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The Power of One Brand Message

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In the last Tuesdays With Coleman blog, John Boyne shared a unique example of how U-Haul gets away with what, on the surface, feels like a blatant brand violation. U-Haul splatters various messages all over its trucks, from being easy to load to its gentle ride suspension to its low cost. John points out this violation at the end of his blog, arguing that U-Haul may get away with it because the mini messages further an overarching perception about a well established brand. I’ll make the case that last part is the most important. U-Haul claims a dominant, greater than 50% share of the rental truck market in the United States. If it had greater competition, it would be forced to focus in order to differentiate. For most brands, focusing on one powerful brand message is the right move. For Jennifer Hudson, it’s an amazing move.

I’ve never watched an episode of The Jennifer Hudson Show. But I feel like I know exactly what it’s about. That’s because I watch JHud’s “Spirit Tunnel” almost every day.

If you’re unfamiliar, the Spirit Tunnel is the hallway where guests enter the show, greeted by staff members who sing, dance, clap, and cheer them on. The celebrities often join in, creating some genuinely entertaining moments. The videos are everywhere on social media. At least, they’re everywhere on my social media. And here’s what’s interesting: Despite never having watched the actual show, I have a pretty clear impression of The Jennifer Hudson Show. It’s fun. It’s upbeat. It’s positive. It’s a place where people are celebrated, and where you’re probably going to leave feeling better than when you arrived. Is that an accurate representation of the entire show? I have no idea.

But it’s the impression I have, and that’s the point.

One of the most common mistakes brands make is trying to communicate too many things at once. They want consumers to know they’re innovative, trustworthy, entertaining, authentic, community-focused, and different from the competition. They want to promote every feature, every personality, every benefit, and every reason someone might choose them. And when everything is important, nothing stands out. The Jennifer Hudson tunnel takes a different approach. It gives people one memorable, easily recognizable entry point into the brand. And that entry point communicates something much bigger than the actual content of the videos.

The tunnel isn’t the show. It’s a gateway to the show.

It gives potential viewers a reason to become interested. More importantly, it establishes an expectation about the experience they’ll have if they decide to watch. That’s effective branding.

Jennifer Hudson Show

EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony) winner Jennifer Hudson (Credit: DFree/Shutterstock.com)

Of course, there’s an important caveat. You can’t just find something entertaining, promote it relentlessly, and expect it to build your brand. The gateway has to connect to the broader brand experience. Imagine if the Jennifer Hudson tunnel were filled with singing, dancing, and laughter, but the actual show was a serious, confrontational interview program. The disconnect would be jarring. The tunnel works because the feeling it creates appears consistent with the show’s larger personality.

And that’s the lesson for brands: Find one thing that makes people curious about you, but make sure it represents what you actually deliver.

For a radio station, that gateway might be a particular music position, a morning show personality, or a distinctive attitude.

For a podcast, it might be a recurring segment or the unique perspective of its host.

For a streaming service, it might be a signature program that draws people into a much larger library of content.

The objective isn’t to reduce the entire brand to one thing. It’s to give consumers one compelling reason to take the first step.

This is where things get especially interesting in today’s fragmented media landscape.

I haven’t watched the show. I couldn’t tell you what time it’s on, what channel carries it, or even describe a typical episode. But I regularly consume content associated with the show. So, am I a viewer? Not in the traditional television ratings sense. But I am certainly part of the show’s broader audience, and I’ve developed a brand perception without ever consuming its core product. Consumers encounter brands in all kinds of ways before ever becoming customers, listeners, subscribers, or viewers. And those encounters shape expectations.

The Jennifer Hudson tunnel has accomplished the first critical step of building a relationship with me. It has made the brand recognizable, memorable, and appealing. Whether that eventually translates into watching the show is another question. But without that initial connection, there wouldn’t even be an opportunity. The less established your position, the more important it is to give consumers something specific to remember you for. You can expand the conversation once you’ve earned a place in their minds.

Here’s the question I’d encourage every brand to consider:

What’s the one thing you could consistently put in front of potential consumers that would make them curious enough to explore everything else you offer? Not the six things you want to be known for. Not the laundry list of product benefits. One thing.

It should be distinctive enough to capture attention, simple enough to remember, and authentic enough to represent the broader brand experience. The Jennifer Hudson Spirit Tunnel doesn’t attempt to explain everything about The Jennifer Hudson Show. It doesn’t need to. It gives me a reason to smile, a feeling to associate with the brand, and perhaps someday, a reason to tune in.

