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Three Branding Lessons from the Campaign Trail

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Tuesdays With Coleman

“Don’t write a blog about politics!!”

That’s my inner voice talking. And my wife. And maybe a co-worker or two.

But here’s the thing. Although there’s plenty about politics I loathe, there’s a lot about “the game” I enjoy following. When there are twists and turns (maybe it’s the researcher in me,) I want to know why there are twists and turns.

So when news broke last week that Elizabeth Warren is leading an Iowa Democratic Primary poll for the first time, I found it interesting.

A little digging indicates her surge isn’t isolated to Iowa.

If we look at an aggregate of three sources of polling data: Politico, Economist/YouGov and The Hill/Harris X, according to national surveys conducted the week of May 27 – June 4, the top three candidates were:

Joe Biden: 33%

Bernie Sanders: 17%

Elizabeth Warren: 9%

According to the same polling sources conducted the week of September 7 – September 15, the top three candidates were:

Joe Biden: 28%

Elizabeth Warren: 18%

Bernie Sanders: 17%

I wanted to know the answer to the question, “What’s behind Warren’s rise?” While only research can effectively answer that, in digging for reasons behind what may be fueling her poll numbers, I found some branding takeaways I feel are worth sharing,

It’s truly a sign of the times that I went back and forth on whether or not to share them. It might anger people! It may make us appear like we’re endorsing her!

So, here’s the disclaimer. Neither I nor Coleman Insights is endorsing any candidate. We acknowledge Elizabeth Warren is not the only candidate deploying noteworthy strategies. My hope is that we can set partisan politics aside to appreciate some branding strategy you may borrow with the understanding that there’s no agenda attached.

Here are three strategic moves Elizabeth Warren has made that are worth noting.

  1. SHE’S TURNED NEGATIVES INTO POSITIVES

According to Democratic consultant Doug Rubin, who worked on Warren’s 2012 Senate campaign, she was depicted as someone detached from the average voter – someone who “dined with the intellectuals at Harvard.”

She developed a reputation for being stand-offish with the press.

She is a “policy wonk” – someone who knows a lot about many things, but perhaps gets in the weeds too much for the average voter.

Remarkably, Warren has turned her nerdiness into a strength with one simple phrase:

“I’ve got a Plan for that”.

Negative perceptions can hold a brand back from progressing and linger for some time. What if you had market research to inform the positive and negative perceptions of your brand? What could you do to turn your perceived negatives into positives?

  1. SHE’S USING SIMPLE, CLEAR MESSAGING

Need to convey the message that the country is on the wrong track?

“Make America Great Again”.

Hope and optimism?

“Yes We Can”.

Like other simple messages on the campaign trail, “I’ve got a Plan for that” conveys that Warren has considered everything that might come her way. It conveys stability.

And, it repositions negative perceptions of her as a policy wonk into a strength against an incumbent president who many perceive is lacking in preparation and planning.

Do consumers clearly understand what your brand is about? Can they regurgitate it back to you?

Could Elizabeth Warren have changed the narrative from “Oh, Elizabeth Warren – she’s that know-it-all” to “Oh, Elizabeth Warren, she’s the one with a plan for everything” without a simple slogan like “She’s got a Plan for that”?

In what ways can you simplify your messaging so consumers can easily describe what you stand for?

  1. SHE’S MASTERED THE ART OF SOCIAL MEDIA AMPLIFICATION

Have you heard of “The Selfie Line” yet? At a rally last week in New York, Warren hung around for four hours after her speech to take a picture with anyone who was interested. The campaign estimates that over 60,000 pictures have been taken. And it isn’t some website you have to visit to get the pics. You get it taken on your phone. Within minutes, rally attendees are posting their photos with a presidential candidate all over social media. Their friends, of course, like and share it.

Now, every campaign manager knows paid social media advertising is an integral part of a strategy. Meanwhile, here’s Elizabeth Warren spending a few hours meeting fans and hearing feedback, while racking up organic social media exposure worth far more than any paid campaign. She decided to ditch the traditional “rope line” at campaign stops for something more intimate.

