Free FM was supposed to represent was "free speech", "free attitude", "free humor". Not just "free" from subscription fees; free for wild, open, surprising, unexpected content. Something capitalizing on the "extreme" culture and attitude trend. And that is how it has been promoted. How Free FM has tried to position itself.

Yes, Free FM has its funny moments of comedy, Idol Watching and train wreck radio as well as serious topics, too. And it does have its fans as Free FM pokes fun at popular culture. I usually listen everyday during the week and I'd call myself a fan, not that Arbitron counts me in the ratings.

What Free FM often seems to be, though, is a "No Go". No Va. Post-Imus, it's an easy target for uncontrollable controversy. Just today, more jock suspensions were handed out for midday show "The Doghouse with JV & Elvis", with the show apparently crossing a racial line over some Asian jokes.

Now, how is that line defined again...?

Although JV apologized for the incident and said at the conclusion of today's show that "if this is my last show, at least I got to say what needed to be said"...their real feelings were posted on their blog, with this "censorship" jpeg:

How do their fans feel about this? Read their comments here and here...or watch this clip of Hannity & Colmes as they discuss the subject.

What exactly does Free Radio mean anyway? Is it Free when the audience knows there are FCC regulations, corporate restrictions and advertiser considerations?

Isn't this why Stern left for Sirius?

As a brand, what does Free FM really mean? Especially when the audience knows there are "costs"?

Will new CBS Radio President Dan Mason keep the Free FM experiment going...or will he simply say, "No va"? Can Free FM get repaired? Can he get it up and running?

Rush Limbaugh on Virginia Tech Shooter: "He had to be a Liberal"

2007-04-20T11:39:00.000-04:00

Check out this brief transcript from yesterday's radio show (April 19th) of Rush Limbaugh deflecting criticism of his appalling comment that the Virginia Tech shooter was "a liberal".

The way Limbaugh moves attention from his own sick interpretation of mass murder to a "poor me" defence against the "drive-by media" that attack him -- before anyone has said a word about his horrible slur!

This is a masterpiece of radio manipulation -- it's why he's so big with his core and why he's stayed on top.

It's why he will get away with this outrageous and ugly connection between mass murder and liberalism.

Click here to listen to the actual broadcast mp3.

Media Matters of America tracked Limbaugh discussing the April 16 Virginia Tech shootings. According to Rush Limbaugh:

"If this Virginia Tech shooter had an ideology, what do you think it was? This guy had to be a liberal. You start railing against the rich and all this other -- this guy's a liberal. He was turned into a liberal somewhere along the line. So it's a liberal that committed this act. Now, the drive-bys will read on a website that I'm attacking liberalism by comparing this guy to them. That's exactly what they do every day, ladies and gentlemen. I'm just pointing out a fact. I am making no extrapolation; I'm just pointing it out.

They try -- whenever -- I can tell you from the history of this program, starting way back in the early '90s, when there was any kind of an incident, crime or what-have-you that attracted national attention, in the early days of this program, the drive-by media went out and they tried to connect the perpetrator to this program. They did everything they could. In fact, it went so far as Bill Clinton blaming me for influencing Timothy McVeigh to blow up the (Oklahoma City federal) building.

These are the people sponsoring lies and distortion for the purposes of dividing this country and creating hatred. These are the people that invented this kind of tactic, if you will."

Does anyone have the guts to go after Limbaugh just like they went after Imus?

April 27 Update: Hmm, is Rush tempting his critics' to try bringing him down? Click here to find out about Rush's ignorant "Barack the magic negro" routine.

Connecting Radio To Digital Music Fans

2007-04-18T12:59:00.000-04:00

Music fans are passionate. They talk music. Download, upload, swap, and playlist music. Participate on and start their own fan sites, go to shows, create/buy custom cellphone ringtones and fan wallpaper, serve as street marketers building up the buzz, blog it, and more.

These are great days for interactive music fans ...radio, are you listening?

They live the music of their favorite bands everyday.

Remember those days, Gen Xer? Sound familiar, Boomers?

