AFTER 

Which do you think has more emotional  impact, and creates a longer lasting impression on the consumer?  ”What it takes to be a Tiger” or “Less Guessing. More Knowing”?  Of course Tiger became a lie and Accenture folded the Tiger Woods campaign the minute the scandal broke.  But purely from the perspective of understanding how media marketing works…how would you be spending your money?

I’d place my last dime on a personality.  The Accenture Tiger Woods campaign was visually arresting.  “What it takes to be a Tiger” has real human emotion embedded within.  The fork in the road campaign has zero emotional appeal.  Who cares about a fork in the road?  Even the Accenture logo is smaller.  But people are STILL living and breathing every step Tiger Woods takes along his way towards his path of either success or humiliating failure.

So where do you have your on-air talent embedded within the lives of your audience?  Your on-air talent is made up of real people with real emotions.  Many of them have a story to tell that others can relate to.  OK…it may not be as compelling as the Tiger Woods drama, but the story is there.

Use it.  Cultive it.  Nurture it.  Market it.

Because people want to hear the story behind your on-air personalities and they want to follow them along their life’s journey.  Create the story and try to understand the power that may be sitting right in front of you.  Drama builds ratings, and people create the drama.

Then why is it that many media interactions with an audience end up like this? 
Let’s break this down so as to avoid any confusion. Think of this as a check list the next time you evaluate your own media product.

Media Brand - Is there a clearly defined “promise” that is made between you and the audience? Meaning do they clearly know what you stand for? Do you know what the name Smith and Wollenski’s stands for? How about Hooters or Chilies, or Le Cirque in NYC? Better yet…give me the name of your own all time favorite local eating establishment. Do you know what they stand for?

Service - How do you respond to a listener/viewer request for information? Is it quick, informative, personable and polite? Or is it like the waiter in the comic strip above? Each audience member has a lot of media choice. Do you treat them like a special customer, or as an annoyance to your ability to make money?

Special of the Day - Are you enticing your audience with new features, and special programming on a daily basis? Your favorite restaurant has a special everyday. Why don’t you? The best run local TV stations have a feature news investigation on a weekly basis. The poorest rated news programs don’t bother. Great radio stations are packed with special features that encourage appointment listening. That’s why a restaurant markets their specials up by 25%. Why? Because they sell.

Word of Mouth - Does your programming create stories that inspire your audience to tell their family and friends about it? Great restaurants literally survive on word of mouth. It is the most powerful form of marketing in the world. Are you generating great word of mouth advertising?

Personalized - Do any of the waiters or owners know you at your favorite restaurant? Ok…do you know your best customers? Do you tailor a special menu or experience just for them? Do you make them feel special in any way with targeted emails, Facebook, or direct mail campaigns? 20 percent of your audience probably accounts for 80 percent of your ratings. Do these important people feel like they are being treated as VIP’s? You might want to ask that sometime soon.

So all in all…how do you create the total media audience dining experience? Begin with a promise. Deliver on the promise. Exceed the promise. Say thank you. And then keep inviting them back in the door.

Let’s do some quick math.  Thirty five years ago was 1976.  If you were around in 1976, then you may have been listening to Bruce Sprinsteen, Billy Joel, Neil Young, The Four Seasons, The Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, The Eagles, The Ramones, Steve Miller, Chicago, Aerosmith, Kiss, Heart, James Taylor, or The Doobie Brothers just to name a few.  Guess what? These same artists can be heard in virtually every market in every city across the United States.

Now let’s do some fun math.  Let’s say in 1976 the same phenomenon occurred.  In other words, everybody was listening to 35 year old music from 1941.  Drop the top, crank up the tunes, and check out some of these all time favorites:

• “A Weekend in Havana” by Carmen Miranda
• “Amapola” by Jimmy Dorsey
• “Blue Champagne” by Jimmy Dorsey
• “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” by Andrews Sisters
• “Chattanooga Choo Choo” by Glenn Miller
• “Daddy” by Sammy Kaye
• “Dolores” recorded by Bing Crosby
• “Elmer’s Tune” by Glenn Miller
• “Intermezzo” by Earl Hines

Ok, maybe some people were jamming to Jimmy Dorsey and the Andrews Sisters in 1976, but not many.  In fact, the royalties the artists received from their 1941 hits are peanuts compared to the royalties artists are getting today from their 35 year old music.  So what’s the big deal?  The answer to that question is the big deal just got bigger. 