As noted in #1 above, what better way to shed an image of being detached, cold and stand-offish than by hanging around for hours to take photos with everyone that wants one?

Your brand, too, has fans and potential fans. Do you have a “rope” between you and your fans? What can you do to create more intimacy and generate more buzz?

As the U.S. presidential election season continues, we’ll surely find other examples of impressive branding and content strategy. If there’s one thing we can count on between now and next November, it’s that anything can happen.

 

 

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Don’t Remember Eddie Money for the Hits

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Tuesdays With Coleman

It was a sad weekend for rock music, and a tale of two very different reactions on social media.

On Friday, September the 13th at around 11 AM, we learned that Eddie Money, many of whose hits in the 70s and 80s remain timeless evergreen staples on radio stations across formats, passed away of complications from a heart valve replacement at age 70. Money had revealed his diagnosis of esophageal cancer just one month earlier.

Two days later, on Sunday the 15th at around 8:30 AM, the more surprising news broke that Cars vocalist and guitarist Ric Ocasek was found dead at age 75.

The reverberation of both deaths was felt around the world and certainly on social media.

While one could argue the Cars have a longer and more impressive resume (over 20 million albums sold and last year’s induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame), Eddie Money had an intangible quality.

He was a really nice guy.

As I scanned my social media feeds on Friday, the reaction from radio people was of genuine loss—as if a close friend had died.

“He was SO nice.”

“Eddie Money was a class act.”

“He was so radio friendly.”

“Eddie Money was the goods. He was hilarious and always willing to help.”

Contrast this to the reactions I read of Ocasek’s death, which were also mournful but tended to be more about the music.

“They were one of my most-listened-to bands.”

“Great band.”

“A true original.”

“His influence will always stay with me.”

This isn’t to say there was anything wrong with the reaction to Ocasek’s death, and it’s not to say he wasn’t also a nice guy.

It’s that the reaction to Eddie Money’s death stuck out because it was so emotional.

It’s worth noting because radio’s ties to artists is a powerful point of differentiation from other entertainment options and has been a cog in the machine that has driven its success.

Radio has historically been brilliant at creating unforgettable in-person moments between artist and listener. These moments help create memorable brand depth for well-positioned stations, but as any program director will tell you, artist access is often not exactly easy.

And frankly, sometimes they’re not worth it. Just as a good artist experience provided by a radio station can inspire a listener to share with their friends, the bad ones can have the opposite effect. And you know, if you’ve ever worked at a radio station, there are plenty of bad ones.

Eddie Money was a rare breed—the kind of artist that had such a nice streak, even his negativity could be sugar-coated. Once when I was interviewing him after we had spent quite a bit of time talking about influences and artists he enjoyed listening to, he said, “Jay, I love the Foo Fighters but when are we going to talk about the Money Man?”

When I asked him to play a festival for Y94 in Syracuse in 1994, his band wasn’t available. Instead of saying “no,” he offered to host the entire thing and brought his family.

Eddie Money was known for coming into the lobby to sign everyone’s autographs and pictures after his shows. Money told interviewer Gary James, “People who come to Eddie Money shows are not always the richest people in the world. Sometimes their wives are working or they’re pulling double shifts. It’s hard to get a (baby) sitter. For people to take the time and the energy to get out there and hear some great Rock & Roll, I gotta tell you I love the people who come to my shows. They’re really, really great people.”

Money played countless shows for radio stations, phoned in for interview after interview and appreciated the mutually beneficial relationship.

When your brand is music, it’s always nice to have the ones on the front lines there to help you build that brand—and Eddie Money did his share of that for so many radio stations.

His perspective on life, shared with Rolling Stone in a 2018 interview, is one we can all learn a bit from. “The kids aren’t in jail, they’re not in rehab, nobody’s wrecked the car this week and there’s still milk in the refrigerator. I’m having a good month.”

Right on the money.

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The Magic of Memorable

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Tuesdays With Coleman

“Be memorable.”