Despite all the doom and gloom of industry indicators (album sales, retail sales, ticket sales...all down 15-20% from a year ago; weak debuts on the charts that don't stick; weaker TV ratings for music programming; etc.), there never has been a better time to be a Music Fan.

Radio is still figuring out how to connect with them. Some in radio are getting it, many others aren't.

What do teens want?

Radio has to program better to young music fans.

Radio has to understand their language, their various cultures. Value them. Be a place to connect with other like-minded people.

Radio can still do it.

Radio has always been an important social gathering filter. The "secret language" of rock n' roll delivered through transistor radios creating generation gaps between teens and parents back in the '50s and '60s is exactly the same kind of social networking we see today. Only now, it's through digital communication using multiple gadgets and devices in more interactive ways.

How will radio deliver more interactive opportunities for its listeners to form fresh social networking communities?

I stumbled upon this digital artwork (above) from a music fan in Germany. It's a great way to express creativity and be a fan, sharing it with the world.

Music Radio Website Idea: Create a custom digital webart community for Music Fans to express their creativity...it's a great way to participate in youth culture, acknowledge their contributions and connect with their music passion...the very essence of your music format. Then, convert the listener graphic art into a station/artist music gateway, where users/listeners simply click on the artist name -- leading music fans deeper into the site, allowing the radio station to showcase the music.

And be a music fan, too.

Measure The Tragedy Difference: Imus vs Virginia Tech

2007-04-17T23:19:00.000-04:00

Last week, much of the nation's conversation focused not on the War in Iraq or Afghanistan. Not on the fired U.S. Attorneys controversy or Karl Rove's "accidental" deletion of key email documents related to the firings. Not how the cellphone may be the cause for the dwindling bee population around the world.

Or even the O'Reilly/Geraldo verbal fight.

Instead, media -- and even personal conversions among friends and coworkers -- were fixated on the Don Imus scandal.

At first, his broadcast corporate owners were forced to suspend his national radio and simulcast cable TV show for two weeks.

When the uproar refused to die down (and the ratings on news channels kept going up), Al Sharpton's interest group cranked up the pile-on pressure, leading major advertisers to drop their advertising sponsorships. Once this happened, the end was inevitable. MSNBC and CBS Radio both were forced to cancel his show entirely and send the I-Man back to his ranch to contemplate the error of his ways and consider a possible retirement for his 30-year-plus Hall of Fame broadcast career.

The lesson learned?

Big Media has lost control of their content.

(Well, actually, they lost it years ago...but Big Media desperately tries to maintain their grip with the remaining fingernails they haven't nibbled down to nubs.)

Broadcast content no longer is something that just dissipates after its aired. While most listeners or viewers treat broadcast content as disposable, someone is recording...ready to exploit both excellent content as well as potential gaffs in judgement in order to satirize, criticize, reinterpret, spoof or simply to use as a base argument in the fight against social injustices.

Should the nation have been so transfixed on this issue? Was this naval-gazing really necessary? Will it actually create social change...or will our short attention spans just move on like society tends to move on after every scandal?

(Anna Nicole and Britney was so two months ago.)

Were the Three Nasty Words (which were nasty, wrong, and over the line of taste, respect and manners) aimed at the Rutgers University women's basketball team deserving of Tragedy Coverage?

Because feelings were hurt, did this deserve National Outrage?

No.

Does racism suck, does bigotry and misogyny exist and should we stop prejudicial injustice?

Of course.

Does this country need to make Improving Social Harmony Between Races, Classes, Genders and Ethnicities a national and governmental priority requiring regular conversation and debate in order to move forward and heal past and current injustices?

Absolutely.

This is a Presidential job. It requires Presidential leadership. And it should be a permanent job responsibility.

What deserves National Outrage?

What deserves 24/7 Media Tragedy Coverage?

The shocking, awful and criminal catastrophe Monday morning on the campus of Virginia Tech, resulting in the deaths of 32 innocent, gunned-down victims.

