The Difference between Principles and Practices

The Difference between Principles and Practices

There are certain Principles that are Timeless.

There are certain Practices that have a limited lifespan.

We need both.

We also need to know and understand the differences.

I’ll use two different examples, one of which is my area of expertise, the other is simply an observation.

Personal Land Transportation is the example I’ll use for the latter.

The United States of America is just shy of 250 years old.  Our ancestors, the ones that arrived from other continents, came overseas way before the United States became a country.  Water travel, boats, ships with multiple people… it was a form of mass transportation.

On land, we have had, horses and other animals we could either ride or attach to something that was pulled.  Eventually bicycles became a popular form of Personal Land Transportation and then automobiles mostly powered by gasoline. Today the growth and popularity of electric vehicles continues to grow but it was be years before they replace gas powered personal land transportation automobiles.

I almost omitted rail transportation because it’s not a personal but a mass transportation system, however we as individuals have the freedom to use trains, subways and other rail based transportation to travel from one place to another over land.

The Principle is simple.  Get from one place to another over land.  It takes action and energy.

The Practices have evolved over time, and yet some of the early practices are still available.  The most independent is perhaps ourselves, walking.  All we need is fuel for our bodies and appropriate clothing.  You can go faster riding a horse or bike.  Motorized transportation is the Practice that most of us use these days to implement the Principle of getting from here to there.

Now I’ll apply this to my area of expertise, Advertising and Marketing using Human Relationship Principles.

The Principle is the closer you can spread the word about you and your business using what we as Humans respond to, the better.  Boiled down to a couple of words, it’s the Trust Factor.

The very basic is called Word of Mouth.  I ask you where to go for lunch and you recommend a place and tell me why.  Because I trust you, I trust what you tell me and I go there and spend my lunch money.   That Practice is probably equal to walking in my previous example.  Very effective, but a slow way to grow your business.

Signage is another practice.  If your business has no sign identifying it, I’m not going to trust I am at the right place. That kind of signage serves as an identifier of a physical location.  There is also the physical signage that is more closely though of us advertising. I’m talking about billboards that advertise your business. Or it could be a smaller sign I see somewhere.  Signage create a little bit of trust, but not as much as a friend telling me.  The benefits of signage is that one sign can inform many more people than word of mouth and it can be placed strategically to potential customers.

Other Practices for advertising and marketing your business is the traditional media models of newspapers, television and radio stations. Online we also have a multitude of ever evolving tech.

Some Practices work better than others and it’s due to the Human Relationship Principle, the Trust Factor and how closely it is applied. Some of the online practices have evolved to attempt to create a more personalized advertising experience. As you and I do ANYTHING online, we are adding to the meta-data that is used to serve us ads that are supposed to be more targeted and relatable to each of us.

This is where I want you to really pay attention to the Difference between Principles and Practices.

The Practice of personalized and targeted ads makes sense, but it does absolutely nothing when it comes to following the Human relationship Principle of the Trust Factor.

I’ll talk more about the what and why of creating the Trust Factor in your advertising and marketing in the weeks ahead but for now, please understand that just because the an ad message is targeted and personalized the way tech can do it with algorithms, doesn’t make it better if it ignores the Principle of Human Relationships.

Local Connections Matter

Local Connections Matter

Last Thursday, a couple things happened that I’m going to share with you.

First off, a little after 6 in the morning, I got a message from an old friend of mine from my youth who told me he was in town and wanted to get together.  He had me pick a place and I selected a local joint that I haven’t dined at in a few months that was also in my friends old neighborhood.  Gene lives out of town and I wanted to treat him to a local favorite, not a national chain.

Before I left to meet him, I realized I needed an update on the website and found this article I wrote 4 years ago but never published and it is still very appropriate today.  The rest of this piece I composed in 2018…

Who do you trust more to give you wisdom and advice… a nationally known celebrity spokesperson or your best friend?

Fred Jacobs and his brother are specialists who formed Jacobs Media in the 1980’s and take credit for the Classic Rock Radio Format.  The other day, Fred wrote about some of the results of a study they conducted pertaining to the Local factor.  Over the years due to deregulation the broadcasting world became a different animal than it was previously.

Ownership rules changed which allowed national media companies to form an own hundreds of stations.  On the radio side, they were able to cut staff and have the same morning show playing in several cities.  Actually they could eliminate all their local staff and fill the airwaves with syndicated programming 24/7.

The upside at first was a higher quality radio program at a lower operational cost.  The downside was that the local feel and flavor disappeared.

Fort Wayne, Indiana currently has over 20 radio stations.  But if you look closely, several of these stations are licenced to neighboring towns. Columbia City, New Haven, Woodburn, Decatur, Churbusco, Huntington, Roanoke, all of these small towns and more had their own radio stations at one time, or perhaps they are the town that the Fort Wayne stations are really licenced to serve.