And considering I’ve never watched an episode, that’s a pretty impressive start.

 

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What U-Haul Trucks Can Teach Us About Brand Marketing

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Nearly three years after my writing was last inspired by brand messaging seen on the side of a commercial truck, here we go again. And this time my muse is U-Haul.

U-Haul? Yes, U-Haul.

On its home turf of the United States and Canada, U-Haul is a powerful brand. For those of you living in this part of the world, I’m willing to bet that you are familiar with U-Haul, that you know what primary services U-Haul provides, and that you can even close your eyes and picture a classic white-and-orange U-Haul truck.

U-Haul Truck

A U-Haul truck in Raleigh, North Carolina

For those unaware, U-Haul is the long-time market leader in do-it-yourself moving truck and trailer rental, and it is also a major operator of self-storage facilities. When you need to haul your stuff from one place to another, U-Haul wants to help.

What’s interesting to me is the approach that U-Haul takes to decorating its moving trucks. Rather than presenting a clean, simple design, U-Haul vehicles are adorned with a smorgasbord of messages and imagery that can vary from truck to truck. I mean, yes, there’s a foundational base of white-and-orange coloring and the distinctive U-Haul logo, but beyond that, there’s a lot to take in. For example:

  • Some messages describe how U-Haul trucks are easy to load, such as this back panel display: “Our Low Decks Make Your Move EASIER!” with a blue arrow pointing to the height of U-Haul’s “Lowest Decks” and their “E-Z Load Ramp” requiring “1/3 Less Work,” as compared to a red arrow pointing out the higher location of a competitor’s deck height
  • Look elsewhere and you may learn about the comfort of the drive: “Gentle-Ride Van,” “Gentle-Ride Suspension,” “Drives Like A Van, Hauls Like A Truck”
  • Other messages relate to U-Haul’s efforts to help its customers save gas money: “Trimline Fuel $aver – Saves You Money,” “Fuel $aver Chassis Skirts – Optimize Your Fuel Economy,” “Enhanced Aerodynamics”
  • You may also come across other low-cost messages: “Now Only $19.95,” “Right Equipment, Lowest Cost”
  • And then there’s my personal favorite: “Mom’s Attic,” a relatively small, italicized phrase pointing out additional storage space that extends above the cab of trucks (per the website, “another U-Haul exclusive!”)
  • Beyond such product-benefit messages, more memorable to some of you may be the “Venture Across America & Canada” series that features eye-catching images and interesting factoids from the many states and territories served by U-Haul. The company calls these SuperGraphics®, and as a proud North Carolinian, I am particularly fond of the one featuring the Venus Fly Trap. While U-Haul may of course be altruistically motivated to educate citizens, SuperGraphics also have the benefit of drawing the attention of drivers and passersby who may then take in the truck’s other messages about U-Haul’s services.

U-Haul truck messaging

So what marketing lessons can we take away from U-Haul? I’ll give you three:

First, think of any consumer-facing situation as an opportunity to market your brand. Don’t have a fleet of trucks like U-Haul’s that can be used as mobile billboards? I get it. But consider if there are other potentially under-utilized assets—such as product packaging, a storefront, or a media appearance—that could be better optimized to help you develop and mold perceptions of your brand.

Second, promote your brand’s benefits; don’t assume that people will figure it out on their own. U-Haul recognizes that positive points of differentiation are only helpful if they are noticed. By using on-truck messaging to highlight benefits related to ease of use, comfort, and fuel economy, U-Haul educates consumers about benefits that are not otherwise apparent.

Third, consider the “1+1+1=3/4” test when developing and prioritizing marketing messaging. The idea here is that if you try to communicate too much at once, the conflicting messages and lack of focus will result in no single message strongly cutting through. Now, if you’re reading this and thinking, “Hey, wait a minute, might U-Haul actually be guilty of violating this rule?”, hats off to your astute observation! I mention “1+1+1=3/4” here because this U-Haul approach challenges us to consider if it is a rare exception to the rule. Yes, U-Haul trucks contain many different messages. But in this case, I’d argue that the strategy works if the marketing goal is to use the barrage of mini messages to further the overarching perception that U-Haul “Makes Moving Easier” (yes, another phrase on their trucks). In other words, the goal may not be to deeply imprint all the details, but rather for the ensemble of details to draw your attention and then communicate a larger story about an already well-established brand. Is “Mom’s Attic” such a critical selling point that it should be the singular message on all U-Haul trucks? Of course not. But as one of many details being absorbed by passing observers, “Mom’s Attic” may help establish the broader idea that U-Haul’s really got the do-it-yourself moving process all figured out for you.