Easier said than done, being memorable is one the greatest brand challenges there is. But, it could be argued, being memorable is quite literally the most important thing to your brand.

There are so many burger joints these days in my city, it’s hard to keep track. But when I want a really good burger, there are only three or four I consider. They are my personal top-of-mind restaurants in the burger category. For a new burger joint to elevate to top-of-mind status, a disruption has to take place.

One example: a friend takes me to a new restaurant, and it serves a burger I’ve never seen on any other menu, anywhere. Let’s call it the “Triple Kobe Avocado Burger.” I order it, it blows my mind, and I start telling friends about the new place in town with the Triple Kobe Avocado Burger.

This burger joint didn’t become top-of-mind just because someone took me there. It became top-of-mind because it did something memorable when I got there.

Another example: A new restaurant deploys a marketing campaign that grabs my attention. Maybe it’s a 500 free burgers on opening day. Maybe it’s a podcast with the chef who describes his process so intriguingly, I can’t help but try it. Maybe it’s a billboard with a giant message that says “YOU DON’T WANT THIS BURGER” and then in small print, “You’ll get addicted!”

Now it’s top-of-mind. Not because the restaurant did a marketing campaign. Because the campaign was memorable.

The undeniable importance of top-of-mind awareness is the reason why every customized Plan Developer study we design at Coleman Insights starts with a measurement of Unaided Awareness. It is fundamentally essential when we ask, “Please tell us the names of as many radio stations in your area as you can remember, regardless of whether you listen to them,” that your radio station makes the cut.

Awareness » Consumption » Loyalty

You can’t have brand consumption without first having awareness, and you certainly can’t have loyalty without consumption.

The best path to awareness is by being memorable.

Other important images that are tested in perceptual research all come back to memorability. Memorable personalities. Memorable features. Memorable imaging.

The burger joint example applies to every brand. It applies to how you choose where to eat, where to play golf, what beer to drink, stores to shop in, and yes, which radio stations and podcasts to listen to.

Is it harder than ever to be memorable? Sure. Thinking consumers have “heard everything” and “seen it all? I understand how you might feel that way.

But I promise you, there’s always a new way to present a message that grabs the consumer’s attention.

Recently, while his colleague read the safety instructions seasoned travelers have heard a million times, a flight attendant on WestJet acted out the safety demonstration while passengers watched attentively and giggled.

Shared on LinkedIn, the video has been viewed over 3 ½ million times.

Team Coleman logs a fair amount of travel each year, so we’ve seen our share of safety demonstrations. It often feels like nobody pays attention to the safety demonstration anymore. That tends to happen when you hear the message the same way every time. From burgers to broadcasting, from airlines to podcasting, the lesson is the same. Don’t deviate from your message, but challenge yourself to present the message in new, unique and memorable ways.

There’s magic (and results) in being memorable.

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10 Quotes from 100 Blogs

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Tuesdays With Coleman

On October 10, 2017, we started our Tuesdays With Coleman blog series as a way to share branding, content and research strategy. Last week’s entry, “Seven Solutions for the Podcasting Brand Challenge,” was the final of three consecutive blogs about podcasting, centered around the increasingly popular Podcast Movement conference in Orlando.

It was also our 100th Tuesdays With Coleman blog.

We love a good benchmark, and 100 blogs feels like an opportunity to look back and mine some nuggets from the past couple of years. Since 100 quotes seems excessive, here are 10, curated from a wide range of topics, strategic advice and members of our team.

“We sometimes get too close to the product for our own good, and are unable to see it through the lens of our customers.”

Warren Kurtzman, in “Is Inside Thinking Blurring Your Strategic Vision?” explains the Coleman Insights principle of Outside Thinking and how to achieve results by changing your mindset.

“If Bill Belichick showed up to a station remote, what would he think of a station banner hastily hung behind a bored jock eating a cheeseburger?”

One of our most-read blogs, “What if Bill Belichick Programmed Your Radio Station?” features Jon Coleman imagining New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick as a radio station program director.