These small town stations were bought and moved to Fort Wayne and are now part of a larger radio station group(s).

Similar stuff happened in local television too.  WPTA, originally was an ABC affiliate licenced to Roanoke, Indiana.  During the past couple of decades, I’ve watched as multiple changes have taken place.  It used to be WANE was 15 and CBS; WPTA was 21 and ABC; WKJG was 33 and NBC; WFWA was 39 and PBS; and WFFT was 55 and Fox.

Consolidation and reorganization has changed this line up to a degree too.  Most of the Fort Wayne audience was unaware that for awhile, some of our local TV newscasters were also anchoring a newscast in Detroit on a station that was owned by the same company. This was about 10 years ago.

I want to return to my original question and share what Fred Jacobs discovered and how that applies to us in Fort Wayne.

Fred’s article is about Public Radio but we can draw some conclusions that also apply to commercial radio and actually all media.

This  graphic really caught my eye and was this inspiration for today.

For my podcast listeners, I’ll share what I’m looking at.

In response to the statement, “One of radio’s primary advantages is its local feel”, nearly 70% agreed or strongly agreed.

All generations agree that local is what makes radio worth listening to.  Even the youngest surveyed, the Millennials, 4 out of 5 of them. had the highest preference for local content.   7 out of 10 News Talk radio listeners want local content too.

What’s so important about local?  I’ll ask my question again:

Who do you trust more to give you wisdom and advice… a nationally known celebrity spokesperson or your best friend?

See how this all fits together?

One more reason why my radio station, WOWO radio continues to dominate in Fort Wayne, Indiana

Is Generational Relatability An Issue?

Is Generational Relatability An Issue?

We’re going to talk about generational differences today and how they impact our relationships with others that are older or younger than us.

Last month, Mediapost shared a Quick Refresher on Demographics and that was part of the inspiration for this along with some stuff going on in my own life.

First, I’ll reveal me:

Baby Boomer, graduated from high school in the late 70’s.  I was alive when JFK was shot but have no memory of it because I was a toddler.  During most of the 60’s, I was not aware of the political turmoil or cultural revolutions that were going on.  I was just a kid.

Watergate was the first time I really noticed much about political stuff.  When Nixon resigned, I was becoming a teen and was more into teen stuff like girls and music than adult stuff.  Musically I was into Top 40 and those songs from the mid 70’s to mid 80’s were the foundation for a couple of reasons.  1st, was listening to the radio as a kid and then I was a teenage disc-jockey from age 16 to 25 on the radio for a decade before moving to the advertising side of broadcasting in Detroit in the late 80’s.

My wife is 8 years older than me and most of her friends are around her age, not mine.  We’ve been married for a couple of decades and I would tease her about stuff that happened “before I was born”.  Yet as we get older, we’ve realized that those 8 years are not as significant compared to other generations.

Our 5 kids (from our first marriages) were all born in the 80’s and most of them have kids so there’s another generation in our family now.

I recall 20 years ago when I took a break from media and marketing and learned how to run a thermoformer in a plastics plant that the people working for me were closer to my kids age than mine and that was one of the motivating factors to return to radio and get out of the very physically demanding factory world.

Now at the broadcasting company I work for, we are hiring people that are 10 years younger than my kids.  While it kind of makes me feel old at times, I’ve also enjoyed the role I play as a leader, mentor, and coach.  Plus I can still out perform many of the advertising account executives in our company, but that is not my focus.

So as you and I move forward in 2022 and the years ahead, it’s important to understand some of the differences in generational relatability that I’m about to share.  A dozen years ago I was a guest speaker on personal branding to a group of Huntington University students and realized that an example I used of TV personality Larry King was unrelatable, so the following year I updated my presentation to fix that.

Here’s the Mediapost story:

In 2018, the Pew Research Center determined that 1997 was the starting date for Generation Z. Anyone born from 1981 to 1996 is deemed a millennial, and anyone born since 1997 is a Gen-Zer.

At this point, the oldest Gen-Zers are turning 25 this year and the rest are teens or younger. (The cutoff for Gen Z births appears to be 2012.)

Among the differences between Gen Z and millennials (also called Gen Y) are:

–       Most Gen-Zers have little or no memory of 9/11. Instead, they grew up with lines clearly drawn between the political parties after the event.

–       Generation Z is the most ethnically diverse generation in U.S. history. The next most-diverse generation is millennials. Some 52% of Gen Z is white, 25% is Hispanic, and 4% is Asian, again according to Pew.

–       The iPhone launched in 2007, when the oldest Gen-Zers were 10. They came of age as social media, mobile computing and constant connectivity were part of the landscape.