In the mid 1970’s the American copyright laws were revised to grant musicians and other artists “termination rights.”  These rights allow all of the artists named above (including the artists from 1941) to take control of their compositions after 35 years.  So instead of just getting a small percentage of the royalty checks, artists who qualify under this law get 100 percent of the royalty check.  This could be a landslide cha-ching for the old pocketbook.

The New York Times recently listed the record titles, artists, year of release, number of units sold, and the termination dates for a sampling of these qualifying musicians below.

So life is grand for these old rockers.  And it will continue to be grand in the years ahead because this music somehow remains timeless.  Now these termination rights still have to be sorted out in court, but my best guess is that Don Henley and all his Eagles can check into the Hotel California for the rest of their lives.  No problemo.  What do you think?

There is a reason why ad revenues have skyrocketed for the Internet. Website use is traceable, and click thru’s can be measured accurately. Contrast that with a buy on TV or radio. The buy is placed but you are taking your best guess in terms of whether or not the spot was even seen or heard. As John Wanamaker once said, “I know that half of my advertising works. I’m just not sure which half.”

But exposure and behavior are two different things. An ad can be seen or heard (exposure) but it may not generate store traffic (behavior). The problem with TV and radio has been more on the exposure side, and less on the behavioral side. That’s because we could never prove that somebody was actually exposed to the spot. Up until now, the measurement of audience members to any single program were at best…Nielson or Arbitron estimates. Just estimates.

Enter the People Meter…A Virtual Audience EKG

Estimates are another word for what people can recall watching or listening to. Once the People Meter (and Nielsen set top monitors) entered the equation, recall was replaced by actualities. Now Media Monitors can show us audience usage on a second by second basis. This kind of research creates a virtual EKG of media usage. An example of radio listening for a three hour span is shown below.

The Wonder of It All

Now let’s consider the implications of these EKG type charts from both an advertiser and programming perspective. First, advertisers can get a realistic view of audience size during commercial breaks. This provides more negotiating power than ever before. Agencies can also show their clients real proof that listeners were there during the spots (or in some cases not there).

But from a programming perspective, this kind of information is extraordinarily powerful. For the first time, a programmer can see what works and what doesn’t work. Since Media Monitors captures 100 percent of the audio (commercials and all) information, direct correlations can be drawn between content and tune in or tune out. I just wonder why this information isn’t used more often? Can this help increase audience? Damn right it can!

Finally, TV and radio have a perfect analytical model for programming strategy. And maybe for the first time, advertisers can answer the question:  Did anybody actually see or hear my commercial?

Unfortunately we are a long way off from having a space car in our garage.  Plus traffic in major cities is only getting worse, and time spent in the car has increased proportionately.  Highways are jammed, and consumers are confined to a very specific and opportunistic media space…in the car.

Average One-Way Commute Time (in minutes) by City (US Census Bureau Data) 

Arbitron reports that the average time spent in a car during the weekday has gone from 2 hours and 11 minutes in 2003 to 2 hours and 52 minutes in 2009.  That accounts for a 31% increase in just six years.  I doubt these numbers are going to decrease over time.

So where’s the media opportunity?  It’s in the car.  Think about it.  Where else are media choices limited during the average day?  Where else are consumers confined to a singular space?  And where else do you have the opportunity to communicate with one-on-one to your target?

Tim Westergren of Pandora understands the power of in-car media.  Ford Motor Company recently announced that their hands free mobile app SYNC will be standard issue in all Ford cards.  That means Pandora music will be able to target the lucrative in-car audience with customized music streaming beginning this year.

Along with music comes the inevitable traffic jam and the corresponding need for up to the second traffic information.  Arbitron reports 50 percent of people get their traffic information from radio, 31 percent from television, and 5 percent from the Internet.  Some think this may change with the advent of hands free in-car mobile applications.

BUT WAIT A MINUTE.  Who’s got the technology and the content providers already in place?  Radio does!  Not only does almost every single car in America have a functioning AM and FM radio receiver, but almost everyone understands how to work technology.  No fancy hookups.  No mobile apps to download, and no surfing the web.  Push a button and bingo…free music, local traffic and weather 24/7.

The key is local.  The singular most important competitive advantage for radio is local.  Local information delivered by local human beings, reporting from the local community, about local events that impact the people living in the local area.  And believe it or not, some people rely on others to surprise them with personally selected musical choices rather than computer modeled choices of songs you know nothing about.

