The Timeless Truths in Marketing

The Timeless Truths in Marketing

2020 is not the year we were expecting when we were making our resolutions a few months ago is it?

State after state has issued some form of stay-at-home order to protect their citizens from Covid-19.

While I just stated the obvious, I’m going to delve into the not so obvious.

The advertising and marketing principles that are timeless.

Some of you are wondering what to do with your ads.

Should I switch to a different medium?

Should I change up my message?

Should I just stop and wait until things return to normal?

Let’s take those three questions one at a time.

Should I switch to a different advertising medium?  If you are doing online marketing and it was working for you before then the answer is probably no, if it is working, continue.  If you were using billboards there are less cars on the roads so you are probably getting less viewers than you were promised.

Speaking of viewers, has TV viewing skyrocketed with everyone staying at home?  Yes, a month ago, at the end of March, both broadcast, over the air and cable viewing jumped 30%.  But then something else happened too that is still going on.  The TV series that were still in production for this season had to end their seasons early because the virus shut down the studios.  The real benefactor of all this extra screen time has been the streaming services like NetFlix and their competitors with little or no advertising.  That doesn’t help you out as an advertiser does it…

I will tell you that with the insider knowledge and data that I have access to, radio listenership is actually up.  Stations like mine, WOWO radio with their news and talk format have seen tremendous increases and a big portion of that increase is coming from the smart speakers we all got the past couple of years.  Alexa is becoming radio’s best friend.  Contact me and I can share with you the specifics on the increased listenership to WOWO radio and how we can get your business in front of thousands of consumers every week.

The next question is, Should I change up my message?  Probably but not in the way you are thinking.  If you think your ads need to say that your business has instituted safety measures, or you are now cleaning more than before, you are just like all the others advertising right now.  That is if it’s your main message.  You need a stronger message, one that tells consumers why they should give you their money and not give it to your competitor.

Here’s the Timeless Truth in Marketing that is really important right now. You need to follow Human Relationship Principles in your advertising.

Human Relationship Principles are the principles that we instinctively are drawn to because we are human.  We want to feel good about others, to trust others, to believe that the others are going to be honest and have a good heart.  Does your advertising and marketing reflect this type of message?  Or are your ads filled with gimmicks and cliches?

Four years ago I wrote about Human Relationship Principles in Marketing and I invite you to follow this link and read it again.  It’s timeless.

Now the last question. Should I just stop advertising and wait until things return to normal?  The answer is a qualified no. If you can afford to, keep advertising.  Many companies will stop.  This means your share of voice will increase, if you continue.  Here’s an example:  Six restaurants are all advertising and dividing up the audience 6 ways in proportion to the number of ads each place is airing.  What if 3 of those stop advertising?  Now instead of dividing the audience 6 ways, you are only carving it up into 3 and everyone who is still inviting listeners to eat their food, will win.  Meanwhile the ones that stopped advertising, have a good chance of going out of business since they stopped inviting people to spend their money with them.

These Timeless Truths about Marketing have been around not just for a few years or even decades.  They are centuries old and will be even more important as we adjust to what the rest of 2020 and this decade has in store for our way of life.

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Cutting The Cord and The End of Local TV Advertising

Cutting The Cord and The End of Local TV Advertising

It was about three weeks ago when we became a full fledge streaming household.

And now the end of local TV advertising impacting us has hit our home.

It was a gradual process and our story is both personal and widespread.

If your business has been using the local TV stations to advertise, you’ve probably seen a decline in new customers coming from your TV ads.  Today I am going to share with you my families experience with TV viewing and at the end offer you some alternatives.

My wife and I are Baby Boomers and our 5 kids are all in their 30’s.  My wife and I grew up with over the air TV.  I grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana with ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS and an independent station (now FOX) as my 5 choices.  If we wanted to watch a show some other time than when it was broadcast, my parents would record it themselves on real video tape cassettes.  (My wife grew up in the Chicago area,where they had a few more TV stations available).

In my 20’s I had cable TV with nearly 100 different channels available for less than 30 bucks a month.  CNN was the 24 hour news channel, TBS and WGN were the two local stations that were now national and then there were things like the Home Shopping Channel, the Weather Channel and American Movie Classics that I recall getting significant viewing in my family but the local channels were still getting the majority of our screentime.  This was the 1980’s and 1990’s I’m talking about.  MTV with video jocks debuted and they actually played music videos the way a radio station would play music back then.  I worked on the air at a top 40 radio station and remember seeing all of this unfold and wondered in the back of my mind, what would happen to radio listenership now that music television was competing with us.

