7 Comments

1. Rachel,
   June 25th, 2008 at 12:56 pm:
   

   I’ve seen this advert twice in the cinema and it’s good but it is ridiculously long. The first time I watched it and the second time I thought - oh well great, the film isn’t going to start for another half hour! Interesting to see Radio One pushing something that isn’t Chris Moyles or Jo Wiley.

   On a separate Radio One note…. this morning I was listening to Moyles and they had an interesting trail by Dave from the Breakfast show. He was basically explaining to people how you can listen to radio on lots of different platforms - so Dave having his breakfast listening on his DAB then seeing Susan listening on her phone on the bus etc… It was the first time I’d heard it and was a quirky way to remind people that the radio is available on so many different platforms.

   
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2. Graeme Smith,
   June 25th, 2008 at 1:20 pm:
   

   The Capital ad was great but it cant have been that good for them as their losses continued. The recent Capital ads with the person walking down the street listening to music was good as well but once again it can’t have worked that well as the result was lowest ever share and hours.
   The same goes for their really clever ads on the tube that had hidden messages, they were so clever that the audience didn’t get them. I looked at one for 5 minutes once and couldnt see what the marketing guy from there told me I was looking for. Consumers knew what Capital was anyway but I dont think the ads gave them a reason to come back. “The biggest sound in radio” might be appropriate for selling to clients but I’m not convinced there was a good reason for the illusive “normal” people to listen.

   I think the Heart ads in the aircraft hangar are tired but not as bad as the ones playing out on on ITV1 in Yorkshire for Real Radio. They are totally focussed around “risk it for a biscuit”. Mates of mine used to laugh when they came on. This wasn’t because the ads are funny. It was because they’re so sh*t.

   Whatever the new brand does, it needs to be a bit more intelligent and not insult consumers/viewers/listeners as they are not stupid (well some are, but the majority are capable of thought).

   But I also think its important not to overestimate how much time people have to even think about our message amongst all the other ones being fired at them all the time. Think of the amount of clever ads you see all the time that you remember all about but cant think what product it is that they are pushing.

   So whilst you don’t want the brand association with a really rubbish advert that everyone remembers, you also don’t want to spend a fortune on adverts that looked great but nobody knows what they’re about and as a result don’t have any benefits in terms of audience and awareness increases.

   This is really obvious. But think of the millions of pounds people have wasted even very recently by getting it a little bit wrong.

   That thing about a mixture of art and science again. Everything seems to come back to it- playlist, marketing and the stuff the DJs are allowed to do and say.

   
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3. Geoff,
   June 25th, 2008 at 2:04 pm:
   

   Brilliant.

   As are the Radio 2 ads with Wogan/Chris Evans/Russell Brand noodling around on different instruments. The BBC does seem to do this kind of thing very well. Commercial radio tend to focus on the perceived unfairness of the scheduling of the Beeb’s TV trail spots, rather than learning from the sophisticated ways in which they build and promote their brands.

   Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that marketing is often not given such a high priority within radio stations, and when the rare opportunity to make a TV/cinema ad comes along, management panic into plumping for the most garish, logo-heavy, repetitive, ‘Sell! Sell! Sell!’ commercial they can throw together.

   This isn’t exclusive to radio stations, lots of companies with limited marketing spend often fall into this trap, putting all their eggs in one basket and churning out cheap, quick-hit, standalone ads with no thought to a coherent overall brand strategy.

   Some radio groups have realised the folly of this, and invested money, creativity and long term planning into building slick, distinct brands which sometimes even transcend the actual content that comes out of the speaker (both Heart and Magic are great examples of clear, focused brands wrought and crafted over time through marketing, and LBC’s ‘London’s Biggest Conversation’ was a brilliant and simple message. )

   Sadly, others don’t seem to have got much further than thinking about what will show up nice and bold on a car sticker or a baseball cap or on the piece of ribbon attached to those little fluffy bugs they used to give away at roadshows. Big radio companies with millions of pounds sloshing around in their profits still have station logos which look like they were knocked up on ClipArt, and produce poster campaigns which look like they were devised by bubble-writing teenagers with a packet of felt tip crayons.

   The present day offers amazing opportunities for marketing to take on a life of its own. Ads produced for the likes of Sony Bravia or Honda live on far beyond the number of impacts and recalls they achieve is post-campaign analysis; they carry an emotional resonance and (more tangibly) are viewed millions of times online on YouTube etc.