The most recent estimates suggest that in-car radio listening accounts for around 33 percent of all radio listening.  Competing technologies understand that mobile in-car technologies such as SYNC provide newfound ways of entertaining the captured car driver who sits within the snarled traffic systems of most major markets.

But people gravitate towards those things they are most familiar with.  Local personalities, with recognizable call letters, and comfortable voices.  Local radio does that better than anything else, but the competition for the space inside the car is heating up.  Keep an eye on it because you probably won’t see a George Jetson car within your lifetime.

Predicting the future is a slippery bet. Some things are more certain than others. For example Moore’s Law is one sure bet. Historically it has demonstrated unequivocally that the miniaturization of transistors (ie: computer speed and memory) will double every two years. So that one is easy. Smaller and smarter and faster will turn all forms of media technology into powerhouses of personal information and storage. 

But let’s consider those things that aren’t graphically charted or calculated. Instead let’s look historically at those things that have mattered in the past, and will most likely matter in the future.

Bet #1: Content Matters. At a certain point, the infatuation with technology will slow down, and Wall Street will begin to invest in content building machines. Those machines usually involve innovative creative people. For example, Verizon now offers iPhone technology and an estimated 2.1 million more people will be using the Apple platform.  As technological parity is achieved, the iPhone will matter more than how it is delivered. The same goes for terrestrial broadcasts (local and network), Internet, satellite, print, magazines, and film.  Content delivers the audience in the end, and content will dictate the decade ahead. 

Bet #2:  Design Matters.  Not going to bore you with the product elegance produced by companies such Apple, Nike, or Virgin. Instead I return to the premise that eventually, technological parity will be reached, and the most user friendly and ergonomically sensible products will win. That includes rethinking the design of your local evening news, or your top 40 radio station, or even the layout of the Daily News. Design must build upon on multiplatform synergistically integrated concept that blends ALL media forms into a “can’t live without” lifeline. If you think about it, most of the traditional media forms have just taken 40 year old design elements and pasted them up on the web. That won’t work in the next decade.

Bet #3: Technological Attributes Matters. Certain media technologies do things better than other media technologies. A 52 inch HDTV is more fun to watch than a 3 ½ inch cell phone display. It is easier to carry 12 books on my Kindle than to carry 12 books in my carry-on luggage. I can write a much longer, more polite, and more informative business email on my personal computer than I can texting on my iPhone. So in the decade ahead, those media technologies that have specific attributes for specific locations and uses will be those that survive. More importantly, media needs to focus on what they do best.

Bet #4: Getting Attention Matters. ADD is the code word for the decade ahead. As Moore’s Law predicts, consumers will be bombarded with faster and easier access to all media in the next 10 years. With their heads down, people will become media speed demons gobbling up headlines, entertainment, text messages, and social media by the digital boatloads. The extent to which you have content that grabs attention will be key. Take a hard look at your content. Is it nice to have or must have? Is it dull or sexy? Does it engage the user or bore them? Will it create a one shot visit, or a multi-shot visit? The battle for attention is the equivalent of Media WWIII.

Bet #5: Emotion Matters. In a world of technological equivalence, that content which moves the heart, will move the mind. Storylines that stir the soul, and create word of mouth, will drive the ratings, the page hits, and viral environment for success. Talking heads, journalistic dribble, poorly constructed websites, canned dj’s, and stupid mobile apps are history. This is the decade of personalites, story lines, and entertainment. The only thing that is changed is that we just have soooooo many cool ways to deliver it.

What do you think? What do you think will matter in the media decade ahead? Ladies and gentleman, place your wagers now.

The latest national research study from The Pew Research Center suggests that people still rely heavily on TV and radio, and to a lesser extent newspapers, as their daily source of news information.  TV didn’t kill the Radio Star, and the Internet isn’t killing anything.  

Just the Facts: Are people still seeking out news information?

The Pew Study asked a random sample of respondents 18 years or older to “think about the time you spent with the news yesterday”.  They then were asked to estimate how much time they spent watching TV news, listening to radio news, reading a newspaper, or getting news online.  The great thing about this study is that they have been asking these same questions since 1994!  Wow that is cool.

They found that in 1994 Americans spent approximately 74 minutes a day seeking out news.  In 2010 the number remains fairly constant at 70 minutes.  Actually that is a number that has been consistently trending up since 1996.  People are spending more time seeking out and finding news information.

Has the Internet replaced TV and Radio?

Check out the very interesting data below.  Even though people are now spending approximately 13 minutes a day seeking out news on the Internet, the time spent listening to news information on the radio has decreased by only 2 minutes.  TV has experienced a loss of 6 minutes, and newspapers see a decrease of 9 minutes.

