 HD Radio Alliance found a workable tactic... but it's off-strategy! ·Jan 15, 10:08 AM There’s been a bubbling controversy going on over the past month or so in various radio industry publications and blogs over the new set of radio commercials commissioned by the HD Radio Alliance for their 2008 $280 million ad “buy” on broadcast radio in support of HD Radio. The heart of the issue is this: HD Radio Alliance CEO Peter Ferrara commissioned Omnicom Group’s GSD&M Idea City, based in Austin, to create a series of The San Antonio-based HD Radio Alliance is a coalition of owners and operators that includes Beasley, Bonneville, CBS Radio, Citadel/ABC, Clear Channel, Emmis, Entercom, Greater Media and WBEB Philadelphia. As described last week in Adweek, “the ads feature the voice of cartoon character SpongeBob (actor Tom Kenny) as a conventional car radio calling its owner and leaving messages as if it’s a jilted lover. ‘You know, I could totally pick up those new extra HD stations if I hit the gym,’ the radio says in desperation. ‘Is that what you’re into now? Huh? Call me!’” In other words, the campaign tries to position HD Radio as a hot, desirable product by repositioning AM/FM radio as a neurotic, pathetic loser. Is this good? Some observers think not; I would tend to agree. Jacobs and Martin sound an alarmThe first person to raise a red flag when the spots were distributed to stations in late December was consultant Fred Jacobs (here). In his “Jacoblog,” Fred called the spots “snarky” and characterized them as “throw(ing) AM/FM radio under the bus.”Fred’s comments were amplified by consultant Dave Martin in his “N=1” blog (here), who called for Ferrara to reveal the agency behind the spots and for broadcasters to hold off on scheduling them in January until they were confident the spots were in fact appropriate. The Texas connectionAccording to Adweek, “There was no review for the business, which had previously been handled in-house. Katz Media in New York handles buying chores.”So for the biggest ad “buy” in the radio industry, a San Antonio-based company decides that the best creative agency in America for the account happens to be in… Austin. (Just 75 miles away! How convenient!) And the Alliance makes this decision, for the creative for the biggest ad buy in radio, without a conducting a review for the business. What $450 million in radio ads apparently buys youAlso according to Adweek, “Ferrara said that while previous campaigns drove awareness to 77 percent, only 33 percent of consumers understand the new consumer electronics technology.”That means that a half-billion dollars’ worth of radio spots (at a $10 CPM, that would be about 20 spots for every man, woman, and child (12+) in America) can only help a brand achieve 77% name recognition and communicate an informational message to 33% of them. That does not sound good. By the way, insightful comments were added to Fred Jacobs’s original post on the subject Monday, January 9, by Jim Murphy. Scroll down to near the bottom of the page to read it. (Apparently the same agency was engaged to design a campaign for the Country Music Association and took a similar tack; in the end, the CMA refused to run the campaign.) RAIN Analysis: “Virtually uncommunicable message. Strategically wrong approach.”But the problem is not that radio advertising is inherently ineffective. The problem is that the message the HD Radio Alliance wants to communicate is virtually uncommunicable — to the average consumer who does understand it, it does not make not sense.
There’s this “HD Radio,” see, but the “HD” doesn’t mean “High Definition” like it does for HD television… and there are some extra stations broadcasting around the country — maybe on AM, maybe on FM, we’re not saying — and we’re not going to tell you exactly what they are or where they are, because they don’t exactly have dial positions, ‘cause they’re secret… Good luck with that. More importantly, the campaign may be as tactically effective as is possible, given the confusifying nature of the message, but what is the actual strategic goal? Is the ultimate goal to sell more HD radios? No, that’s merely a tactical step along the way. The actual strategic goal is to help AM/FM broadcasters stay healthy and relevant in a time of increased, largely digital, media choices. And characterizing AM/FM as neurotic and lame may be the best (only?) way to support the specific tactic, but it is the exact wrong thing to do for the overall strategy. share: del.icio.us.  Reddit  Digg  Yahoo  Wink  Windows  Google  Newsvine 
Comment Other blog entries Kurt's summary of the Internet radio royalty dispute iPhone's radio apps are a canary in a coal mine Part 2: DI's Ari Shohat on how to grow audience Digitially Imported's Ari Shohat reveals how he built a huge global audience Emmis's Jeff Smulyan responds re: FM in cell phones Ramsey: "Broadcasters don't understand the radio 'experience'" Honolulu's Brock Whaley: "I have heard the future in my car" Newspaper seems intent on driving print subscribers away CBS Radio gets it; Mason and Goodman appear in Chicago Radio Heard Here is a misguided campaign |
professionally-written, professionally-produced spots in support of the new technology for 2008. (By contrast, over the course of 2006-07, broadcasters gave about $450 million in airtime to, essentially, a mishmash of whatever promos various station production directors wanted to put together.)
