Welcome to our new Ask Me Anything webinar series!
Each month will feature a different topic, as we cover questions related to research, branding, and marketing strategy in audio entertainment – all in just 15 minutes!
In this episode, consultants Jay Nachlis and Meghan Campbell, along with moderator and Director of Client Services Kimberly Bryant, discussed The Image Pyramid. Watch the 15-minute video below:
Questions We Answered:
1:18 – Do you think that the past few years have caused any shifts in the relative value of various layers of The Image Pyramid?
4:41 – Is a radio station’s image something that takes time to build or can a station launch or rebrand, be properly prepared to win images faster?
6:59 – When is the base layer strong enough to work on other layers and how do you strengthen the Personality layer?
10:05 – What are some tips and tricks to help stations compete in local markets when you are thousands of miles away?
12:15 – How does The Image Pyramid apply to college or public radio stations?
13:52 – Does The Image Pyramid only apply to radio or can it apply to other media as well?
April 1989. The Gavin Report, a music industry trade magazine, is holding its annual convention at the St. Francis Hotel in my hometown of San Francisco. Milli Vanilli’s “Baby, Don’t Forget My Number” is going for adds in the newest issue of the publication, which features several testimonials to make you smile, including a quote from the acting PD of Emmis’s CHR KXXX/San Francisco (X100), Gene Baxter. One year later, Gene would become better known as “Bean” on what would become the iconic Kevin & Bean show on KROQ in Los Angeles.
I was 16 years old at the time, living the dream. I started as an intern at X100 the previous summer, and by this point, I was board-opping the respective countdown shows hosted by Casey Kasem, Rick Dees, and San Francisco legend “The Duke” Dave Sholin. I worked with the promotion team at remotes around the Bay Area, answered the request lines each afternoon for Chuck Geiger, and when I wasn’t working, made mock airchecks in the production room.
When the Gavin Convention came around, X100 had a suite and you didn’t need a ticket to access it. No more than 15 minutes following my arrival in the suite on the first day of the event, Jane Child (who had a song rising up the charts called “Don’t Wanna Fall In Love”) was sitting on this teenager’s lap.
Life was pretty good.
It got better. My entrepreneurial spirit kicked in, as I noticed attendees had either a badge or what looked like a wristband you’d see a hospital patient wear. I had neither, only access to our suite. The next afternoon, a friend and I drove to hospitals around the Bay Area searching for the perfectly colored and shaped wristband using the cover story with nurses that we needed it for a high school project. Our plan worked. We got into every single Gavin party the next night.
I already knew I wanted to work in radio, but that sealed the deal.
The Gavin Report went out of business in 2002, with Radio & Records following in 2006. But All Access, which started as the early adopter of online music industry journalism in 1995, was always there throughout my career. I started programming radio stations in 1995, and All Access has been my daily companion ever since (with the same username and password for the entire 28 years!) I read Net News every day the way some people play Wordle. It’s just a fabric of the routine.
There are simply so many moments All Access has been a part of. It proclaimed my “Leap of the Week” when I jumped from market #69 (at the time), Syracuse to market #4, San Francisco. During the three years during which I left the industry and wrote a book, Joel Denver didn’t hesitate when I asked if he’d promote it in All Access. Of course, he did. It was never a question.
I sing in a radio industry band that was formed at a Radio & Records convention what seems like a lifetime ago, led by record label executive Danny Buch, who spent most of his career at Atlantic Records. The band would play off and on at conventions, sometimes at off-campus sites like Tipitina’s in New Orleans and House of Blues in Los Angeles. If you were a band member, you would inevitably get a call from Danny every few years reenacting the classic Blues Brothers scene: “Jay, we’re getting the band back together.”
The radio industry band at its last performance, at All Access Audio Summit in 2019. Also the last time I would see Tony Banks from iHeartMedia, who passed away in 2021, bottom left.
In later years, the inconsistency of the band morphed into consistent annual appearances at All Access’s Worldwide Radio Summit, later renamed the All Access Audio Summit. It was understandable but heartbreaking when the conference went virtual due to the pandemic. Not just because the band didn’t play of course, but because radio conventions are a metaphor and mirror image of what’s so special about the industry and why we love it so darn much. It is best when it is live, in person, intimate, and fun. Over the years, I reconnected with former colleagues that I’d lost touch with and made new friends and deep connections. All Access did a tremendous service by hosting these events.