However as you know, the MTV of the past couple decades is nothing like that now.  It’s just another one of the 200+ video channels out there.  Music radio has had other competitive challenges but MTV and their sister station VH1 don’t compete with radio anymore.

When I returned to Fort Wayne 20 years ago, I was talking with a friend of mine who worked in TV advertising about the impact of cable TV and he said it was minimal at the time.  Despite the fact that Comcast was in 70% of the homes, people were still watching what we call Live TV.  Live TV is what the stations and networks are broadcasting live at the moment.  Well that has changed.

Just like the internet of today is nothing like the internet was when Facebook launched about 15 years ago, TV viewing is different too.  Even the terms have changed.  The words screentime and video are replacing viewership and television and for a good reason.  My first computer was a desktop computer with a dial-up connection in 1998 or so.  It was slow and clunky and you had to sit at a computer desk.  Watching video over the internet was unheard of.

Within 5 years I bought a new desktop for the family, a laptop for myself and we had flip phones now too.

Fast forward a few more years and the kids are all out of the house, some in college, some married, everyone has a phone in their pocket that is more powerful than my first desktop computer and we can now watch video on any number of devices.  The concept of the family gathering around the TV together is gone forever except for special occasions like perhaps the Superbowl.

Meanwhile there’s this company called Netflix that started out as a DVD rental company but has evolved to an internet delivery system.  Amazon has grown from the original bookseller to the seller of everything and their Prime Members are now able to watch movies and shows online too.

YouTube started in 2005 and 15 months later gets bought by Google which continues to support it and make it a huge money machine for them.  Want to learn how to fix a leaky faucet?  Watch a video on You Tube.  I give this example because the radio station I work for, WOWO in Fort Wayne had a long running home improvement show every Saturday morning for a couple of hours. Listeners could call in and talk to an expert free about their home project.  Over the nearly 20 years the show was on WOWO we started to see a decline in listener participation.  From my own experience as a homeowner, I can see how this corresponded with the growth of YouTube.  No longer did I need to wait until Saturday to get my answers,  I could search for a YouTube video on Tuesday and get the answers. YouTube has been listed as one of the top 5 search engines in recent years.

So now you know the backstory of how TV viewership converted to video screentime over the past 30+ years, there is more that has been going on in the past couple years that is hurting local TV viewership today.

It’s two things actually.  Cord Cutting and Television Programming.

Television Programming has had the biggest impact.  The shows that the big broadcast TV networks are showing are not getting the viewers compared to years ago.  Part of this is ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX have failed to recognize who watches Live TV.  It’s not the younger generations.  My kids have no need to watch.  Sure they’ll watch some PBS Kids shows with their kids, but not over the TV broadcast airwaves live.

Most of my 30 year old kids don’t have access to local broadcast TV.  But they have Netflix.  Which brings me to the Cord Cutting revolution.

With my wife and I being empty nesters, the last time we moved we had 5 TV’s hooked up to Comcast/Xfinity which I scaled down to 3. One TV in the family room, one in the bedroom and one in the guest room for grandkids.  Our internet and TV package was $200 per month and going up.  I called this stupid money.  For a couple of years I tried cutting the cord but could not get my local broadcast TV channels.  Finally in the summer of 2018, after researching on YouTube I came up with a way to boost my local TV’s broadcast reception and switch to an Internet only package from Frontier.  $40 per month instead of $200.  However since my wife wanted to watch her cable news shows, I also added another $40 to get the DirectTV Now streaming package, which made it $80 per month.  Still less than 1/2 the price of having cable.

I had to add a few inconveniences, to make it all work like Chromecast on the two main TV’s so we could send the streaming from our laptops to the TV’s but we worked it out.

Direct TV is owned by AT&T and recently they renamed the DirectTV Now streaming service to ATT TV Now and they’ve also been jacking up the price.  What was $40 became $50 and now is $65.   ATT has been losing money on their streaming services and losing subscribers too.  Millions of them have left.  Last month I left too.

Our family now uses the YouTubeTV streaming service.  I did my research and even signed up for a 5 day free trial.  After the first day, I saw a vast improvement in the user experience.  So did my wife.

On the second day, I bought a Roku Streaming Stick to convert our family room TV to the smart TV experience.  Our bedroom TV I bought last year was already a Roku smart TV.   My wife was instantly impressed with the options and quality and the convenience, considering that before I did this she had to lug her laptop from room to room and chromecast her stream to the TV.  This new experience was reminiscent of the convenience we had with cable TV but even better.