What is Going On Here?

A couple of things.  The Director of the Pew Research Center Tom Rosenstiel helps pull some data together at the conclusion of the report with a commentary on the findings.  He very accurately points out that the new media isn’t replacing the old media.  Instead people are using the new media to supplement and enhance the experiences they have with television and radio and newspapers.

This is partially due to the expanded opportunities for people to access the old media in new and different ways via websites, blogs, and mobile phone applications.  Consumers understand that each media platform has its own unique characteristics and creates a certain media experience.

TV news is great for big screen HDTV action and passive consumption.  Radio is great for in-car news reports and up to the minute traffic information.  And print can be relied upon for in-depth coverage and editorial content.  But there is one very important thing to note.  TV and radio have seen only a modest decrease in audience.  This in not the case for newspapers.  Here is why.

In today’s media environment, there are two must have attributes.  You have to be easily accessible, and you have to be digestible.  Accessible means the technology should be easy to get to.  TV and radio…FREE and already there.  Newspapers…prices going up.  TV and radio… short and digestible news content.  Easy to get, easy to digest, and easy to understand.  Not so with print.

And that is why the forefathers of the Internet are used, relied upon, and will continue to flourish in the years ahead.  Radio didn’t replace the newspapers, TV didn’t replace the radio, and the Internet isn’t going to replace either TV or radio.  All media provide a unique user experience.  And today it is more about expanding the user’s media experience, not limiting it.  Thank you Mr. Pew for straightening that out.

Want to know whether your latest tech investment or innovative new media product will be a hit or a flop?  You only need to go to the source…. Everett Rodgers.

Long before Macolm Gladwell published his way to the top with The Tipping Point, there was a brilliant professor out at Iowa State University by the name of Everett Rogers.  In the late 50’s and early 60’s, Rogers was looking into why farmers accepted certain agricultural innovations, and rejected others.  Why did some innovations, that had obvious advantages, never achieve adoption, while others did so quite quickly?

Well it’s all there in The Diffusion of Innovations.  So what does agriculture have to do with media technologies?  Rogers found that all innovations have certain characteristics that can predict whether or not the technology will be accepted or rejected.

Here is the Rogers punch list (brilliant stuff here).

Relative Advantage - the degree to which the new technology is perceived as being better that the idea it supercedes.  For example, cell phones achieved widespread adoption because users could quickly understand the relative advantages of cell phones over land locked phones.

Compatibility - the degree to which a new technology is perceived as being consistent with existing values, past experiences, and user needs.  Cell phones plug right into the existing phone system.  I can call people who even don’t have a cell phone.  Critical mass was quickly achieved.

Complexity - how easy or difficult is the new technology to use?  The cell phone operates exactly as a regular phone. No new learning skills required.

Trialability - the extent to which a technology can be experimented with on a trial basis.  Everyone could try a friend’s cell phone before they bought it.

Observability - how easily can you see, observe, feel and communicate the results of an innovation to others?  Cell phones are easily observed in automobiles, restaurants, social gathers, and all things public.  In fact, some new technologies have become observed social status items, which helps fuel the adoption fires.

If you want to learn more, go directly to the source…Dr. Rogers.  His book is very readable and filled with fascinating studies of how and why new products either succeed or fail.  Why not try this at work…next time someone proposes a new high tech venture, or brand new media concept, apply the Rogers 5 Point Punch List to see if passes with flying colors.  If you are missing just one, you may be in trouble.

Check this one out.  Do you think it passes the Rogers Test?

Network news ratings are decreasing, and TV news credibility has reached an

In other words, I don’t think it’s because the networks are doing a bad job, or that all things human are sitting in front of computer screen searching out news information.  No.  I believe it is more important to think about how an average person decides whether something is real or fake, credible or invented, live or edited, natural or rehearsed, then it is to worry about where they get their news from.  And I think conventional news organizations are missing this point and worrying about the wrong things.

In fact, I believe network and local news organizations could be actively taking advantage of these new information processing mechanisms and building them directly into their daily news strategies. First let’s consider the current modes of news operation and what actually is taking place in the minds of consumers.

Two Models of News Presentation and Information Processing

In order to understand the differences which have occurred in news information processing, let’s begin with the current news model.  Here are the key elements of the network operation.