–       According to a 2021 survey, the top brands for Gen Z were Google, Apple and Amazon. Netflix, Chick-Fil-A and Vans came in after that. But that survey is far from definitive. Others have put Nike at No.1, Netflix at No. 2 and YouTube at No. 3.

For millennials, the top brands were Apple, Nike and Amazon, according to marketing firm Moosylvania. Google was No. 8.

In other words, there doesn’t yet appear to be a deep divide between Gen Y and Gen Z.  That contrasts with the divide between Gen X and Baby Boomers, which was driven by some big differences. Baby boomers currently comprise 70 million people, versus 65.2 million for Gen X, according to Insider Intelligence. That doesn’t seem like a huge difference, but Gen X was marked by a “baby bust” mentality that sported attitudes of cynicism and skepticism after the euphoria of boomers.

Baby boomers also had a clear starting point (the end of World War II) and ending (1964, when the birth rate began falling). Since then, the delineations between generations seems somewhat arbitrary. As a result, those expecting a huge chasm between Gen Y and Gen Z may come up short.

Some additional insight as you consider all of this is to not make broad assumptions about someone because of the generation they were born into.  I am much more active than my son when it comes to online behavior.  I was also an early adopter compared to folks 10 to 20 years younger than me.  I had to push and pull some of my former co-workers to move forward with certain things that they thought were just a fad, but clearly were much bigger and longer lasting.  Twitter is the example that comes to mind.

Want to know more or do you have some insights to share?  Contact me.

More Powerful Than Digital Advertising

More Powerful Than Digital Advertising

Over the past couple of decades, the biggest growth in advertising expenditures has been digital.  I’m talking about nearly anything online, from websites, to apps, to Google ads, Social Media Ads, all of it together has consistently seen growth in the double digits, percentage wise.

This is a good thing, by the way.  Technology is always evolving and automating tasks… that help us be more productive.  Our company just upgraded our CRM system this year from an older, non-intuitive software system to one that was designed specifically for our business.

As we learn to use and trust new tech, we might think that it can replace nearly everything that people used to do.

However, you and I are still people and we still use Human Relationship Principles in our daily lives.

Sure, I mostly trust my digital tech to pay bills and order a pizza, but when it comes to picking a dentist, I want another human being’s input, not just a techy.

The Trust Factor.

It is one of the most important elements of being human.

A recently released study from MarketingCharts.com says that Word Of Mouth Beats Websites, and they also list a few other ways to spread the word.

Word of Mouth has nearly DOUBLE the Trust Factor over branded websites.

Word of Mouth more than DOUBLE’s the Trust Factor on online consumer reviews.

What if there was a way to take the power of Word of Mouth and make it spread faster than just me telling my friend one at a time?

There is.

I’m referring to something I’ve referred to as “Word of Mouth with a Bigger Mouth”  It’s my radio station. WOWO, nearly 100 years old and the most powerful Word of Mouth vehicle in Northeast Indiana.

With over 30 radio stations, WOWO is the biggest Talk Radio Station with over 100,000 weekly listeners.

A news/talk format with local hosts and newscasters is a trust machine.  Thousands tune in every morning to WOWO for news, weather, sports and current events.  Our two local hosts, Pat Miller in the afternoon and Kayla Blakeslee in the morning do the ultimate Word of Mouth endorsement for a select few advertising partners on WOWO and the results speak for themselves.

We actually have a waiting list of businesses that would like to have Kayla or Pat’s endorsement because they will only endorse one business per business category.

This Word Of Mouth with a Bigger Mouth on WOWO reaches tens of thousands of consumers each day.  If you are in the WOWO-land listening area and want to know more, contact me.  Scott@WOWO.com

The Scott Howard Genuine ScLoHo Media and Marketing Podcast

The Scott Howard Genuine ScLoHo Media and Marketing Podcast

This year marks the completion of 5 years of creating, hosting, recording and producing a weekly podcast and it seems like an appropriate time to introduce myself or reintroduce if we’ve been friends for awhile.  By the way, don’t worry when I say completion, I decided to use that word and not conclusion.  I’m not planning on stopping my weekly articles and podcast episodes, it’s just that we are entering year number 6 of the podcast.

First off, my background.  I grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana and as a kid dreamed of doing all kinds of professions.  Astronaut and race car driver, gave way to television production by the time I was in middle school and then high school set the stage for radio.  When I was growing up, I listened to Bob Sievers in the morning on WOWO Radio to see if we had school delays.  Back in the 70’s over 70% of people in Northeast Indiana listened to WOWO in the morning.  Some to hear about the weather and school closings, others for farm news delivered by Bob and farm director Jay Gould on the Little Red Barn radio show on WOWO.  I also listened to Chris Roberts in the afternoon after school and Ron Gregory at night on WOWO as a young teenager and that was what planted the seed to be a radio personality.