We have two examples of college students being attacked in the last 2 weeks. One group of students were verbally attacked through the crass use of three disparaging words during a radio/TV show those students never heard live on-air. They had never listened to nor watched Imus before this scandal. Their hurt only came after other's made them aware of it. After other's exposed and pushed forward the issue.

This attack did not change the documented and permanent result that the Rutgers is this year's NCAA division 1 women's basketball semi-finalists.

On the other hand, another group of students were physically and mortally attacked by a fellow student packed with heavy weapons and apparent mental issues. These 32 students were murdered in less than two hours of real terror.

This is the story deserving national, interest group, parental, academic and media outrage. Everyone is and should be outraged and saddened. This is real Tragedy.

There is a clear and obvious Tragedy difference in these events.

One is the violent weapon of words, stupidity, bad manners, disrespect and spin. Yes, it was a serious problem that needed to be addressed, brought to attention and fixed; apologies needed to be (and were) made. The other is actual violence, shaking the foundations of trust and security on our valued institutions.

Which event is the real tragedy?

The world wants to know where America stands today, what American values remain essential and true. America needs to heal. It does not need more violence.

Violence should not be the American brand.

There is real anger and frustration in our society. We all play a part in finding a solution.

What lessons will we learn from these two very different issues, these different tragedies?

And how will the media choose to influence pop culture and political action?

Interstitials: TV Commercials To Watch Commercials

2007-04-15T09:40:00.000-04:00

"What was that?"

In the last week or so, you probably have noticed a strange TV commercial while watching a favorite TV show on Fox. My teenage daughter and I both turned to each other after seeing it for the first time during American Idol...and, yes, we did say to each other: "What was that?"

Turns out it's a new TV ad campaign to help make commerical breaks more "sticky", by making them more interesting and less prone to channel-flipping. Fox is weaving in a fresh update of an old radio and TV programming idea: interstitials.

The other networks are planning their own interstitial campaigns, too.

Essentially, these interstitial promo ads sell nothing. But they make you stick around a little longer through the commerical break to encourage you to watch the commericials instead of just tune out, fast-forward the TiVo or walk out of the room.

As the Guiness gents might say in their ads, "Brilliant!"

For the Fox promo interstitials, these various offbeat, 8-second clips feature an animated cabbie named Oleg who talks to you while looking at you through his rearview mirror.

Makes you think "You talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me?" (think DeNiro...or is that Tom Cruise?).

With Nielsen ready to roll out its new TV ratings for each show's commercials about to figure in ad sales negotiations beginning at the end of May, this is a tried-and-true great idea to increase ad watching.

What took so long?

Way back when we were still partying in 1999, this study confirmed the effectiveness of interstitial advertising.

TV typically loses an average of 7% of viewers as soon as a commercial break starts, according to media buying agency Magna Global.

Radio has been doing interstitials for decades. It's what helps radio stations create their special "X factor" of personality and sense of specialness. In radio, it's needed "ear candy".

And the Internet has been doing interstitials for the last couple of years in order to move beyond annoying banner ads or poor pop up windows which get blocked.

If this is a new TV media trend, we will be watching them. But will TV get it right...or will it quickly turn into added clutter?

CanCon Acquisitions: Astral Officially Buys Standard Radio in Canada

2007-04-12T11:57:00.000-04:00

Fresh from this week's Spring 2007 Canadian radio ratings (pdf) from BBM, Astral Media announced their purchase of Standard Radio has been officially accepted and approved by both companies.

The transaction is still subject to customary conditions, including a review by the Competition Bureau and the approval of the CRTC. If fully approved by the government, its expected to finally close and trade hands in early 2008. Once done, it would create a new owner for the title of Largest Radio Broadcasting Group in Canada.

The big get bigger and the super-sizing radio trend of the past year continues in Canada (although not in the same way as it's been lately in the U.S.).

According to All Access.com this morning:

"ASTRAL MEDIA makes it official and announces a definitive agreement to buy STANDARD RADIO for C$1.08 billion (C$880 million cash and the rest in Astral Class A non-voting shares). Astral adds 52 stations across Canada in the deal, plus INTEGRATED MEDIA SALES, SOUND SOURCE NETWORKS, STANDARD INTERACTIVE, and CBC affiliates CFTK-TV/TERRACE, BC and CJDC-TV/DAWSON CREEK, BC. The companies had earlier announced that Astral had entered into exclusive negotiations to buy Standard."