So there you go – a few marketing lessons from the side of a U-Haul truck. Keep your eyes and ears open, and you might be surprised by what brings inspiration.

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What Firefox’s Wrexham Sponsorship Teaches Radio Brands

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As a big soccer fan, I was intrigued when I learned that Firefox had become the front-of-shirt sponsor for Wrexham AFC.

Yes, that Firefox. The web browser.

At first glance, a web browser sponsoring a Welsh football club seems like an odd pairing. But as I learned more about the partnership, I realized there’s an interesting branding lesson here, especially for anyone in the radio business.

For those who haven’t followed the story, Wrexham is one of the oldest professional football clubs in the world. After years of struggles in the lower reaches of English football, actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac bought the club in 2021. Their ownership, combined with the enormous success of the television series Welcome to Wrexham, transformed what had largely been a local and regional brand into a global one.

Welcome to Wrexham

Rob McElhenney, Ryan Reynolds at the FX’s “Welcome To Wrexham” FYC Event at Chloe’s at Golden Road Brewing on April 28, 2026 in Burbank, CA (Kathy Hutchins / Shutterstock.com)

After an unprecedented three consecutive promotions, Wrexham now plays in the Championship, the second-highest level of English football. And beginning with the 2026-27 season, Firefox became the front-of-shirt sponsor for both Wrexham’s men’s and women’s teams.

So, why Firefox?

According to StatCounter, Google Chrome accounts for roughly two-thirds of worldwide web browser usage. Safari is a distant second, followed by Microsoft Edge. Firefox’s share is less than 3%.

In other words, Firefox is an underdog—and so is Wrexham.

Mozilla, the organization behind Firefox, clearly sees the connection. In announcing the partnership, Mozilla described Firefox and Wrexham as two “challenger brands” that have built passionate communities by doing things differently. That makes a lot of sense from a positioning standpoint, but I think there’s something even more interesting about this sponsorship.

Firefox may or may not have a product problem with some consumers. But it almost certainly has an awareness and consideration problem.

Editorial credit: Bangla press / Shutterstock.com

Think about what happens when you get a new computer or phone. There’s already a browser on it. Chrome dominates Android. Safari comes with Apple products. Edge comes with Windows. Most people probably don’t conduct an exhaustive evaluation of browsers before deciding which one to use. They use what’s already there or perhaps download the browser they already know and use elsewhere.

That means one of Firefox’s biggest challenges is simply getting into consumers’ consideration sets. And that’s something we think about all the time in the research we conduct for our radio clients.

We can ask listeners to rate a station’s music, personalities, morning show, or other content. We can help the station refine all those things. But none of that matters very much if, when someone decides, “I want to hear some Hip Hop,” your station never enters their mind.

That’s why we measure Awareness and association with brand images in our Plan Developer perceptual studies. What brands come to mind? A radio station, for example, can have a terrific product. It can conduct music research, improve its morning show, reduce commercial clutter, and make its app work beautifully. But if consumers aren’t thinking about the station, they can’t choose it.

Firefox appears to understand that. And that helps explain why putting its logo on a football shirt potentially makes more sense than spending the same money telling people about browser features.

Wrexham has something Firefox needs: attention.

And it isn’t just attention in Wales. Welcome to Wrexham has given the club a worldwide following that wildly exceeds what you would expect for a football club from a small city in North Wales. Wrexham now attracts interest throughout the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, and elsewhere. Every match, every highlight, every social media post, and every photograph of Reynolds and Mac celebrating another milestone puts Firefox in front of people who might otherwise have little reason to think about a web browser.

Importantly, the partnership also reinforces an image Firefox wants to own. Firefox isn’t going to beat Chrome by claiming to be the biggest browser because, obviously, it isn’t. Instead, it can stand for something different: independence, privacy, user choice, and taking on the giants. Wrexham’s brand story fits that narrative remarkably well.

Here’s where I think the lesson becomes especially relevant to radio.

When budgets get tight, marketing is often evaluated almost entirely through short-term response. How many people clicked? How many people downloaded the app? How many people entered the contest? Did ratings go up?

Those are perfectly reasonable questions. But they can lead us to undervalue one of marketing’s most important jobs: building and maintaining mental availability. Sometimes marketing works because six months from now, when someone has a need your product can fulfill, they think of you.