WMEE was another Fort Wayne radio station that was influential as they played the Top 40 hits of the day.  WMEE was AM radio station at 1380 in the 70’s and WOWO was also on AM at 1190.  At the end of the 70’s WMEE moved to 97.3 FM where they have been ever since.

My high school, Concordia started an FM station when I was there and that was my first on-air experience.  After graduating I began a full time on-air career at WBAT in Marion, Indiana, followed by WIOU in Kokomo and then I ended up on WMEE for 3 years.  I returned to Kokomo, Indiana for about 3 years on the air and as Program Director at WZWZ until the station was sold.  I worked briefly on the air at WXIR in Indianapolis before moving my family to Detroit and WMUZ where I first ventured into the advertising and marketing side of the business.

I did some additional on-air work both part-time and full time at stations WMUZ, WBTU, WGL, WFWI and WAJI. In 2003 I entered the ad world in Fort Wayne, working for a group of 6 radio stations for more than 8 years and it was during that time I began blogging using the online name ScLoHo.

ScLoHo is a mashup of my first, middle and last names. Take the first two letters on Scott Louis Howard and it spells ScLoHo.  Many people have attempted to pronounce it without success.  Often they leave out some letters or add extra letters.  Not even Alexa knows how to pronounce ScLoHo.  

I had multiple ScLoHo blogs on the Google Blogger platform and my friend Kevin challenged me to create an online reputation under my birth name of Scott Howard so in 2011, when I was working fulltime in the webworld, I launched the first version of the Scott Howard dot me website using over 10,000 articles I had already published as the foundation.

Ever since around 2004 or 2005, I have published a minimum of one new article per week.  I used to do it daily and multiple times per day, that is how I ended up with over 10,000 articles in just 6 years.

15,000 articles and counting was what I was continuing to work on when I was approached in 2016 with a request to do a podcast.

More on the podcast in a moment, but first back to me and radio.  In 2013,  I was hired to join WOWO radio, not on the air, but as one of the Local Advertising Sales People.  Official job title was Account Executive and I added Marketing Consultant too it because that was what I did besides selling advertising schedules.  By 2019,  I grew to be the top local advertising account executive not just at WOWO but in our entire company at Federated Media which included a dozen radio stations and nearly 40 A.E.’s.

At the end of 2019 and beginning of 2020, before the pandemic hit, Federated Media had a couple of management changes.  My boss, Ben took over as the Federated Media Fort Wayne Vice-President and General Manager and I became to General Sales Manager for WOWO.  These were not “automatic” promotions due to longevity.  Both Ben and myself were promoted from within after our company conducted extensive nation wide searches to find the best leaders for management. Both Ben and myself are now in our 3rd year in our current positions with Federated Media.

Let’s go back to 2016.  Ben and another manager, Suzee were given the task of starting an advertising oriented podcast for Federated Media.  Podcasts were still an early adopter thing 6 years ago and Federated Media wanted to get in on the ground floor.

Ben and Suzee, were aware of my weekly articles I was writing about advertising and marketing on my website at Scott Howard dot me and they might have been aware that I had experience talking behind a microphone too, so they approached me to consider being the one to launch this podcast.  After a little bit of thought, prayer and negotiation, I said yes and by March of 2017 The Genuine ScLoHo Media and Marketing Podcast was launched as a weekly audio version of the articles I was writing and publishing.

While the written form of this is article 15,000 and something.  This is also episode 250 of the podcast.

Who chose the name of the podcast and why?  I did.  Because of my online identity as ScLoHo and the subject matter dealing with media and marketing, that’s why those words were selected.

Why is it the “Genuine” ScLoHo podcast?  As a way to clearly claim my work.  Several years ago when I was just publishing online under ScLoHo, I discovered someone was stealing my articles and republishing them on another website site without my permission.  I also voice my own podcast and identify myself as Scott Howard in each podcast episode. 

One change was made a few years ago with the advent of smart speakers.  I discovered that Alexa doesn’t know how to pronounce ScLoHo so I amended the name to Scott Howard’s Genuine ScLoHo Media and Marketing Podcast.  Now if you ask Alexa to play the Scott Howard Genuine Podcast, she usually knows where to find it.

Unlike the audio version of this article, nearly every weekly episode is less than 10 minutes.  Just long enough to give you an update without eating up too much of your time.

As we move forward this year, I’m going to revisit and update some of the topics I have covered in the past along with keeping you current on the latest trends and thinking to help you with your advertising and marketing as you run your businesses.

There are some Timeless Human Relationship Principles that should be applied to your marketing and advertising and that is where we will start again in some upcoming articles and episodes.