Brilliant Kurt… Your write things you know nothing about, have no confirmed sources for, and rely on the stories written by other people and their blogs. How professional. The ad age article that stated “no review” was done had to do with the fact that no focus groups of the spots were conducted. We did do a thorough review with a number of agencies and GSD&M won the business based on the best strategy and creative approach. Speaking of which, it would be wonderful to hear YOUR own creative ideas on how to move HD Radio forward, rather than just your useless rants.
— Peter Ferrara · Jan 12, 05:42 PM · #
Peter: First off, it might be a good start for radio to actually offer significant, unique programming on its HD streams before coercing analog radio stations to diss themselves. I was always taught that you didn’t spend a dime on promotion until you actually had a perfected product to promote. So far, at least here in Cincinnati, no one is offering anything on HD-2 that isn’t already available on the analog FM band…they are simply using their side channels to counter-program their competitors with commercial free music streams (which just does MORE damage to the analog industry). As for your assertion that the campaign speaks to potential HD consumers, I would point out that corporate radio has already driven away the “anti-radio” music consumer (something I know a bit about, as you know). Those people your campaign might connect with have been gone from terrestrial radio for YEARS AND YEARS, and, in the case of under-30 listeners, never bothered with radio to begin with, since few in the industry have actually done anything to connect with them. So who, exactly, is this campaign talking to?
— Cary Pall · Jan 14, 10:50 AM · #
Peter —
Given that I am both an active radio consumer and a full-time professional radio industry observer, I don’t think it’s fair to say I know “nothing” about this subject.
And since when is it unprofessional to quote a respected publication like Adweek? Or, for that matter, the opinions, as expressed on their blogs (yes, blogs!), of intelligent and experienced radio professionals like Fred Jacobs and Dave Martin?
Good to know there was a review with a number of agencies (although you’ve gotta admit that the Austin/San Antonio thing is a lucky coincidence).
And — thanks for asking — I will try to come up with some creative ideas on how to move HD Radio forward.
However, I think radio executives should be thinking about the bigger question: Should they continue to try to move HD Radio forward?
— Kurt Hanson · Jan 14, 04:00 PM · #
“HD Radio’s New Campaign”
“In a sort of snarky approach, the campaign features a humanized radio talking to his owner about why HD Radio product is so attractive and not worth the bother. But in the process, traditional radio is repositioned as old-fashioned, repetitive, and lame… You have to hear these commercials a few times before you really get a basic understanding of what they’re trying to accomplish, while they throw AM/FM Radio under the bus.”
http://jacobsmedia.typepad.com/jacobs/2007/12/hd-radios-new-1.html
“GSD&M Preps $200 Mil.+ HD Radio Push”
“GSD&M has already begun producing work. The ads feature the voice of cartoon character SpongeBob (actor Tom Kenny) as a conventional car radio calling its owner and leaving messages as if it’s a jilted lover. ‘You know, I could totally pick up those new extra HD stations if I hit the gym,’ the radio says in desperation. ‘Is that what you’re into now? Huh? Call me!’”
http://www.adweek.com/aw/national/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003691980
“Radio: You don’t want HD Radio’s Bilk-o in your foxhole.”