All Access Audio Summit was the inspiration for our Contemporary Music SuperStudy, a large-scale music test that tracked contemporary music tastes across the United States and Canada, which Coleman Insights produced for four years. We knew we wanted something special and actionable that we could debut at the event because it was worthy of the time and investment.
Anytime I’ve ever sent the All Access Net News team Coleman Insights stories, I’d almost always get an email back from Joel, in all bold font, usually within about five minutes, proclaiming that it will be featured in First Alert. I’ll miss that.
I think all of us at Coleman feel some semblance of kinship with All Access because of how we’re structured. In the case of All Access, it has competed with other solid trade publications that usually have a much smaller staff roster. All Access was always committed to hiring multiple professionals covering multiple formats. We too, have a significant team of professionals devoted to providing outstanding service to the industry amongst competitors that often have a fraction of the people. We believe it’s important and Joel has always believed this.
Although today is essentially its last day, I was pleased to read that All Access won’t be going away completely and will continue providing limited services. We all know it won’t be the same, but we also collectively appreciate the gesture.
“Being distinctive is the most important quality your brand can have. You can forget about optimizing your lower-funnel metrics if most of the content you create is not being recognized or attributed to your brand.”
Anyone who has participated in a Coleman Insights Plan Developer perceptual study knows “Fit” is our measurement of brand fit. Sure, you may call your radio station the Classic Rock station, and you may in fact play Classic Rock, but if another station is getting credit for it, the station can never fully reach its potential. Our Unaided Awareness measurement addresses the recognition part of the equation. Can consumers name your brand in the category whether or not they personally use it?
Recognition and attribution are essential elements of success.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know there are signs of nostalgia everywhere in 2023. While there are several explanations, there is comfort in the familiar, and building familiarity is no easy task. Images are like icebergs. Slow to develop, slow to erode. Brands that include Burger King, Pepsi, M&Ms, and Fanta have returned to classic-looking logos that previously went through various incarnations. Rolston offers a great line when he shows his mother some of the new “old” logos. “Isn’t that what they’ve always looked like?”
Be very careful and think very strategically about brand changes. If research indicates your brand has developed precious positive imagery, it should be treasured and handled with care. If you’ve abandoned such imagery, perhaps it’s worthwhile to conduct a fresh study to determine if there’s value in bringing it back.
Brands shouldn’t be nostalgic for the sake of being nostalgic. But if nostalgia is rooted in powerful brand recognition and attribution, it should not be ignored.
Tony Bennett died last week at age 96, two weeks short of his 97th birthday. There is plenty to remember him fondly for. Over his long career, he released 61 studio albums, with more than 50 million records sold worldwide. He was a painter – he signed his paintings with his birth surname, “Benedetto”. In the 90s, I had a chance to meet him at one of his art exhibitions. As it turns out, I was one of the last to see him perform live. It was February 9th, 2020, at Durham Performing Arts Center. They say, in spite of his Alzheimer’s diagnosis, Bennett’s cognitive functioning was well-extended thanks to the power of music and the ability to still perform shows. When Covid shut down the shows, it was ultimately the beginning of the end.
Tony Bennett performing at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival (Photo credit: Adam McCullough / Shutterstock.com)
Nearly a century of living the Tony Bennett way was surely a life well-lived, and he outlasted his contemporaries not just in age, but in relevance. You simply cannot understate the marketing genius of Danny Bennett, who took over as his dad’s manager in 1979. According to Danny, his father’s career followed a classic three-act structure: The early rise in the 50s and 60s, including “I Left My Heart In San Francisco”; deep explorations into jazz when his music style left the charts; and the career renaissance that included album of the year in 1995 for MTV Unplugged. That third act included appearances on The Simpsons and appearing between Nine Inch Nails and PJ Harvey at WHFS’s legendary HFStival in Washington, DC. Regarding that appearance, Danny Bennett recalls his father asking, “Do you think Frank (Sinatra) would do this?” To which he responded, “Nope. And that’s why you are.”
Bennett’s career included an unexpected fourth act, the Lady Gaga years, which lasted over a decade. Which begs the question, how did he do it? In a world where talent constantly tries and fails to reinvent themselves, why did Tony Bennett succeed for so long?