So here we have two baby boomers doing what the younger generations have already been doing and that is abandoning local broadcast TV and traditional cable TV for a streaming package that offers more at a fraction of the cost.  YouTubeTV in Fort Wayne does offer the local broadcast channels live if we want to watch them.  However the programming from CBS, NBC, ABC or FOX, we are more likely to watch later, not live and we can do that easily.  When we watch Bull, or NCIS on our own time schedule, we don’t get any local ads.  This is much different from decades ago when my Dad used to record his favorite shows and they included the local TV commercials.

Here is the advice I give my friends and clients regarding local broadcast TV advertising.  Buy the local news. Skip the rest.  However even that idea is questionable.  My local newscasts are now broadcast online live without the commercials.  Because they are doing whatever they can to find viewers.  The sad part for you as an advertiser on those local TV newscasts, is it doesn’t include your business.

Here’s the other advice I give.  Buy ads on my radio station.  WOWO radio has remained the most listened to radio station for decades for grownups age 35 and older.  You know, the people who are buying stuff, big stuff like homes and cars and kids stuff and grandkids stuff and vacations and well, you name it.

WOWO is wrapping up the year with another record breaking year in producing results for our advertising partners and I expect this to continue for many years ahead.  Sit down with me and I can share more with you.

UPDATE: I just received information that the time spent with radio each week is DOUBLE the time spent with TV. 

According to a new report from Nielsen, the ratings firm says adults 18 and older spend just shy of six hours with their TV-connected devices every week. Time spent with radio is nearly 12 hours per week. Also News/Talk (like WOWO Radio) is the most popular radio format nationwide.  Details are here: https://radioink.com/2019/12/18/radio-listening-dwarfs-tv-watching/

Also if you are looking for Sound ADvice on business and marketing, fill out the form below for my Sound ADvice weekly newsletter.  We take time off during holiday weeks but every other week, it will appear in your email Wednesday mornings.

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The ScLoHo Difference

The ScLoHo Difference

Last month I was helping an advertising partner with their TV commercial.

I do not sell TV advertising, I don’t write or produce TV ads or videos.

So what did I do and why did I do it?

I am sharing this with you as an antidote to what someone told me recently is The ScLoHo Difference.

First off, I sell advertising in Fort Wayne, Indiana.  This puts me in a bucket of about 100+ people in Fort Wayne who you can buy advertising from.  That number may be closer to 200 different people when you count the online options.

So let’s narrow it down to legacy media or traditional media such as TV, Radio, Print which includes direct mail, newspapers and magazines and we are still close to 100.

In the radio business, we have less than 50.  My company alone has 23.  I work specifically for WOWO radio where we have a team of 5 full time and 2 part-time sales people.  That narrows me down to one out of about 5.

This fact, that I am one of the 5 people that can sell you ads on WOWO radio is definitely part of the ScLoHo Difference.  However that is just a minor detail.

As I was telling my friend and advertising partner, I sell advertising campaigns to support my real passion of helping businesses with their marketing.

I’ve even come up with a phrase that further defines the marketing philosophy that I work with.  It’s called Human Relationship Marketing because it uses Human Relationship Principles.

Now, let me tell you, this is a different approach from all of my WOWO radio co-workers. Each of us at WOWO have our own approach that is as different as our personalities.  It’s also different from anyone that I have met who sells advertising in Fort Wayne, which leads me back to what my friend and advertising partner was talking about as she really noticed the ScLoHo Difference in our conversation.

Here are the details of what led her to notice my different approach:

Along with advertising on WOWO radio with me, their company also does other advertising including print and TV.

Their television advertising sales person was working with them to create a commercial that would take advantage of the coop dollars they have earned and was doing the typical easy route.  That involved using the corporate video and slapping a dealer tag on the end.  In this 30 second ad, 23 seconds was all about the big company and the last 7 seconds was completely different, with my advertising partners name, logo and jingle.  It felt like two seperate ads.  The corporate ad had dramatic movie music in the background, while the local company tag, had a bright cheerful feel, because that’s the way their jingle sounds.  The TV people did put the company logo in the corner of the corporate video but it still wasn’t enough.

The company (my friend and advertising partner) reached out to me to get my ideas and I met with them after I came up with an idea that would solve their problem.

When we first sat down to talk, my friend and advertising partner, out of frustration, asked why her TV advertising salesperson didn’t understand that what they produced was a disjointed mash-up of two separate ads and essentially a bad commercial for their company.