“We’ve all become so hyper-focused on the now, the instant gratification of numbers, that it is easy to take your eye off the big picture.”

After attending a talk by marketer Seth Godin, I wrote “Direct Marketing Is Easy. Brand Marketing is Hard” to reinforce the value of brand marketing, despite its lack of trackability.

“The Trader Joe’s lesson is that you beat a leader not by being better. You win by finding the inherent weakness in their strength and creating your points of differentiation.”

In “The Branding Genius of Trader Joe’s,” Sam Milkman explores why Trader Joe’s is so profitable in an industry with traditionally low margins and how to apply the lessons to your brand.

“TV is looking for talent in new places and banking on that talent. Why can’t radio?”

In “When it’s Time to Hunt (for Talent), Go Outside,” Jessica Lichtenfeld makes the case that radio should look outside the industry to find fresh, new, memorable stars for the medium.

 

“Don’t confuse the lack of 90s music exposure with the desire for hearing 90s music.”

In “The 90s Music Research Conundrum,” John Boyne explains how compatibility, not appeal, influences 90s airplay on many Adult Contemporary and Classic Hits stations.

 

“It’s possible while you’re programming on intuition alone, your competition is making data-influenced decisions.”

In “How Research Won The Super Bowl,” Sam Milkman debunks the myth that Philadelphia Eagles head coach Doug Pederson was a crazy risk-taker in winning the 2018 Super Bowl, when in fact he used a combination of research and instinct to take down the Patriots.

“There are a few iconic brands in every category and there isn’t much changing going on.”

In “Don’t Change Your Radio Station,” I explain how the instinct to “freshen things up” can be detrimental to brand growth.

 

“Chipotle doesn’t sell pancakes. Hip Hop stations don’t play Taylor Swift.”

In “Should I Play That Song On My Radio Station,” Jon Coleman warns that playing popular songs or even songs that test strongly on your station that don’t fit your brand is a slippery slope.

 

“The ultimate success of the industry will depend on its ability to build brands.”

Warren Kurtzman, in “Joe Rogan and the Podcasting Brand Challenge,” writes that while producing great content is very important, listeners won’t discover it if the brand isn’t strong.

Thanks for reading Tuesdays With Coleman. If you haven’t yet subscribed, we invite you to do so. If you have an idea for a topic you’d like us to cover, feel free to reply and let us know. It may just show up in one of the next 100 blogs.

 

 

 

 

Press Releases

Coleman Insights to Present Outside Thinking for Podcasts Webinar

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RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC, August 20, 2019 – Coleman Insights will offer a webinar for the broadcast and podcast industry that introduces a breakthrough strategy called “Outside Thinking,” and details specific ways to apply the strategy to podcasting to build stronger brands.

In this webinar, attendees will learn to view podcasts from the perspective of the listener and understand what behavioral factors influence their decision to consume it. In addition, presenters Warren Kurtzman and John Boyne of Coleman Insights will share headlines from a recent Coleman Insights podcast research study.

Coleman Insights President Warren Kurtzman says, “While at Podcast Movement, we couldn’t help but sense podcasting approaching a tipping point. We’re excited to offer this content to those who couldn’t make the conference presentation, and hope everyone interested in building podcasts into strong, memorable brands joins us for this webinar.”

Kurtzman and Boyne will present “Outside Thinking for Podcasts” Thursday, September 12 from 2 PM-3 PM EDT.

Registration is now open for the webinar here.

Press Releases

Coleman Insights Finds TED Talks Daily Leads Awareness Among Top Podtrac Ranked Shows

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RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC, August 12, 2019 – New research from Coleman Insights reveals that TED Talks Daily has the highest Aided Awareness of the 20 most-listened-to podcasts as ranked by Podtrac in March 2019. Despite being the most recognized, only 43% of monthly podcast listeners are familiar with the TED Talks Daily podcast.