The best answer may be the one from Danny Bennett, who shuns the idea that he reinvented his father. “He never changed. That’s not reinvention. I kind of reinvented the audience, but I didn’t touch him. That’s the beauty of it.”
It’s not hugely surprising when you see which personalities resonate most in research. The real ones. The authentic ones. Don’t mistake maintaining authenticity with resisting evolution. Tony Bennett certainly evolved (he constantly took career risks, and it was his idea to get on MTV because he watched MTV), but he never abandoned what made him him.
It’s a lesson we’d all be well-served to remember.
Meghan Trainor is not the biggest Pop star on the planet. Her 28 million monthly listeners on Spotify aren’t in the rarified 80 million plus numbers claimed by artists such as The Weeknd and Taylor Swift, but sharing a similar ranking with Nirvana, Flo Rida, and ABBA isn’t too shabby.
From a radio standpoint, it would be easy to dismiss Trainor as a fringe artist. Three of her four top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 were released on her debut album nearly a decade ago. The other, “No”, appeared on 2016’s Thank You. “Made You Look”, from her most recent album, peaked at #11.
And yet, Meghan Trainor has nearly 18 million followers on TikTok. That’s way more than chart-toppers The Weeknd (7.6 million), Morgan Wallen (4.4 million), and Luke Combs (4.7 million), and just behind Miley Cyrus (18 million) and Taylor Swift (19.2 million).
How she did it is no accident. Meghan Trainor thinks strategically about how she uses TikTok to her advantage.
During the pandemic, when she was unable to go on tour to support her new music, Trainor performed covers and participated in dance challenges on the platform. But in late 2021, she noticed older songs of hers going viral including “Title”, a previously unreleased track from her debut album. She wisely created a video and a dance, which helped boost her exposure. But Meghan Trainor’s super-secret weapon is Chris Olsen.
Chris Olsen is a social media celebrity, made famous by his TikTok videos (he joined the platform, like so many others, in March 2020). One night in 2021, he posted that he was thinking about Meghan Trainor. Trainor reposted it, saying she loved his content. About a year ago, she invited him over and asked him to bring “some TikTok ideas”.
Trainor and Olsen hold “content days” twice a month, during which they record 10 videos at a time. They share an iCloud album with video drafts. They dissect minutiae that includes which emojis to use, captions, video length, and notifications. Her most popular video on TikTok, an a capella version of “Made You Look” with her and two friends in a marble bathtub, has over 100 million views. Seems informal and casual. Like, let’s hop in the bathtub and sing!
Chris Olsen, TikTok celebrity and Meghan Trainor’s secret weapon (Photo credit: Shutterstock)
Great content should feel that way, even though there’s intense preparation and strategy going on behind the scenes that the consumer is rarely privy to. Trainor’s TikTok “rising tide” content strategy lifts all boats. It benefits her numbers on other platforms like Spotify, boosts her personal brand, and increases her awareness.
Meghan Trainor’s strategic approach to TikTok is a timely reminder that talent alone is not enough to build a strong brand. In our line of work, we hear and see countless numbers of talented individuals and audio brands. Almost all of them trust their talent and their instincts, as they should, to be successful. A select few think highly strategically about their brands, using an effective combination of art and science.
Ultimately, these are the brands that will survive and endure.
RALEIGH, NC, JULY 12, 2023 – Media research firm Coleman Insights announces the debut of Pod Predictor, a new service for podcasters to test concepts pre-launch.
Pod Predictor surveys 1,000 18- to 64-year-old podcast listeners in the United States and Canada to determine how appealing a podcast concept is. Podcasters test a show title along with a one or two-sentence elevator pitch, which respondents rate on a 1 to 5 scale. Additionally, they will indicate their interest in downloading the content based on the title and description.
According to Coleman Insights Vice President/Consultant Jay Nachlis, Pod Predictor is a game changer. “So much money and time is invested in the launch of new podcasts without any intel as to how that content will be received. Now, with Pod Predictor, podcasters can determine how appealing their concept is at an affordable price point, allowing them to refine their marketing message before launching it to the public.”
Pod Predictor is now available to individual publishers and networks, with the ability to test one or multiple concepts. Results will be delivered with total results, as well as breakdowns by age, gender, ethnicity, geography, and category interest.
Learn more about Pod Predictor by Coleman Insights at ColemanInsights.com or by clicking here.