More importantly, it expands Astral Media beyond just its French-language radio properties, absorbing Standard's national English-radio market presence...and placing Astral Media (in combination with Standard) in a new multi-media head-to-head competitive Battle of the Titans with Corus Entertainment -- which will get bumped in status to 2nd-largest radio group of owned properties in Canada.

Next move?

Correction: Although Standard Radio did sell off its Standard Interactive division in the Astral Media acqusition, apparently Standard's President/CEO Gary Slaight is keeping some key brands.

The Globe and Mail reports Standard will be holding onto its Iceberg Radio assets (as well as its stake in Sirius Canada) and not sell Iceberg in the Astral Media acquistion. (thanks for the tip, Captain Phil!)

Imus and The Tipping Point

2007-04-11T17:08:00.000-04:00

Al Sharpton is mad at Don Imus because he called some women "ho's" - short for whores.

The Reverend Al is mad at Imus. NBC is mad at Imus. Women's groups are mad. Don Imus seems to have stepped over a line he didn't see.

Why didn't Imus see the line?

This gets Time Magazine to ask "Who can say what?"

Maybe because rappers have been calling women "whores" - whoops, "ho's" - for more than a decade (when they weren't calling them "bitches" or something worse). On MTV. On the radio. In public. During their interviews. And, they made millions by doing it.

Maybe Imus thought he was a rapper. Maybe he just didn't think.

Here's the good news: This is a chance to talk about the degradation of women that's become part of our entertainment culture. And to change it.

This isn't about Imus. It's about a Tipping Point - when women fight back against the degradation that's in rap music, on MySpace and so much "popular" entertainment.

Come on Oprah, Rosie, Katie, Ellen ... Imus is already going to hell. Let's use the opportunity to change an ugly mind set - calling women "whores" - whoops, "ho's". Regardless of the color of their skin.

Update @ 7pm: And now MSNBC has fired Imus from his TV simulcast...which brought in $8 million in annual revenue.

April 12 Update @ 5pm: And now CBS Radio has fired Imus from his 61-station Imus in the Morning radio show. Wonder what will be topic #1 at next week's NAB conference in Las Vegas?

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Radio For Sale: The End of Radio Station Super-Sizing

2007-04-08T18:07:00.000-04:00

Radio's been hot on the selling blocks lately, with more than two thousand station transactions in 2006 in the U.S. The last time that many stations were sold off was back in 1997.

The difference?

Then: consolidation merger mania. Now: The post-consolidation end of super-sizing.

Clear Channel leads the "For Sale" movement spinning off lesser market properties while trying to go private. Spanish-broadcasters Univision did go private last June for almost $13 billion. Infinity shed about 35 stations in the past 6 months. Bonneville station swapped with Entercom. And, most recently, Citadel completed its 18-month financial journey purchasing ABC Radio.

The last time radio saw this amount of selling action was right after the Telecom Bill of 1996, which changed all the owership limit rules, spurred fast merger and acquisition consolidation and created super-sized radio groups.

Back then, market values for stations soared as groups raced to get "big" as fast as possible...all in the name of increasing radio's competitive position for ad dollars against other media (or so we were told), damn the consequences.

Ten years later, stations are selling again...but the motivation is different this time around.

"Less is more" might really mean "cluster/group right-sizing".

Instead of station sales creating mega radio groups, radio is scaling back by selling off to smaller groups...or even to brand new small groups. This brings more competition back into radio and creates more-manageable operations, especially in the unrated, small-sized, and mid-sized markets.

Radio needs this retro trend of ownership diversfication, which hopefully can attract fresh creativity and innovative content ideas that work.

Meanwhile, station groups in Canada are being sold off, too...with Astral making a play for Standard and CHUM going to BellGlobal...but there's a difference between radio in Canada and the U.S.