That’s much harder to attribute. If Firefox’s market share increases over the next few years, nobody will be able to calculate precisely how much of that growth came from someone repeatedly seeing the logo on a Wrexham shirt. That doesn’t mean the exposure didn’t matter.

The same is true for radio. The billboard someone passes every morning may not cause them to listen at that moment. The television commercial featuring your morning show may not generate an immediately measurable streaming session. The sponsorship of a community event may not produce a detectable ratings spike. But each can help build an image and, perhaps most importantly, keep the brand mentally available.

Of course, awareness alone isn’t enough. Once consumers try Firefox, the product must deliver. Once someone samples your radio station, the content must deliver. That’s why we’ve long preached at Coleman Insights that successful radio brands need both brand strength and content strength.

But we shouldn’t confuse the two.

A better product doesn’t automatically create a stronger brand. Sometimes you must give people a reason to notice you in the first place.

For Firefox, apparently, that means putting its logo on the front of a football shirt in Wrexham, Wales.

The more I think about it, the less strange that seems.

 

 

 

 

 

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When One Tiny Label Breaks the Brand

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My wife once saw “Oldies” on her car’s display for a radio station that plays Madonna, Bon Jovi, and N’Sync, and that was it — she was done. Not because the music was bad, but because the label told her a completely different story about who the station was for and how it wanted to be perceived. That is branding in a nutshell: the smallest inconsistency can undo a carefully built identity.

Photo credit: yllyso / Shutterstock.com

Like most of us, she’s a habitual person. She listens to some local radio, as in the above example, but generally keeps SiriusXM on when she’s driving. Her tastes are more contemporary than those of a typical 55-year-old; she’s far more likely to be locked on Alt Nation and Hits 1 than a gold-based station like 80s on 8 or Classic Rewind. When she does go gold, it’s usually Rock The Bells, because Classic Hip Hop is fun. It makes her feel good and reminds her of her youth without making her feel old.

Those five words are a centerpiece of the nostalgia strategy. You can play older music and make it feel fresh, or you can make it sound like it was released 40 years ago.

Listening to LL Cool J’s Rock The Bells channel on SiriusXM does not make my wife feel old. (Credit: lev radin / Shutterstock.com)

Components like a brand’s display on the car dashboard should never be a technical afterthought. They should be an integral part of your brand’s footprint.  Every platform should be audited for consistency. Remember that brand meaning is emotional. A format label is not just descriptive; it signals who the station is for and how it wants you to feel.

The lesson is bigger than radio. Any brand that depends on a clear, modern, emotionally resonant identity must protect the little stuff as carefully as the big stuff, because customers notice mismatches faster than marketers do. A brand can’t ask people to feel one thing while its own touchpoints say another.

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Your Brand’s Strength Or Weakness? It’s A Matter Of Perspective.

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“Your greatest strength begets your greatest weakness” is a quote typically attributed to William Shakespeare. The idea is that excelling in one dimension may reveal a vulnerability in another. For example, the military that develops overwhelming superiority on its northern flank may find itself under-prepared for an attack on its southern flank.

While one may think of this theme as a linear pathway from greatness to decline (e.g., your strength exposes a weakness, that weakness is exploited, game over), it’s often more complicated than that. In many cases, your strength and your weakness are ever-present, and the latter does not completely counteract the former. The restaurant that is great for breakfast may have a hard time convincing people that it’s also great for dinner, and the restaurant that has a line out the door in the evening may not get much traffic in the morning—but each restaurant may thrive because of, not in spite of, its area of specialization.

In the audio entertainment space, competition from online streaming services and podcasts has disrupted the local radio business. For radio, curating a shared experience is both a strength and a weakness. Successful radio stations are really good at programming a compelling flow of music and/or talk content for a mass audience. But, when your job is to curate for many, you inevitably cannot satisfy all. Online streaming services and podcasts can swoop in and fill a need that radio cannot, giving consumers exactly what they want when they want it. Do you want to listen to the latest Zach Bryan release ten times in a row? No problem. Do you want to listen to a year-old SmartLess episode from start to finish, off and on over the course of your day? Done.

Most radio stations don’t play Zach Bryan, but streaming offers endless listens. (Photo credit: Blake Harbison/Unsplash)

Yet, our consumer research reminds me of the fine line between weakness and strength. Mass-appeal curation makes radio vulnerable to on-demand competition, but mass-appeal curation nonetheless remains a perceived benefit of radio. For example, here is a selection of music-related comments from recent studies in which we’ve asked people to describe why they sometimes choose radio over other options:

“It’s fun to just listen to a radio station and not think about what song to play next.”

