Right, time for a spot quiz… What do Starburst & Snickers have in common? “They’re both sweets?!” Alright smart a*se, that’s not what I was getting at. Let’s try again… What do Cif, Starbust, Snickers & Cosignia have in common? (Ok, maybe the last one isn’t a good example).
That’s correct – they’ve all had successful name changes.
Since TIML (which, incidentally is my first name and first initial welded together, but that’s not important right now) purchased Virgin Radio, the amount of people in and out of the industry who’ve asked me what I think we’ll now be called is quite a few.
The truth is, I believe that TIML will come up with the goods as far as names and brands are concerned. Why? They’re radio people. They know what sounds powerful, yet not intimidating. And, let’s be honest, with the budget they have, they’re not going to do a shoddy job. Not to mention the marketing team behind it.
On another blog site from a former Virgin Radio employee, they state the reasons why the loss of ‘Virgin Radio’ is not such a bad thing. If you read this, it really does make a lot of sense.
The only worry, for me at least, is the format of the station. Geoff has said in previous blogs how he feels about the music, so I won’t harp on about that too much. Let’s just step back for a second and look at other stations. Why did XFM get so successful? Why are Kiss 100 doing so well? What has Capital been missing for a while? Music format. Simple as. You may be reading this thinking I’m being naive, but this is what I believe.
Why do you tune into a certain radio station? You do it to hear your favourite style of music or a certain song you love right now (or to be entertained, but that goes without saying). With Kiss, you know you’re going to get dance/r’n'b, etc. With XFM, you used to get personality and the newest of different genres of rock-based music. With Capital, back in the day (and they’re now heading back in the right direction), it was the hits you wanted to hear with the odd spice recurrent. With Magic, you get your ballads, etc. What I’m saying is, you know what you’re getting.
Virgin, to me, is a rock station (read Geoff’s blog on the word ‘rock’ – good points). If it was changed into a love song only station/speech only/dance station, it would lose it’s edge and we’d just be another copycat station in the deep pool of the industry.
As that bearded bloke once wrote, “A rose by any other name, would smell as sweet”. It has meaning, especially when considering a major re-brand.
Tim