Welcome to our new Ask Me Anything webinar series!
Each month will feature a different topic, as we cover questions related to research, branding, and marketing strategy in audio entertainment – all in just 15 minutes!
In this episode, consultants Jay Nachlis and Meghan Campbell, along with moderator and Director of Client Services Kimberly Bryant, discussed Personality/Show Research. Watch the 15-minute video below:
Questions We Answered:
1:22 – What are some of the most important things you can learn from Personality Research and how exactly do you arrive there?
4:13 – What are some of the most important/specific questions you should ask?
6:19 – How long should you wait to include a new Personality/Show in a study?
8:46 – What is the best way to truly measure Likeability of a talent?
10:12 – How much of this is unique to Radio vs Media (Websites and Social Media)
12:50 – Are there bits or features that should be buried forever that rub audiences the wrong way?
Trying to select a favorite Jon Coleman quote is a near impossibility. For over 40 years, our founder has imparted pearls of wisdom to the industry, to our clients, and indeed, to us. So, while picking a favorite may be somewhat akin to picking a favorite child, there is one Jon Coleman-ism that encapsulates much of the core philosophy of our company.
“Every song you play is a marketing decision.”
That one sentence makes it clear that content isn’t everything. Sure, you can play any song on your radio station. But should you?
That logic extends well beyond song exposure. Every piece of content you generate, in addition to how you verbally communicate it, reflects your brand. Whether you’re playing a song, an imaging piece, an interview, or a contest, what you play sends a message. Those messages build images. The images can be positive or negative, crystal clear or confusing. That’s why it’s helpful to think strategically about every content decision.
This past Saturday night, I saw Tears For Fears in concert, with Cold War Kids opening. From the moment the show was announced, the oddity of that combination struck me. Tears For Fears had their last Top 10 hit in the United States in 1989. Nathan Willett, the lead singer for Cold War Kids, was eight years old at the time.
Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith of Tears For Fears Credit: DFP Photographic/Shutterstock
If you strategically consider why a band best known for 80s Pop might choose a band best known for newer Alternative to open for them, consider Tears For Fears’ setlist on the tour. Six of the ten songs on their new album, The Tipping Point, are played, comprising a third of the total songs on the list. By including a younger contemporary band on the bill and including a large percentage of newer songs in the show, Tears For Fears make a statement: “We’re not a nostalgia act.”
Would the show (which had many layers of empty seats) have sold better if Howard Jones, The Human League, or A Flock Of Seagulls opened? Maybe. Will a large number of people ever see Tears For Fears as anything but an 80s band? Maybe not. But selecting Cold War Kids as the opener was almost certainly no accident or afterthought. That’s a strategic decision, designed to project an image.
Tears For Fears is hardly the first band to adopt this strategy. The Rolling Stones have been doing it their entire career. In the 90s, when Mick Jagger was in his 50s and the band attempted to stay relevant, opening acts included Stone Temple Pilots, Lenny Kravitz, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Black Eyed Peas opened in 2005. Kanye West opened in 2006. Nathaniel Rateliff in 2019.
U2 was seemingly obsessed with not being seen as a nostalgia band until recently, when they warmed up to a Joshua Tree anniversary tour and upcoming Achtung Baby anniversary series of shows in Las Vegas.
On the other hand, Seal is on tour with The Buggles, selling a “Greatest Hits” setlist. Barenaked Ladies’ umpteenth version of their “Last Summer On Earth Tour” features openers including Del Amitri, Semisonic, and Five For Fighting, all bands that had hits around the same time as BNL, with similar sounds and higher potential fan compatibility.
Unlike Tears For Fears, Barenaked Ladies tend to tour with artists from the same era. Credit: Bruce Allen Bennett/Shutterstock
This isn’t to say any one of these strategies is better than the other. It is to make the point that, as Jon says, “Every song you play is a marketing decision.” Every content you generate is a marketing decision. Every message you promote is a marketing decision.
Always think strategically about your music. Your content. Your messaging. Is it consistent with what you want to communicate about your brand and the images you want to build? If it is, move forward. If not, take a step back and evaluate.
Utilize research to determine which images you own, and track perceptions as you build the ones you want and attempt to shed the ones you don’t.