Now that we've entered the post-consolidation phase, what did the last ten years bring to radio? There are a small few who made a ton of money, some who made a little and then there's the overwhelming majority -- people who lost gigs and careers (and money) as well as radio listeners who gave up, moving on to different (better) media choices (or, at least away from commercial radio and over to either NPR or new media forms of radio).

Radio remains important and profitable. This new active buy/sell phase is good for radio, leading to smaller major radio groups (as opposed to massive, complex-to-manage divisions).

With all these recent station sell-offs, what bodes for radio's future? Will it improve quality? Minimally, the gap between executive management and the content will shrink somewhat (that's good). Will radio reinvest in creativity and real (not just financial) innovation? Going private and having radio less beholden to Wall Street is also a good thing. But what about that elusive increase in radio's share of total advertising dollars?

And what about radio's issue fighting against the proposed XM/Sirius merger when radio is trying to get its own house in order?

The chart below shows the amount of station selling activity last year:

BIAfn reports:

For the first time since 1997 radio station transactions reached levels above 2,000 in 2006, according to the first edition of BIA Financial Network’s quarterly Investing In Radio® Market Report. The breakdown of 1,544 station sales in radio markets (as defined by Arbitron) and 562 unrated areas last year (compared with 1,613 and 637, respectively, in 1997) [led by the proposed privatization of Clear Channel Communications]...demonstrate an interest in the purchase of small market stations as long term investments.

Is radio making a U-Turn? Is old school sanity returning to radio? Was the consolidation run-up just another merger mania cash grab? Did radio watch "Super Size Me" and decide it needed to reduce to "get healthy"?

Will former radio leaders run out of the industry due to consolidation find new opportunities to return and reinvest? Will Wall Street continue to downgrade radio? Is the unretirement of Dan Mason a sign of things to come for the industry?

So what is the future of radio? There will be lots to discuss at next week's NAB show in Las Vegas April 14-19.

Media Trend Watching: Annoying Banner Ads

2007-04-06T11:32:00.000-04:00

More ad dollars keep going to the Internet.

Last month, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) announced that Internet advertising revenues for 2006 were estimated to be $16.8 billion, a 34% increase over the previous revenue record of $12.5 billion in 2005.

Globally, 2006's Q4 totaled just under $4.8 billion -- the highest quarter ever reported.

Nine short years ago, total spent Internet advertising in the 4th quarter (1997) was just $424 million...more than an eleven-fold increase.

These ad dollars are being spent on search marketing, paid search links, streaming video ads, contextual GoogleAds, email campaigns and many other forms. Among all choices, the most popular -- and often most annoying -- are banner ads. Sure, they deliver "eyeballs"...but many of them are just plain bad. That can't be great for ROI and certainly not for brand building strategies.

American may love streaming video...but the only people who like the banners ads next to the video probably are advertisers.

I found an article for "The Top 5 Most Annoying Banner Ads on the Internet". No doubt you've seen these banner ads while visiting your favorite sites. They're everywhere. While it may be difficult to ever narrow it down to only a Top 5 Most Annoying (given there are so many available), the logic is sound (although there's no scientific basis for their list).

Here's the selections from Cracked.com (thanks, Cracked!):

5) TBS Very Funny Ads. This is everything that's wrong with the modern media in one convenient image, for the busy modern person who needs to lose faith in humanity 'on the go'. A website dedicated to the commercials which prevent you from watching the programs on television....Worse, they're targeting the most annoying demographic on the planet: the "I only watch it for the ads" vacuum-headed smirkers.

4) Win a Free Thing. Banner ads used to promise instant free prizes, but even the dumbest internet surfer eventually realized that just maybe there weren't magical love-powered companies dedicated to giving free electronics to everyone on the planet...One thing all these ads have in common is legalese fine print which, like mobile-phone cancer and minesweepers wrist, is a disease of modern society.

3) Surveys. It's looking for people to complete marketing surveys, but only gets the kind who click on banner ads. The sort who can be distracted from what they're doing by the chance to fill out a form! People who need time and a roughwork sheet to answer the question "Is this object shiny?"