“I like to hear new things instead of my same old playlists.”

“Sometimes I would rather be surprised by what’s going to come up next rather than use music I choose.”

“They play songs I forgot about that I like.”

“I like how music just comes up, and I don’t have to figure out a playlist.”

“Sometimes I want to hear new songs that are popular, or something I haven’t discovered yet.”

“Because I get bored of my music and don’t know what to put on”

“I like to be able to just turn on the radio and let it play without having to choose a song.”

A key perceived strength of radio is that the songs are picked for you. (Photo credit: Fast-Stock/Shutterstock.com)

“When I want to be surprised by what I listen to”

“Sometimes I can’t decide on what I want to listen to, and I end up spending 20 minutes going through the song library trying to pick something out. If I throw on the radio, I’ll hear something I wanna hear.”

Are you a radio executive who spends a lot of time worrying about the downside of curation versus on-demand? I challenge you to refocus some of that energy toward considering how to best demonstrate and promote the upside. It may be more fruitful than you think. After all, your weakness and your strength are often two sides of the same coin.

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All Hail This Branding Lesson From The Donut King

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My favorite thing about a long flight is discovering movies I’d never heard of.

My most recent find is “The Donut King” (if you’re an 80s film geek like me, you just whispered “Of Chicago” under your breath. If not, never mind, moving on…)

“The Donut King”, at its core, is a tremendous underdog story. It focuses on Ted Ngoy, a Cambodian immigrant who fled the oppressive Khmer Rouge regime in the mid-1970s and made his way to Southern California. He was trained to make donuts at Winchell’s, which operated around 200 stores on the West Coast at its peak. He purchased his first shop, Christy’s Donuts, in 1977, eventually expanded to 50 locations, sponsored other Cambodian refugees, taught them to make donuts, and was ultimately responsible for a California donut empire so entrenched, it foiled Dunkin Donuts’ plans in the state for decades (it has only recently pushed hard into the Golden State).

Ted Ngoy learned to make donuts at Winchell’s before starting his own empire (Photo credit: mikeledray / Shutterstock.com)

It feels a bit like a Behind The Music episode – tragedy, triumph over tragedy, a rise, and fall. There are many lessons to be gleaned from “The Donut King”.

But as is very typical of me and my marketing/branding brain, I hyper-focused on one thing that happened in the 90-minute film.

The pink box.

Not every donut store today uses a pink box, but a pink box certainly has become synonymous with donuts. But in the 1980s, no donut stores used pink boxes, generally only white ones.

That is, until Westco, the company that supplied the boxes to Ngoy’s stores, offered up boxes made of leftover pink cardboard stock that happened to fit a dozen donuts perfectly. They were cheaper, meaning a few pennies saved per box meant big savings over time.

So, the pink donut box may have happened by accident, but it doesn’t mean your pink box needs to be an accident.

The pink box has become synonymous with donuts (Photo Credit: The Image Party/shutterstock.com)

Broca’s Area is the part of your brain that anticipates the predictable, and literally tunes out what it knows and expects. Stimulating Broca’s Area engages our excitable, surprise emotion. In the 80s, if you’d seen a white box every time you stopped for donuts, seeing another white box would be unremarkable. But a pink box would stimulate Broca and capture your attention.

The principle drives “The Purple Cow” by marketer Seth Godin. You’ve seen so many brown and black cows in your life, so when you see one it’s just another cow. But what would you do if you saw a purple cow on the side of the road? These days, you might stop and take a selfie with the cow, perhaps a TikTok upload, #PurpleCow of course.

Why?

Not because it’s a cow. Because it’s a purple cow. And only because you’ve never seen a purple cow before. If purple cows started showing up everywhere, it wouldn’t be remarkable anymore.

What, never seen a purple cow before? (Photo credit: Davide Rigon/shutterstock.com)

What is perhaps the greatest thing about the pink donut box is just how simple it is. It didn’t even require an increase in budget, it was cheaper! But it was different, so it captured attention.

When you’re brainstorming the next marketing idea, the next way to promote a song, the next video for social media, the next design for the app, you should think strategically about how it will benefit and grow your brand. But also consider, how will it stimulate Broca? How will it surprise? How will it be different?

What’s your pink donut box?