The study of 1,000 18 to- 64-year-old monthly podcast listeners conducted in May 2019 asked respondents to review a list of the March ranking of the Podtrac Top 20 Podcasts and indicate their familiarity with each. The TED brand occupied two of the top three spots, with The Daily coming in second at 35% and the TED Radio Hour at 32%. There is a significant gap between the most and least familiar of the top 20 Podtrac-ranked shows, as Invisibilia is familiar to only 8% of monthly podcast listeners.

According to Coleman Insights President Warren Kurtzman, “Our findings reaffirm the idea that despite podcasting’s growth, the medium still has a long way to go with brand development. Even with the most-listened-to shows, most active podcast users aren’t familiar with them. The ones they are familiar with are big, cross-platform brands with strong marketing behind them.”

Listeners between the ages and 25 and 44 are more likely to be familiar with the Top 20 shows than are 18- to 24-year-olds or 45- to 64-year-olds. Furthermore, Coleman Insights finds that male podcast listeners are more likely than females to be familiar with the Top 20 Podtrac shows.

These findings are different from those released by Coleman Insights last week, which focused on Unaided Awareness of podcast brands. The top-ranked show in Unaided Awareness, The Joe Rogan Experience, does not participate in the Podtrac rankings and was therefore not included in the Aided Awareness measurement.

Coleman Insights will discuss the implications of its podcast research findings in a presentation at Podcast Movement, to be held at the Rosen Shingle Creek in Orlando. The session, “Outside Thinking for Podcasts”, is set for Wednesday August 14th at 9:00 AM as part of the conference’s Industry Track.

Press Releases

Coleman Insights Finds that Joe Rogan is the Biggest Brand in Podcasting

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RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC, August 5, 2019 – A new podcast research study by Coleman Insights reveals that The Joe Rogan Experience has the highest Unaided Awareness of all podcasts among monthly podcast users. Furthermore, more than twice as many podcast users are aware of Rogan’s show on an unaided basis than any other podcast.

The study of 1,000 18 to- 64-year-old monthly podcast listeners conducted in May 2019 asked respondents to name as many podcasts as they could think of, regardless of whether they listened to them. The Joe Rogan Experience was mentioned by 14% of all respondents, followed by Serial in second place at 6%. The only other podcasts that achieve Unaided Awareness levels above 3% are The Daily, This American Life and My Favorite Murder, each of which was mentioned by 4% of the study’s respondents.

Coleman Insights President Warren Kurtzman explains, “This study makes the importance of branding in podcasting crystal-clear. On the one hand, we see how big of a brand Joe Rogan has relative to every other podcasting brand. On the other hand, the leading brand is top-of-mind with only 14% of podcast listeners, and he started his show 10 years ago! Figuring out how to cut through and be memorable is a real and daunting, but exciting, challenge for podcasters.”

Coleman Insights will reveal additional results and insights from the podcast research study in a presentation at Podcast Movement, to be held at the Rosen Shingle Creek in Orlando. The session, “Outside Thinking for Podcasts”, is set for Wednesday August 14th at 9:00 AM as part of the conference’s Industry Track.

About Coleman Insights

Coleman Insights, headquartered in Research Triangle Park, NC, with offices in Philadelphia and Hamburg, Germany, is a firm that has helped media properties build strong brands and develop great content since 1978. Its clients include hundreds of media properties in North America, South America, Europe and Asia, including those owned by iHeartMedia, Entercom Communications Corporation, Bonneville International Corporation, Hubbard Radio, Educational Media Foundation, Stingray Radio, Emmis Communications, SummitMedia, Salem Communications, Connoisseur Media, Corporación Radial del Perú, Service Broadcasting Corporation, CRISTA Media, and Townsquare Media. Additional information about Coleman Insights is available at www.ColemanInsights.com.

About Podcast Movement

Podcast Movement is the world’s largest gathering of podcasters, featuring over 300 speakers and panelists participating in over 150 sessions. Over 4,000 podcasters from nearly 30 countries have attended over the past six years. Podcast Movement 2019 will be held August 13-16 at the Rosen Shingle Creek in Orlando.

