It’s an interesting branding challenge this one.
A name change usually signifies wanting to leave a product behind. Here we want to keep the spirit of the product the same, but have to change the name anyway. Tricky.
What it means is we really have to understand what it is that makes the radio station broadcast from One Golden Square great, and do our best to make sure that spirit is captured in the new name / logo / advertising. While, at the same time, demonstrating progress. Hmm.
Getting to that nuanced understanding in a really aggressive timescale means listening to some experts. By experts we mean staff, presenters, VIPs, listeners, and people we wish were listeners. The people who make the radio, those who listen to it most, and those who listen to it least.
First we listened to some ‘typical’ listeners (people who listen to Virgin Radio on FM, for a couple of hours a day, or in the background at the office). We went to Southgate and New Barnet in North London and Shirley in Birmingham.
Then we listened to some of the most loyal listeners – the VIPs. We’re hanging out on the forums, and we also met some face to face.
Here’s a photo of a group we did at out office. Half the people are VIPs and half are people who don’t listen. In the background you can just see my cobbled-together quiz show-style board of topics. I was trying to get them to debate and disagree with each other, so see what people were really passionate about. But they ended up violently agreeing on most things!
Here’s another group, this time of VIPs, non-listeners, and also a couple of members of the OGS crew who you might recognise – Anthony off the forums, and Andrew off the news. (I’ve not shown the faces of our VIPs or listeners, because we said we wouldn’t use them publicly, but I did want to show you how much fun we had!) We wondered what would happen if we put staff into a research group together with listeners. The answer was that they all got on very well and agreed on pretty much everything again.
Along the way we’ve talked to (and continue to talk to) loads of staff at One Golden Square too.
And across all of these groups, we’ve heard some remarkably common themes:
- The music. It’s about proper songwriting, performance, guitars, classics, done with passion… it’s hard to find one word to describe it (‘rock’ is problematic) but everyone agrees what it is and that it’s important.
- A less predictable, more distinctive playlist. This has already been well discussed on this blog.
- A ‘2.0′ approach – whatever it is that’s going on here on this blog, with the public discussion of the takeover and transition. That openness feels very contemporary, but also very right for OGS, which already has an unusual level of connection with its customers.
- The fun, irreverent attitude that exists within the building, but hasn’t leaked onto the air as much as everybody (listeners and staff) would like recently.
- The connection people feel with expert, passionate, intelligent broadcasters – and how rare it is to find that these days outside of indie and dance radio.
- And lots more besides…
Be assured we’re listening to all this intently, and it’s informing the product and brand decisions that are starting to take pace now.
If you have any other ideas / concerns to share, then feel free to do it in the comments here, or by emailing me on glynb at albionlondon.com (replacing the at with ‘@’) if you’d prefer to remain anonymous.
Glyn