“How would you like it if one you believed to be a business partner did an about face and supported the very thing your industry is fighting against? Memo to terrestrial radio: iBiquity and the HD Radio Alliance just double-crossed you.”
http://gormanmediablog.blogspot.com/2008/01/radio-you-dont-want-hd-radios-bilk-o-in.html
The HD Alliance (Cartel) is getting so desperate, that they are thowing analog “under the bus” with the new ad campaign. Consumers no longer buy analog radios, so how can iBiquity/HD Alliance expect consumers to buy these new, expensive, empty radios.
— Greg · Jan 14, 07:06 PM · #
Forgot to add a couple of comments – I’ve seen Peter post on Jacobs Media, too. HD Radio is a farce, and a scam by the larger broadcasters to jam the mom-and-pop stations off the dial into submission, with adjacent-channel interference:
http://hdradiofarce.blogspot.com/
— Greg · Jan 14, 07:13 PM · #
AM and FM radio is simple, a theater of the mind in which talent and audience become intimate.
HD Radio is complex, baffling, fatally flawed technology founded upon a false premise – digital and analog signals can occupy the same space yet not interfere. Absurd.
Isn’t this like saying you can walk through a brick wall and not get a headache? HD radio gets worse from there. Coercively promoted with fanciful claims, heated denials generously garnished with condescending sarcasm – ‘neurotic AM/FM promo being the latest case in point – HD is finished.Consumers checked HD out and left. They got it loud and clear. They know a carny shill when they see one.
Radio is simplicity. HD Radio is baffling complex, destructive – always a tipoff that trouble lies beneath.
Is it any wonder that HD Cotillion’s latest campaign is going nowhere? Paul Vincent Zecchino Manasota Key, Florida 14 January, 2008— paul vincent zecchino · Jan 14, 07:26 PM · #
I just posted something along the following lines on Fred Jacobs’ blog … thought I would share with Kurt’s readers as well.
Not every station in every market is a member of the Alliance. There are going to be instances — sooner or later — where an independent station owner decides to program a format that is on an Alliance HD-2 or HD-3 in his market.
If that owner is smart, he brings in live talent, known to the local listeners, and goes live against the automated jukebox on HD.
I would bet that the audience will flock to the analog station and abandon the HD one.
— K.M. Richards · Jan 14, 09:56 PM · #
Kurt,
Thank you for joining the conversation on this important issue. Your thoughts are appreciated. I write to defend Peter Ferrara as my belief is he is not, in fact, the author of the comment. In my experience Peter would not attack you nor any other on the basis of their opinion. I offer as evidence his considered responses on Fred’s blog. This comment, attributed to Peter, seems more the work of a troll but I will allow, I might be wrong, hope that I am not. We need a candid, open and serious industry discussion on this issue. What we don’t need is more noise (and we are getting more than we need) generated by trolls.
Blog on! Enjoy your writing and your AccuRadio initiatives.
Happy New Year. All the best,
— Dave Martin · Jan 14, 10:01 PM · #
Jeez, Peter seems a little ticked off… I wonder why? After all 77% of the American people have heard of IBOC er.. I mean HD, no?, haha! And has he not written love letters to other blogs that dare to question his inherent omniscient wisdom in all things radio before? So why would anyone think that the first post is not his? Is the work of a desperate man that is for sure. HD is dead, in fact was never alive, in fact the most cogent sentence I have read is from Kurt’s answer to Peter’s agitated post: “However, I think radio executives should be thinking about the bigger question: Should they continue to try to move HD Radio forward?”
— bobyoung · Jan 15, 09:14 AM · #
Radio should absolutely continue developing HD…right after they stop stripping their analog products of talent, experience and relevance.
— Cary Pall · Jan 15, 09:40 AM · #
It’s tough to check whether Peter Ferrara was the actual author of comment #1 above, since the “Alliance Contacts” page of the HD Radio Alliance website (http://www.hdradioalliance.com/alliance_contacts.php) explicitly does not contain any contact information for Peter.
— Kurt Hanson · Jan 15, 10:17 AM · #