2) Emoticons. In the beginning, there were text smileys. And it was good. People who could spell transmitted thoughts around the globe, finding uses for neglected keys to generally acting like smart people. But with the advance of technology the ability to "use a computer" or "think with mouth closed" are no longer required to get online and banner ads are ever ready to harvest the new subliterate hordes.

And topping the list (drum roll, please...)

1) Juggling Animation (scaled down in size to minimize the annoyance). The makers of these eye-wrenching monstrosities have fixated on "Get their attention," forgetting that it's part of the larger sentence, "Get their attention so they want to buy our product/service, and ideally aren't motivated to track us down, cement our legs into the pavement, and slowly tear our heads off with a length of chain and a monster truck."

The Jointblog avoids banner ads (except to get snarky with them). Which banner ads annoy you? And which ones do you think work?

Update at 6pm: The Fark forum board is posting many comments about more bad banner ads, such as this comment:

There are worse banner adds (sic) than those. The mortgage dancing people, animals, anything with that freaking mortgage company. Anything that flashes so that I have a seizure while I am trying to do something. Then there is this annoying windows one I ran into yesterday. I thought it was because of windows but it only happened on this one website..and it was about weight loss...IT DROVE ME NUTS. So yeah anything that resembles any kind of error window.

Tell us more...what other bad banners do you despise?

New Study: Americans Love Streaming Video

2007-04-04T12:30:00.000-04:00

Thanks to the surge of broadband internet access and other new wireless high-speed options, Americans love their streaming video, making the web their own personal time-shifted TiVo.

YouTube was last year's major success story, leading to mainstream media content owners, Network TV broadcasters and even video rental agents like Blockbluster and Netflix to make more of their content available online.

The public is quickly embracing streaming video...and wants more of it. Online video now blurs the mainstream/new media divide. Americans love their TV and online video is quickly becoming a mainstream way to consume it, even if Google says the Internet isn't TV.

According to the latest reported update in a biannual digital video study from Ipsos Insight:

"At the end of 2006, nearly six of ten Americans (58 percent) age 12 or older with internet access had streamed some form of video content online, according to findings released by Ipsos Insight from MOTION - its biannual digital video study.

In other words, 44 percent of the U.S. population age 12 or older - some 100 million people - have streamed digital video online.

Moreover, over one in four Americans (28 percent) age 12+ have downloaded a digital video file, with a significant amount of overlap between the two types of digital video.

Among those that stream video online, teens and young adults are the most likely to do so: three in four of all teens age 12-17 and young adults age 18-24 in the U.S. have streamed digital video content online. Moreover, they are more likely to have higher incomes and be highly educated, even more so than others with internet access.

This highly coveted demographic appears to be watching digital video more and more on PCs or portable devices. Teens and young adults, on average, have stored 20 percent of their entire video library either digitally (on a hard drive) and/or have burned it onto DVDs."

What kind of online video is most-preferred? No surprise here. Among the various types of video streams offered online, shorter video clips, such as those on video-sharing sites like YouTube, are by far the most preferred.

Three-quarters of all digital video streamers have streamed short news or sports clips; two-thirds have streamed amateur or homemade video clips. Roughly 40 percent of those who have streamed or downloaded video content have accessed YouTube.

What does this mean? As written on the Jointblog last month, content may be king...but it's distribution that really matters.

Make it easy, make it simple, make it fast. Video usage may soon be broken into two categories: short-form video for online streaming (music videos, perhaps commercials?); and long-form video for broadcast and/or DVD viewing (movies, TV shows, etc.).

This Ipsos Insight study pairs up nicely with a new video brand building study from Millward Brown which says video ads are great for brand recall.

The evolution of video continues to be a major media trend to watch, which puts the whole Google/YouTube/Viacom distribution battle center-stage.

To read more, click here

Alanis Morissette "My Humps" video single: Ironic spoof?