 

Press Releases

Coleman Insights Releases Sortable Song Data From Contemporary Music SuperStudy

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RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC, August 1, 2019 – Coleman Insights is now offering free access to a sortable spreadsheet containing song-by-song data from the Contemporary Music SuperStudy it released in March. Visitors to the company’s website, www.ColemanInsights.com, can now view how each song was evaluated by listeners, with breakdowns by age, gender, ethnicity and more.

The study’s major findings, which Coleman Insights previously shared at the Worldwide Radio Summit, via webinar and through its Tuesdays With Coleman blog series included:

  • Hip Hop/R&B was the most consumed genre of 2018, but is also the most polarizing;
  • Pop is the one genre that fans of all other genres can agree on;
  • The appeal of Hip Hop/R&B titles is concentrated among younger, male listeners, while Country titles perform best among older, female listeners;
  • While the music tastes of supporters and detractors of President Trump vary significantly, “Uptown Funk” by Mark Ronson featuring Bruno Mars is the top song with both groups

It was based on a test of 2018’s most consumed songs with 1,000 12 to- 54-year-olds across the United States and Canada utilizing Coleman Insights’ FACT360SM Strategic Music Test platform.

“We are making the song-by-song data study available after receiving many requests from our clients,” said President Warren Kurtzman. “The real value in this study is in the insights we previously released, but we believe the industry will enjoy having free access to this resource. While programmers should not make any music decisions based on this data, they can use it to ensure that many of the stronger-testing songs in their stations’ formats are included in any customized music research they do.”

The Contemporary Music SuperStudy sortable data is now available under “Free Studies” in the Resources section at www.ColemanInsights.com. That section also includes the more detailed analyses Coleman Insights released earlier this year.

About Coleman Insights

Coleman Insights, headquartered in Research Triangle Park, NC, with offices in Philadelphia and Hamburg, Germany, is a firm that has helped media properties build strong brands and develop great content since 1978. Its clients include hundreds of media properties in North America, South America, Europe and Asia, including those owned by iHeartMedia, Entercom Communications Corporation, Bonneville International Corporation, Hubbard Radio, Educational Media Foundation, Stingray Radio, Emmis Communications, SummitMedia, Salem Communications, Connoisseur Media, Corporación Radial del Perú, Service Broadcasting Corporation, CRISTA Media, and Townsquare Media. Additional information about Coleman Insights is available at www.ColemanInsights.com.

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Lack of Focus = Lack of Greatness

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Tuesdays With Coleman

Netflix just dropped the new season of Jerry Seinfeld’s Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee on July 19th. Each episode of the show features Seinfeld selecting a vintage car, then driving a fellow comic in that car to get coffee for a very casual interview/conversation. Episode One of the new season features Eddie Murphy, and that caught my attention.

Much of the episode centers on the two comedians talking about the old days, when they honed their stand-up craft in the New York area around the same time. There’s mutual admiration, Eddie slings a fair share of jokes, reveals he is planning a return to stand-up and shares some very insightful behind-the-curtain stories about Bill Cosby and Richard Pryor.

At one point of the episode in the coffee shop, Jerry and Eddie talk about the differences between the entertainment landscape back in the day and the present day. Eddie says, “You’ve got to put time in to creating something that’s worthwhile. Now you’ve got so many options, it seems hard to focus on something. So many options.”

To which Jerry replied, with emphasis:

“A lack of focus is why we have a lack of greatness.”

This astute observation got me thinking about focus in today’s environment and where the lack of focus is coming from. In other words, is it lack of focus on the part of the creator or the consumer?

It’s both.

From a consumer angle, the lack of focus is obvious. We are bombarded with more choice than ever before. More TV shows. More apps. More diets. More games. More news. More streaming. More podcasts. More social networks. More phones. More smart devices.

More, more, more!!

And you’re still expecting listeners to pay close attention to your radio station?

This is the foundation of Outside Thinking, a Coleman Insights philosophy that’s not new, but increases in societal relevance by the day. It instructs that listenership behavior is driven by numerous factors, many of them out of your control. When we adopt the mindset of our listeners, rather than the mindset of a programmer in a board room, we can more effectively reach and communicate with them.