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Digital Strategy Do’s and Don’ts

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Two weeks ago, I had the pleasure of attending Christian Music Broadcasters’ Momentum Summit in Charlotte. At the Digital Summit, I presented “Digital Strategy Do’s and Don’ts”, highlighting some of the lessons we’ve learned alongside our clients over the years as they have moved into the digital space. I was thrilled that so many attendees stuck around after the session to ask questions and share some of their experiences and ideas.

Here are some of the best practices we discussed in the session:

The most important rule of digital strategy: Have a digital strategy. We need to meet consumers where they are, and we are constantly reminded that they are spending less and less time with AM/FM and more time with digital offerings. Now is not the time to practice digital avoidance.

Stay on top of any publicly available data about consumption trends. This may seem obvious, but it’s imperative that you know what media your listeners are spending time with when they aren’t with you. It’s also important to know when new trends emerge so you can adjust your digital strategy as needed.

Be an Outside Thinker when it comes to your digital offerings and digital strategy. If you have spent any time around someone from Coleman Insights, you have probably heard us talk about Inside vs. Outside Thinking. Inside Thinkers have a hard time thinking about their brand, images, and content from the perspective of consumers or potential consumers—they let themselves get too mired in the details. Outside Thinkers, on the other hand, make a point of viewing their content and brand through the lens of the consumer.

While Inside Thinkers may believe that listeners care deeply about their entertainment options, pay close attention to them, and can be easily manipulated, Outside Thinkers don’t subscribe to these beliefs. They recognize that consumers have a lot going on in their lives and they don’t care deeply about their radio stations and other entertainment options. Outside Thinkers also consider that they are not just competing with other radio stations and audio offerings. Use Outside Thinking when developing and implementing your digital strategy.

Don’t fall into the trap of believing that your radio listeners know about your digital offerings. You may feel like all you do is talk about your app, or which apps listeners can use to listen to your content offerings, or where they can find them on the website. You may even feel that listeners must be sick of hearing about it. But the truth is, they probably don’t know as much as you think they do about your digital offerings. We see this over and over again in our research. It takes a long time for messages to sink in and consumers hear a lot of them on any given day. Practice consistent messaging and put it on repeat—even if you are sick of it.

Eliminate consumer friction. One of the things I do when we first start working with a new client or station is to interact with the brand in all the ways a consumer might. I listen to their FM or AM frequency if I’m in the market, I stream from the website, ask Alexa to play it, and listen via apps. On several occasions, I have hit some friction point that prevents me from listening. Maybe the app interface is too clunky, or I can’t find what I am looking for. Maybe Alexa can’t figure out what it is I want to hear. Or maybe I hear six minutes (six minutes!) of pre-roll and commercials before I hear one song when I start streaming from the station’s website. In today’s highly competitive digital landscape, we can’t afford to let listeners have a poor experience. Not when competitors have slick apps with all the bells and whistles.

Promote your digital offerings where your consumers are. I try to avoid TikTok and Reels and YouTube shorts because my time is valuable, but I get sucked in more than I’d like to admit. And I am exposed to brands because of these platforms. Use them! It just takes a little time and creativity.

Promote your digital offerings the way real people use them, using the language they do. My colleague Jay Nachlis just presented a study called The New Rules of Podcasting on YouTube at Podcast Movement and that study found that 75% of podcast consumers define a podcast as audio or video vs. just 22% who define it as audio-only. He referred to it in last week’s Tuesdays With Coleman blog which you can find here.

When you talk about your content, make sure your language matches the consumer’s. And, based on the findings of the study, if your podcasts aren’t on YouTube with some video component… they probably should be.

Don’t be afraid to take an unexpected approach. In my session, I talked about my fascination with the National Park Service’s social channels. Matthew Turner, who manages the National Park Service’s social channels, has gained the 107-year-old government agency a million followers a year for the past four years by pushing out informative and often humorous messages that are each liked and shared by thousands of followers.  The NPS has been around longer than commercial radio, but park visitation is up!

National Park Service blog

Your digital offerings and strategy must be consistent with your brand. As you navigate the digital space, make sure that all the content you create and share is consistent with the big idea of your brand, whatever that is. Consumers should know that they are listening to your content regardless of how they consume it.

Use each of your platforms to promote the others. How do I learn about podcasts? I hear advertisements on other podcasts… and the cycle continues. Not only does this messaging encourage additional usage, but it also builds your brand image as more than just _____. And remember to be consistent and repetitive with the messaging.