I listened to a radio station recently with my 19-year-old son in the car. There were two air personalities co-hosting a “Free-for-all” feature during which they played songs that worked within the format but aren’t typically part of the rotation. Two moments that occurred during my quarter-hour of listening stuck out.
First, they played two 90s boy bands back-to-back. Because they added context and an anecdote, it was fun, and it worked. Second, they played a song they didn’t intend to play (or at least genuinely made it seem that way). They stopped the song, talked about the mistake and laughed about it, and played the song they meant to. It was fun.
I enjoyed it.
My son, who always seems to have pearls of wisdom in moments like this, says, “Radio stations don’t sound like that anymore. Usually, they just sound pre-recorded. They don’t make any mistakes. It’s too perfect. It doesn’t sound any different than a podcast.”
Oh, man.
Now, this isn’t another blog on the benefits or perils of “AI Ashley” or Artificial Intelligence’s potential effects on the radio industry. It is, however, an important reminder of the crucial importance of listener perceptions of personalities.
Consider the Coleman Insights Image PyramidSM. After a radio station has established its Base Music or Talk position, personalities are the most important factor in building brand depth. The caveat is that the personalities that build brand depth are the memorable ones. The ones that listeners actively think about, relate to, and listen to the station for.
The Coleman Insights Image Pyramid
This is why personality and show research is particularly critical for your brand. By measuring which personalities and shows are cutting through, brands can focus their energy on building the brand of the talent alongside the station. Meghan Campbell and I will dive into the topic of personality and show research in our next Ask Me Anything webinar on Wednesday, July 12th at 2P EDT/11A PDT and we hope to see you there. Registration is now open.
There are plenty of things that make a personality memorable. I’m not sure “perfect” is one of them.
Our company has season tickets to the Durham Bulls, the iconic minor league baseball franchise fictionalized in the 1988 box office smash “Bull Durham”. The team, the AAA affiliate of the Tampa Bay Rays, is almost always good. They’ve won the division in three of the past five years, six of the past ten years, and 12 of the past 20 years. They’ve claimed the league championship in four of the past six years. It’s a great team that plays in a great ballpark.
And yet, every single year, when I’m picking out which games to attend, I end up having versions of the same conversation with members of my family and several friends.
“I like going to the ballpark and having a hot dog and a beer, but baseball is so boring.”
Major League Baseball was clearly aware of this perception. What’s somewhat startling is that they did something about it. They did something big.
The most dramatic of baseball’s changes for the 2023 season was the universal adoption of a pitch clock. When there are no runners on base, pitchers have only 15 seconds between pitches to throw the next one, 20 seconds with runners on base, and 30 seconds between batters. In the past, it wasn’t unusual to see pitchers touch their cap, kick some dirt, chat with the catcher…pretty much take their grand ol’ time. Now by attaching penalties to pitch clock violations, the game should, in theory, move much faster.
And it is.
The average game time is 2 hours and 39 minutes, about a half hour shorter than last year. The games aren’t just shorter, they move faster. As a fan, your mind has less time to drift to…oh, I don’t know…your phone? You’re more engaged in the action. And though one might think baseball was always exceptionally slow, game lengths are more in line with where they were in the 1980s.
The pitch clock isn’t the only major rule change. The bases are larger, meaning the edges of first and second base are closer, meaning there’s more stolen bases and better odds of making it without getting thrown out. The number of stolen bases per game is the highest since 1999. A ban on crowding infielders on one side of second base has increased the batting average for balls in play for left-handed hitters. More hits=more exciting, right?
It took Major League Baseball a very long time to take a good hard look at what likely was coming up in its perceptual research: “Baseball is boring.” As we often say, images are like icebergs. Slow to develop, slow to erode. The only way to change an ingrained negative image is to take big, bold swings that everyone will notice. Small fixes will not move the needle.
Baseball won’t fix the boring image overnight, and they may never do so. They’ve taken the big swings and made the changes, but now they must tell everyone about it or only the loyalists will notice. At least they’ve now got a fighting chance.
A form of entertainment with deeply ingrained perceptions, many of them negative, steeped in tradition, with new entertainment options swirling all around.
Taking a deep dive into perceptions of the medium would be a great first step.
Then, take big swings and tell everyone about it.
BRANDING, CONTENT & RESEARCH STRATEGY
Subscribe to our weekly blog delivered fresh to your inbox every Tuesday.