2007-04-02T18:18:00.000-04:00

Hand back in pocket, Alanis Morissette -- one ironic woman who gets the joke and appreciates a good parody spoof (nee Kevin Smith) -- uploaded a new video "single" this afternoon on YouTube.

But is it a real single...or is it just ironic comeback? Will radio pick it up? Or does it play better as a viral video? Does it matter?

The blogs already love it. 7:30pm update: Technorati lists 344 websites (with a bullet!) linking to the video. Another 4 hours later: Now it has a quarter million YouTube views. All for a parody video that would make Weird Al proud. Next afternoon update: Almost a million views and nearly 2000 Technorati websites pointing to the parody. Think Fergie's a fan?

4/4 evening update:: More than 1.8 million views on YouTube (plus the views on the 2800+ Technorati linked blogs.

A dozen years ago, her "scorned lover" attitude scored a hit with "You Oughta Know". Now she is "humpingly ironic" with a new cover take on the Black Eyed Peas (with Fergie) hit "My Humps".

You just might find this Alanis version about junk in the trunk sticky in your brain...

YouTube link

Howard Stern and Predicting American Idol 2007

2007-04-01T10:06:00.000-04:00

Howard Stern made some news this week, saying he wants to "kill" American Idol by "corrupting the entire thing", hoping "to turn the talent competition into a farce and destroy its popularity."

He's backing VoteForTheWorst's campaign to keep Sanjaya Malakar, whom the New York Times called "the off-key, lyric-fumbling, elaborately coiffed teenager who is perhaps the most talked-about “Idol” contestant ever.

This is nothing new...Stern has commented about VoteForTheWorst's weekly picks for the last three years. What's different this year? Instead of just referencing it within Robin Quiver's news segment, Stern's gave the site's owner an on-air inteview. This ramped up VoteForTheWorst's web traffic, got lots of news services and blogosphere attention...and attracted Stern criticism.

In other words, fresh publicity, quickly attaching Stern to the #1 TV show in America.

Genius.

He has a much smaller audience now on Sirius compared to what he used to have on traditional radio...but he still knows how to place himself at the center of controversy and water cooler buzz. And his fans love him for it.

Does he want to "kill" off American Idol by supporting a part-time website run by a Chicagoland community college teacher? Of course not...it provides easy fodder for him to mess with year after year. And it gives him a chance to rub mainstream media's nose in his crap.

If it's not American Idol, Stern would be attacking some other #1 show.

That's what he has done his entire career. Brilliantly, even if you don't like his methods.

So Stern wants Sanjaya to win. Simon Cowell says he'll quit if Sanjaya wins. According to an online prediction market website, Simon Cowell, American Idol fans and Freemantle/Fox executives won't have to worry about that outcome.

InTrade.com has a freakish habit of (almost) always being right in their predictions. In the last U.S. election, the site successfully predicted the outcome in every state. In the Scooter Libby trial, Intrade successfully predicted the odds of a guilty verdict to be 70% (Libby ended up guilty on four out of five charges -- or 80% of the charges).

InTrade's success reportedly relies on the number of people who use the given "market", however that market is defined. People "buy" and "sell" outcome "shares" online as events happen, tapping into the wisdom of the public.

So who does InTrade predict will win American Idol in 2007? (once on the site, click "entertainment", then "American Idol") As of today (April 1), 83% say a female will be the new Idol, not a guy. 50% say Melinda Doolittle will win the contest, with Jordin, Blake and Lakisha far-behind tied for second-place (14% of "win" votes each).

Only 3% think Sanjaya will win.

Yet, they also don't think Sanjaya will get voted off this week; they think he'll be sticking around a little while longer while Haley will be the one to get booted.

Will InTrade get it right? Maybe, maybe not. Sanjaya backlash could happen...or it might carry him all the way into May sweeps. The odds will change as the show's dynamic changes...and Sanjaya may stick around for more farce value (hey, it is good TV).

Is Howard Stern behind Sanjaya's staying power? Whatever. It's TV. It's American Idol. Howard Stern will still create news ranting against pop culture. Even though he's on satellite radio.

related NYTimes.com article here (log-on may be required) or AOL.com article here