Embrace the benefits of an unformed brand. Do you suffer from a weak brand? Great! That means you can grow your brand images in the digital space more easily than stronger brands that are firmly rooted in FM in the minds of the audience. Embrace your weak brand and form a digital strategy that capitalizes on that.

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Look Before You Leap: Four Brand Evolution Tips

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For many brands, a key to longevity is the ability to evolve. What works today may not work tomorrow.

To that end, much of our research at Coleman Insights relates to helping clients appropriately adapt and innovate by staying in touch with consumer tastes, behaviors, and perceptions. We’re studying music trends, talk/personality content, and distribution platforms.

Of course, evolutionary decisions are rarely easy and are often fraught with risk. As The Clash famously asked, “Should I Stay Or Should I Go?” As you contemplate taking your brand in a different direction, we encourage you to think through the following questions:

  1. Is there a sizable market for “the new thing”? Don’t change for the sake of change. Change because a data-driven analysis of the situation tells you that this change has the potential to be fruitful.
  2. Can you execute “the new thing” exceptionally well? Just because you want to do something doesn’t mean that you’re equipped to do it well (a.k.a., the not-everyone-can-be-a-world-class-athlete rule). Consumers have a lot of options, and they’re typically not looking for mediocrity.
  3. Can your brand become known for “the new thing”? You’ll have a hard time attracting those who may enjoy “the new thing” if they don’t know that your brand does “the new thing.” Consider what kind of competition is in the way, the pre-learned interference of existing perceptions of your brand, how to effectively communicate the new message, and whether you have the marketing resources necessary to cut through.
  4. Are you ok leaving “the old thing” behind? Change often comes with trade-offs, as you emphasize one thing at the expense of another. If you give something up, and a competitor fills the void, you may never get it back.
Facebook evolves brand into Meta

There are many examples of brand evolution, such as Facebook’s rebranding as Meta.

Now, let’s marry these questions with some real-world examples:

  1. If you’re a producer trying to decide among several topics that are not well covered by existing podcasts, do you know how appealing each is to potential listeners?
  2. If you want to launch a podcast about soccer, have you determined what your soccer podcast will do exceptionally well relative to the other soccer podcasts that already exist?
  3. If you are thinking about taking your Classic Hits station’s recipe deeply into the 90s, do you have a good marketing plan for developing the station’s image as a source of 90s music?
  4. If you’ve shifted your Top 40 station’s recipe substantially older in response to a downturn in the popularity of current music, are you comfortable with the possibility that your station’s image and usage as a source of current music is being diminished?

So look for ways in which innovation and evolution can benefit your brand, but do so through a strategic lens that takes into consideration the many factors that will play into the success or failure of your decision.

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How Al Ries Influenced Coleman Insights

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This past week, we learned legendary marketer Al Ries passed away. Matt Bailey, president of our sister company Integr8 Research, sent an internal email stating simply, “Without his work, we wouldn’t have ours.”

How true that is. You can see the influence of Al Ries all over Coleman Insights, including in Tuesdays With Coleman blogs that reference him, like “What’s Your Word,” “Lack of Focus=Lack of Greatness,” “Need a Slogan? Bring the Sledgehammer”, and “The Line Extension Trap.”

Coleman Insights was not the first radio research company. The earliest research companies certainly illuminated and pointed out what the consumer was thinking about and issues to address. But in the early 80s, as I began to talk to consumers and hear what they were saying, it became clear there was a gap between what people inside the radio station and outside the radio station were thinking. I realized the program directors and general managers way overestimated the levels of interest of the listeners.

At this same time, books by marketers Al Ries and Jack Trout became very popular. These included “Positioning: The Battle For Your Mind” and “Marketing Warfare” in the 80s and “The 22 Immutable Laws Of Marketing” and “Focus: The Future Of Your Company Depends On It” (my favorite) in the 90s.

I related to so much of what Ries and Trout were saying because of what I was experiencing as a radio researcher. Unintentionally at first but intentionally later, I made these principles a core focus of our company. The best way I can describe this is:

It’s not the product. It’s what’s in the mind of the consumer.

So, we began to really think about how the consumer thinks, and the communication process between the radio station and its listeners. It was this focus that I believe led to some of the most successful stations which used communication methods as much as or more than they focused on the music or spoken word product.