The reason perhaps is the way most advertising salespeople are wired.  Their first priority is sales.  Their Sales, not their customers sales.  Sign a contract and then we will put together some creative stuff that becomes your ad and hope and pray for the best.  Too often this ignores the Human Relationship Marketing Principles that I use as my starting point.

I know what I just said sounds harsh. It is.  I don’t fault the salespeople who are selling simply to make their own budgets, most of them have been trained to sell that way.  Many are successful, but how successful are their clients?  And how much more successful could they be if they took a different approach, more like a marketing strategist, instead of an advertising salesperson?

Back to my friend and advertising partner and what I suggested they do…

The company has a recognizable jingle that I has been in place since the 1970’s or perhaps even longer.  I use it and their advertising slogan in the ad campaign we have been airing on WOWO radio.  I told them to drop the audio track from the corporate video and replace it with their recognizable jingle bed. It created a warm and happy feeling for the entire ad and tied it all together.  No one else came up with this idea, apparently.  The TV station was instructed to do what I suggested and the ad is now playing.

Like I said the ScLoHo Difference is more than the ability to sell you an advertising schedule on WOWO radio, you also get my thought process and idea creation that we’ll put into action with the campaigns we do on WOWO and also other advertising outreach that you are considering.  Want to know more?  Contact me.

 

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Where Are All The TV Viewers?

Where Are All The TV Viewers?

My wife and I are Baby Boomers and we have been the generation that most advertisers targeted their marketing to over most of my lifetime.

That is until we “aged-out” of the 25-54 age demographic.

That started happening in 2001 when the oldest Boomers who were born in 1946 turned 55.

This is the year, 2019 when the youngest Boomers who were born in 1964 hit double nickels.

About 10 years ago however is when the marketing people started to wake up and realize that the Baby Boomers still were a valuable demographic for a lot of products and services.  That was when the first Boomers were preparing to hit that magic age of 65, the age of retirement in the United States.

Except Baby Boomers were not like the previous generations that were in the 60’s.  They were not in the last couple years of life, they were living a full and rewarding life.

The kids were finally out on their own, yes even out of the basement and grandkids were coming.  Some Baby Boomers still have parents alive too.

The wealth was and still is in the hands of the Baby Boomers.

Baby Boomers grew up with the mass media of radio and TV.  We remembered AM Radio and Black & White TV and saw the transformation to Color TV and growth of FM Radio.

Radio has been our portable entertainment with every vehicle on the road being a virtual sound machine while TV was our home entertainment with news and prime time shows dominating our evenings.

So it is no surprise that even with the advent and growth of the internet and all the advances from dial-up AOL to always connected smart homes, traditional TV and Radio stations were still relevant to the Baby Boomer generation.

I have seen plenty of studies that have shown the shifting audience demographics for TV especially that is top heavy with older people.

More than half of all traditional TV viewers are age 55 and older.

Traditional TV encompasses both the traditional broadcast and traditional cable TV networks.

However in 2019, for the first time ever, traditional TV viewership in the age 55+ is now declining.

Here’s what Mediapost said about this:

It’s no secret that linear TV viewing has been declining as American consumers — especially younger ones — shift to digital alternatives, but a new analysis from the equities research team at UBS shows that even older TV viewers have begun eroding for the first time.

While total viewers (two years or older) have been eroding for some time, the fact that TV’s most diehard and heaviest viewers also are abandoning the medium should come as a wakeup call for many in the TV and advertising industry.

The article also shows data that over the past ten years TV has lost 50 to 60% of their younger viewers and the only age group that grew was the Baby Boomers  but now they are watching less TV.

I can tell you why, from personal experience.

We have access to 100 channels and there’s “nothing on”. At least that’s the way it seems.

A lot of the shows are targeted to younger viewers and are simply stupid or overly sexually juvenile. The jokes would have made the teenager in me snicker, but that was over 30 years ago.

Here are the actual shows that I will watch with my wife either live or on demand almost every week, now that the fall TV season is back:

NCIS, Grey’s Anatomy, Jeopardy, Bull, The Good Doctor, Chicago Med.  The first four are without fail, the last two are likely to watch.

My wife will watch Dancing with the Stars and the Bachelor series, but I won’t. I may watch The Voice.

That’s it. Each year the number of shows we watch declines.  Not because there are less programs available, but the networks are trying to reach the younger audiences they have already lost which is stupid.

