In every Plan Developer℠ perceptual study we conduct at Coleman Insights, there are a multitude of ways to get at some of the answers every audio brand wants to know. Why do listeners choose my brand? Why don’t they choose it? How can I use that information to grow? While there is no doubt that one Plan Developer can be immensely valuable to craft and implement a strategic plan, the benefits of trended data, collected annually for our clients can be priceless.
For starters, listeners don’t always recognize changes in their behavior or perceptions. Sometimes these shifts are subtle and gradual, unconscious, or simply forgotten. Thus, asking what brand a consumer is using more or less doesn’t always give us obvious clarity. Trends allow us to uncover these patterns. We can see, over time, which brands have grown, and which have shrunk.
With trended data we can track which aspects of a brand have improved or declined. If a brand’s perception has slipped overall, we can investigate what’s driving that by examining the changes in images and brand attribute evaluation over the past several studies. For example, a radio station’s music image may remain strong, but its morning show image has eroded. In the following example, Station B and Station D were leading the variety image in the market in 2019 and 2020. But trending data show how a new competitor, Station A, gradually grew its variety image and took the lead in 2021.
Trends help us identify changes in content interest, which is applicable to both music and spoken word stations. Music tastes are not static and understanding their evolution in the market and among each station’s listeners can lead to one of the most actionable findings in a study. Tracking changing music appetites can help explain a decline in a brand’s performance, and a Plan Developer helps correct this negative trajectory by optimizing the station’s music blend. Over the past couple of years, monitoring these trends have allowed our clients to stay on top of pandemic-influenced behavior, such as heightened interest in news.
Consistently conducted research helps track the appeal of personalities as they become more familiar to the audience. Trends demonstrate if listeners are associating a station with a regular benchmark contest or feature. They tell us how fast consumption habits are changing and which platforms present the biggest threat.
A Plan Developer for your audio brand delivers “The Plan,” your strategic road map, but it’s the regular check-ups, the trendable studies, that keep your brand healthy and ahead of the competition.