Take KZZP in Phoenix in 1985. Along with Guy Zapoleon and the team at KZZP, we recommended they start using “The #1 Hit Music Station.” You’re used to hearing that positioner now, but it was not being used back then. At that time, KZZP was in a battle with KOPA, but KOPA wasn’t clear about what it was, the station was shifting the music around and they were constantly tweaking the product, because they thought the product was all that mattered. But by using “The #1 Hit Music Station,” we went for the mind of the consumer. Within about six months, KOPA was destroyed, and it flipped months later. That principle, battling for the mind, was all based on Al Ries’ philosophy.

Back then, I heard one station using “Lite” for the first time and thought it was genius. There were stations all over the United States in the Soft Adult Contemporary format, but they weren’t differentiated from other AC stations. Al Ries talks about creating your own category, and at the time there was no Soft AC category. But when you called the station “Lite” or “Lite Rock,” you created a new ladder, and the station could become the leader in the category that every other station in the format was compared to. On so many occasions, Al Ries’s books gave me confidence that what I was seeing wasn’t just a radio thing but were universal marketing principles.

More recently, I feel some have veered away from Ries’ principles, thinking digital tools will simply track consumer behavior and we won’t need marketing “gimmicks.” Over time, it’s been made clear the branding piece is so necessary. You need to communicate how your product fits in the marketplace and how it’s different. Fortunately, it feels like there is more of a swing happening back towards the image development side.

One thing I know Al Ries would agree with is the importance of external marketing. For audio brands, external marketing is perceived differently than marketing on the brand itself. It’s perceived as an editorial message about the product. You can define what the product is, in a way through external messaging, that you can’t internally. So, in other words, all the liners in the world won’t matter that much without external marketing that gives credibility to what the radio station, podcast, streaming service, and so on is doing.

Al Ries and Jack Trout taught me the need to talk to consumers in plain, real language. We get so caught up in the hype that we forget to talk to people. And they taught me that it’s too easy to try to be “cute,” creating messages that don’t mean anything to the consumer. You need to tell them what you’re doing as clearly as possible.

When you see Coleman Insights talking about core philosophies such as Outside Thinking, the Image Pyramid, or the Brand-Content Matrix, there is an abundance of Al Ries influence to thank for it. I’ll always be grateful for his work.

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Why the Best Content Doesn’t Always Win

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Radio is full of recycled ideas.

As a former program director of mine liked to joke, “If you’ve stolen from me, you’ve stolen twice.”

You might hear “Battle Of The Sexes” in Minneapolis or Memphis. “The Phrase That Pays” could tempt you in Richmond or Reno. Listeners may laugh along to a version of Elvis Duran’s iconic “Phone Taps” just about anywhere.

The million-dollar question is…why do some features and contesting work on some stations and not on others?

In one respect, it’s a nearly impossible question to answer.

How was it executed? How many promos were run? Was it marketed outside of the station? And so on. And if you attempt to equate the effectiveness of a feature or contest based on ratings in the short-term, you’ll drive yourself crazy.

But in another respect, it’s a simple question to answer, and I’ll do it in two words.

The brand.

Take “Phone Taps,” a successful long running prank call segment for Elvis Duran And The Morning Show, based at Z100 in New York. What would happen if a poorly performing morning show in another city ran the exact same segment featuring the exact same calls each day with their voices replacing those of the Elvis Duran cast? Would it be just as popular with that audience?

Elvis Duran Phone Taps

If you believe the best content always wins, you might think so.

But “Phone Taps” doesn’t succeed for Duran just because the bit itself is great. It succeeds because the “Phone Taps” brand has been carefully crafted over time. The “Phone Taps” brand was carefully crafted within the construct of the “Elvis Duran And The Morning Show” brand. And the “Elvis Duran And The Morning Show” brand was carefully crafted within the construct of the Z100 brand. A rising tide lifts all boats, and a weak branding link can affect the performance of even the best content.

Stations with similar music libraries succeed in one market and not another. The same exact contest played on multiple stations will do wonders for one station and not another. The reason why will, in part, come down to execution. But it will also be because of the equity of the brand playing the music or the contest.

One of my favorite examples of brand vs. content is bottled water. Let’s say your content is bottled water. It’s solid, reliable content. Most everyone consumes and enjoys it. And if we’re talking about non-flavored straight up water, it pretty much tastes the same. Why are we only willing to pay 25 cents for a bottle of water at Costco but $2.50 for Fiji?

 

Branding convinces enough people that one version is more valuable than the other.

It can be hard to swallow, but the best content does not always win. If you’re regularly generating great content, don’t forget to ensure that the brand behind the content is solid and clearly understood.

Otherwise, your great content may be just a waste of time.