   Of course, companies like those have marketing budgets which probably dwarf the entire radio industry, but there are other, more homegrown, ways of generating viral video promotion content for an audio product…

   Radiohead held an online contest to remix their song ‘Nude (Big Ideas: Don’t Get Any)’. A student, James Houston from the Glasgow School of Art entered a lovely video:

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmfHHLfbjNQ

   It’s been viewed hundreds of thousands of times, and although it’s slightly grubby to think of something so beautiful as a free promotional tool for a product, that’s certainly one way to interpret it.

   Are there ways of engaging with creative, visual artists to generate video content to set a marketing mood for our new brand? I’m not talking about raping and pillaging a talent pool, but offering a genuinely valuable prize (Equipment? Bursary? Access to professional mentoring? Money?) in return for web video content themed around our new brand and its values. And of course, if those ideas were to be taken into a more conventional advertising environment, then full and proper payment.

   We live in a society where we’re bombarded with advertising. It’s not just posters, newspapers, TV, radio and cinema anymore. Every available space is used to sell us something; Screens in the post office, sides of vehicles, the back of seats on budget airlines, petrol pumps, text messages, horrible pop up or rollover ads on websites.

   I was in Marrakech a while ago, and after a day in the souk, I was mentally exhausted by fending off the market traders, who were persistently, loudly and ingeniously trying to sell me their wares. When I returned to London, I decided to take note of all the marketing messages I consumed as I was pottering about. It’s insane. They’re everywhere. People trying to sell me things, in the guise of advertising, probably outnumbered the Moroccan souk by twenty to one on a minute-by-minute basis. It’s probably twenty times more draining, too, on a more subliminal level.

   How do we want our new brand to fit into all of that? Will it shout at us until we remember its name? Or will it click with us on some other, more emotional level?

   
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4. Geoff,
   June 25th, 2008 at 3:57 pm:
   

   Graeme - you make an interesting point about the relationship between marketing campaigns and JICRAR figures, but is this part of the problem with how we view marketing in the radio industry? Do we want the quick surge of customers over the doorstep, like the DFS Sale? Or do we want to evolve a brand which people engage with over a period of time, like erm… ooh, I don’t know.. say Innocent Smoothies (!)

   Are we too short term? Do we view ads as a quick fix; all about brand awareness? Should we be using our marketing to convey more long term mood and themes of our brand instead of viewing them as a sticking plaster for ailing audience numbers.

   Somebody much cleverer than me, who is learned in all things marketing (Clare Baker, for example), would probably be able to make a good case for considering the best TV campaigns as part of an overall strategy to form an attachment with your brand. That seems to be what both Heart and Magic have done, playing a long game.

   Should we really be judging the success of marketing on what happens to the figures in the next quarter, or on how it builds listeners and their feelings on the brand over a longer period?

   
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5. Marty from new yawk,
   June 25th, 2008 at 4:10 pm:
   

   Virgin Radio has an enormous reach via the web. Had it not been for James Cridland inventing the internet, I would never have come upon your wonderful station (I’ll spare you a more detailed discussion of how the discovery occurred for the moment).

   Anyways, to get back on point, as an online listener, I’ve always felt many marketing opportunities have been missed. There’s never been Virgin Radio tat available for sale to the general public. How much does it cost to slap a VR logo on a tshirt? There are prob thousands of people in the UK who would add a VR tshirt to their wardrobe, others around the globe, and at least one madman in new yawk. The point of it is not to make a profit on the tat but to utilize it as a marketing opportunity.

   Also, don’t do promotions over and over. The Big Star was nice once. Who’s Calling Christian? It’s a lovely feature but maybe not every year. Think out of the box.
   Howabout the First Annual VR Presenter Lookalike Contest?
   Yes, I know that might be scary in some instances (email me and I’ll tell u which ones would paticularly frighten me).

   Now, I know as an online listener, my listening is not counted in the RAJAR ratings. So, your advertisers are not charged rates commensurate with your worldwide “listenership” (that’s prob not a word but literacy is not my strong suit). Somehow, you need to have the worldwide listeners counted.

   In addition, The first time I came to visit VR, it was a tremendous thrill meeting people who I had only emailed (somewhat excessively in the majority of instances). Whaddabout tying in a tour of London with a visit to VR? With the proper publicity, this would get a nice write up in the press.

   As a listener, I’m asking for more creativity in your marketing/promotions. You have loads of talented and capable people (and the odd asshole).

   Fuggetaboutit! (no worries)

   
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6. Steve Martin,
   June 25th, 2008 at 6:10 pm:
   

   Andy Duncan, the BBC’s former director of Marketing, told me once that the best marketing is just “telling the truth, brilliantly”. This Radio 1 ad does just that.

   
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7. kweez,
   June 26th, 2008 at 12:53 pm:
   

   You heard no laughing even when Westwood came on? :)

   
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