• Gatekeepers of information make closed door decisions about what is newsworthy and what is not.
• Information is compiled, edited, and disseminated in discrete news segments and sound bites.
• News is presented at specific times during the day and night.
• Broadcast newscasts are slick, professional, and designed to impress both the viewer and competitive stations.

Now here is the new media information processing model.

• Information is crowd sourced to the masses in order to produce user-generated content from thousands of street level reporters.
• Audience members edit information according to their own user profiles dictated by personal preferences, interests and needs.  The most popular stories are dictated by users and not gatekeepers.
• Information is continuously updated and available 24 hours a day.
• Newscasts have a “hand held” grainy live feel to them.  Real life takes the place of repackaged and edited events.

Implications for the Future

Whether we like it or even acknowledge it, a new form of information reality is the new benchmark of news credibility.  Oddly enough, the more slick the presentation, the lower the credibility.  There is a reason why people sit in front of a televised car chase for hours.  There is a reason why TMZ and other reality based gossip news outlets are flourishing.  People want to see it for themselves.  Uncut, unedited, and live.  Raw and real.  While some are building this kind of production reality into their news organizations, others are busy building new set designs.

Network news operations actually have the unique opportunity to create a totally live environment, and generate a feeling that they are EVERYWHERE.  I would think of it as their own version of Google Earth.  The vision would be one of a news operation that allows the viewer to see, experience, and go anywhere in the world to get a news actuality any time of the day.  This would mandate two important strategic decisions.

The first is to believe that user-generated content is not necessarily useless generated content.  That requires a huge paradigm shift at most news gathering operations.  We don’t have a staff of just 20 reporters; we have a community of millions of reporters.  The second strategic decision is to believe that media convergence requires convergence not only between the media and the audience, but also between ALL things media.

In other words, TV outlets would be required to cross-platform radio, print, and of course the Internet, in order to provide a ubiquitous entry point into their interactive second-by-second version of their “Google Earth” news operation.  This becomes a virtual reality of all things news in your community.

So watch the news tonight.  Tell me if you get the feeling of user interactivity, global convergence with all other media forms, and a viewer dictated democracy of content and subject matter.  Or instead, do you get a slick TV presentation that is actually an updated version of a network news format that Huntley and Brinkley invented in the early 1960’s?

The battleship needs to be turned around.  That may take some time, but I don’t think becoming obsolete is an option.  The reality has changed.  The media isn’t the message.  The viewers, listeners, and readers are the message.

Feeling depressed? Need some automated music mood evelators? 
Then check out

Plug yourself into the mood wheel and become automatically emerged into a world of stimulating music based on your own musical emotional profile. 

How about a stream of musical associations?  Pandora will find artists and music that matches your primary preferences and lead you into a grab bag of new artists and maybe even some older tunes you may have forgotten about.

But what about your friends?  What the hell are they listening to and what do they recommend?  Go directly to Last.fm or iLike and go deep into a musical social network.  I mean how hip is that?

Music isn’t what it used to be.  I think that is for the better.  However the atomic bomb proliferation of music has made it increasingly difficult to understand how one can make a single dime in this oh so fragmented industry.  My humble suggestion is to first understand how it is consumed by the public and then try to make some decisions about how to invest in the future.

I think there are four major music consumption models to take a look at:

• Music by Correlation - Tell me what you like and I will find more.  Pandora is the leading example of this.  In this case, you are trusting the experts to code the musical database into discrete categories that will allow a computer model to spit out like associations.
• Music by Association - Join the musical community of your choice and share stories, tips, reviews, and updates on your favorite bands or artists.  Check examples of this out on Myspace or Last.fm.
• Instant Access Music - More, more, I want more!  Dig into the world’s largest pool of assembled music and pick out what you like.  Slacker.com claims to have about 2.5 million tunes to choose from.  Spotify, the European music service, will soon be offering free access to 5 million tunes in the US.
• Shared Music Experience - Music programming by somebody somewhere, and shared by passive listeners who form a listening community.  Old school radio comes to mind, as does satellite radio, and the zillion more Internet radio stations popping up on the worldwide web.  Certainly live concerts and performances would also fall into this category.

Of all the above, the Shared Music Experience has the longest legs.  It has been around since the caveman banged two sticks together to create a rhythm around the campfire.  There is something inherently grand about listening to music as a group…and not by yourself.  It’s why radio and live performances endure amidst a gigantic array of alternative choices.  It is exactly what is human about the music listening experience.

My money’s on the media that has lasted the longest.  50 years from now people will still be passively listening to music programmed by somebody else…and loving it.