But what about the creator angle? We know our consumers are losing focus. Are we?

Eddie gives an example of a comic he knows that has a specific niche. He’s known for a certain kind of comedy. Eddie explains, “Every Wednesday, this comic kills it. Then a different crowd comes in on Thursday and you can’t even get a laugh.” He follows this up with a remedy: “Just work the niche. You don’t think, ‘I wanna be able to kill on Thursday.’ You say I’m gonna kill every Wednesday.”

The point is, you can’t be everything to everyone. And you need to stop trying now.

We could recommend many books on this topic, but a perennial favorite at The House of Coleman is “Focus” by marketing genius Al Ries. A chapter that really illustrates Eddie’s point is Chapter 9: “Narrowing Your Scope.”

According to Ries, “More money has been wasted reaching out to a company’s ‘noncustomers’ than any other single endeavor.”

Radio brands are well-versed in the art of focusing on loyal customers. We’re taught to grow our ratings by growing the percentage of P1s (first preference listeners), as they provide the bulk of the listening.

Maybe the question to ask of our brands in the context of focus is, “Why does a P1 listener choose our radio station first?” Understandably, this answer varies. The reason a listener chooses a “Jack” station for an unpredictable variety of music is different than why, for example, a listener may choose a radio station with dominant personality images.

P1s choose your radio station because they love it for its niche. As Ries says, “All business is a niche business. The question is, what kind of a niche do you want to own?”

This mentality requires a shift in what being “best” means.

Should you want your radio station to be the best sounding? Of course. But the winning strategy is to have the best position. Build clearly defined, differentiated images, track them in perceptual research and dominate them.

Says Ries, “The power in business doesn’t derive from your products. It derives from your position in the mind. Focus is the art of carefully selecting your category and then working diligently to get yourself categorized. It’s not a trap to avoid; it’s a goal to achieve”.

The less focused consumers are, the more focused creators must be.

Like Ries says, “The future of your company depends on it.”

Press Releases

Podcast Movement Reveals Industry Track

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RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC, June 26, 2019 – Podcast Movement, the annual gathering of the podcast industry, has announced the sessions for this year’s Industry Track, presented by media research firm Coleman Insights.

This year’s track will feature sessions that focus on helping podcasts improve in the areas of branding and content. The opening session, “Outside Thinking for Podcasts,” is set to kick off the track at 9am on Wednesday, August 14th, hosted by Warren Kurtzman and John Boyne from Coleman Insights. The session will combine surprising headlines from a recent Coleman Insights podcast study and introduce attendees to a breakthrough strategy called “Outside Thinking”. This strategy will allow podcasters to better understand what behavioral factors influence the decision to consume their shows.

Other sessions include a look at remote audio data with Stacey Goers from NPR, guidance on selling in a platform world with John Fitzgerald of ESPN, a “Celebrities in Podcasting” panel hosted by Perry Michael Simon from All Access and a “State of Podcasting” overview from Podcast Hall of Famer Elsie Escobar.

Coleman Insights President Warren Kurtzman says, “We’re looking forward to hosting the Industry Track again this year and delivering content that can help attendees make their podcasts more successful.”

Podcast Movement is set for August 13-16, 2019 at the Rosen Shingle Creek in Orlando. Registration is now open.

About Coleman Insights

Coleman Insights, headquartered in Research Triangle Park, NC, with offices in Philadelphia and Hamburg, Germany, is a firm that has helped media properties build strong brands and develop great content since 1978. Its clients include hundreds of media properties in North America, South America, Europe and Asia, including those owned by iHeartMedia, Entercom Communications Corporation, Bonneville International Corporation, Hubbard Radio, Educational Media Foundation, Stingray Radio, Emmis Communications, SummitMedia, Salem Communications, Connoisseur Media, Corporación Radial del Perú, Service Broadcasting Corporation, CRISTA Media, and Townsquare Media. Additional information about Coleman Insights is available at www.ColemanInsights.com.