My kids are all in their 30’s and none of them watch traditional TV.  There is nothing that will change that so the networks need to wake up and do what they can to keep the viewers they have from abandoning them.

Now we do watch other things on TV.  The network news channels get a healthy amount of evening viewing along with some occasional HGTV, and we also stream stuff like Amazon Prime Movies. Netflix is a must have for my kids and their families.

As a side note, since I work in the radio business, there is also an undercurrent among the youngest, I’m talking teens and 20 year olds to listen to less traditional radio than people of that age group did decades ago, for many of the same reasons they don’t watch traditional TV. However for grown-ups age 35+ radio listening is still as healthy as ever.  I have specifics for the Fort Wayne, Indiana market if you ever want to see who listens to what, contact me. Scott@WOWO.com

Last week I read the results from the first week of the new Fall 2019 Fall TV Season and it’s not pretty.

The article I read says: TV’s broadcast network premiere week for the 2019-2020 season showed more double-digit percentage declines. 

If you are a business that uses TV to advertise, let this be a warning to you that the audience that you are trying to reach is shrinking.  If you want to see some viable solutions and alternatives, let’s talk.

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Radio Advertising with WOWO or Local TV

Radio Advertising with WOWO or Local TV

Are all advertising options equal?

Of course not.

Is a burger off the dollar menu at your favorite fast food joint equal to the $20 burger you can order for lunch at your local restaurant?

Of course not.

Today, I am going to do a comparison of advertising on WOWO radio in Fort Wayne with advertising on a local TV station.

Along with the insider details I have because I work for WOWO radio, I also have information that I saw from a local TV station and data from a research study comparing TV and radio audiences.

Here’s a spoiler alert.  Advertising on WOWO Radio, with my guidance will generate superior results compared to what the TV people are trying to sell you.

First, some of the figures from the research study:

When you advertise on television, about 20 percent of the viewers are heavy users of TV.  The other 80 percent of people who watch TV each week, consume way less TV per person. Given the way we watch TV in 2019, this makes a lot of sense because we have some many viewing options that are not local broadcast TV, television viewership of any particular show has been declining for years.

We will look at these heavy users of TV, the ones that your advertising messages are reaching.

First  we’ll look at the age demographic using a scale of 100 being average.  That means anything below 100 is below average and above 100 is that many percentage points above average.

A25-34: 21
A35-44: 40
A45-54: 95
A55-64: 165
A65+: 226

What this means is that the average TV viewer is above the age of 55.  The person seeing your TV commercial is twice as likely to be over the age of 65.  Trying to reach a 30 year old, 40 year old, or even 50 year old with your TV commercial? It’s not very likely.

Using that same 100 point scale, here’s the numbers for household income of heavy users or viewers of TV:

Under $25K: 158
$25K-$35K: 152
$35K-$50K: 118
$50K-$75K: 113
$75K-$100K: 74
$100K+: 70

The less money they earn, the more time they are watching TV.  Families with an income of $35,000 or less are more than 50% more likely to see your TV commercial.

One more statistic from this study deals with education:

Less than 12th grade: 169
High School: 132
Some College: 108
College+: 64

The heaviest TV viewer is 69% more likely to have less than a high school education than the average.

In summary, the people most likely to see your television commercial are the least educated, have the least available income to buy what you are selling and are definitely not the 25 to 54 year olds that TV advertising salespeople try and convince you that you will reach when you advertise on their TV station.

I know what the TV salespeople are doing because I have known a few and have seen some of the information they use to try and persuade my WOWO Radio clients to drop their ads and switch to TV instead.  It just doesn’t add up.

Now in case you are unfamiliar with the specifics of WOWO Radio, here’s a brief rundown…

WOWO has been a news and talk station for 20 years and altogether has been on the air over 90 years.  WOWO has consistently been one of the only stations in Fort Wayne to average over 100,000 listeners every week for years.  As a talk radio station, our listeners are upper income, better educated adults who place a lot of trust in the WOWO radio local and national talk show hosts and newscasters, as evidenced by the antidotal information we get from both listeners and advertisers.

WOWO News/Talk Listeners scored:

194 for advanced college degree (nearly twice as likely than the average) compared to the 64 for the TV audience.

140 in income over $100,000 compared to 70 for the TV audience.  In other words, WOWO Radio listeners are twice as likely to have money to spend to buy your stuff versus the person sitting at home watching TV.

There’s more I could share with you but that’s enough for the moment.  Want to know more?  Let’s connect.

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