Nobody calls it Facial Tissue

Nobody calls it Facial Tissue

by | Jun 16, 2025 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, ScLoHo's Media, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

“Can you pass me a facial tissue please?”

Says  NOBODY.

We ask for a Kleenex.

However, just because we ask for a Kleenex and our friend hands us one or a whole box of them, odds are they are not really Kleenex.  They could be Puffs brand or store brand facial tissues.

Kleenex is a brand like Puffs and yet it’s lost it’s distinction as a brand to the general public.

The point is Kleenex has become a standard substitute name for any kind of facial tissue. According to some data Kleenex branded facial tissue is only around 30%, meaning 7 out of 10 people are using some other brand, but most are still calling it Kleenex.

This article isn’t really about Kleenex however,  it’s about the limited ability of consumers to identify certain things we use regularly.  And because I’m a media guy, that’s where we are going with this.

I was talking recently about the different ways we consume media in 2025 with a friend and how the multiple options to get news, information and entertainment continues to expand.  Generally that expansion is good, however not always.

Newspapers. These are the original mass media that allowed the same information to be distributed to the masses and all was good for a few hundred years.  Many communities of all sizes had one or more newspapers that printed regularly.  Daily was the favorite, some did weekly, but as long as they had the right combination of news articles and advertisements to be profitable, all was good.  100 years ago, in the 1920’s radio broadcasting began spreading as a mass media and in the 1950’s and 60’s broadcast television also grew.  Broadcasting both competed and complimented newspapers.  Businesses could advertise on all of them or some of them however in my lifetime all three co-existed for a long, long time.

Until the advent of the internet and personal computers in the 1990’s and then we started to see the decline of newspapers that has been a slow painful death of so many papers in the United States.

Television or TV. Adding pictures to audio and broadcasting to the masses used to be a simple business model. It was expensive and needed government regulation, but broadcast TV became the dominate mass media as consumers bought televisions and the family could watch together in the living room or family room.  Some families had multiple TV’s.  My dad worked for Magnavox in the 1960’s and 70’s which was a leading consumer electronics company and so we had two TV’s at my house when I was a teenager.  There’s been a couple of disruptors. Cable TV was the first and Satellite TV; both brought in out of town signals and 100’s of viewing options besides watching live broadcast TV.  VCR’s or Video Cassette Recorders became a home entertainment option that allowed viewers to time shift when they watched their favorite shows too.  As improvements and advancements in technology and the internet have continued the relevance of broadcast TV is being challenged.  I first noticed that my millennial kids had stopped watching any form of local broadcast TV when they became parents and the screens (both the big ones hanging on their walls and the personal ones on tablets, phones and laptops were not tuned in to ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC or PBS which were the channels they watched when they were kids.

The internet again was the big disruptor and the challenge for both Newspapers and broadcast TV was not just readers and viewers but also financial.  Businesses buy advertising on these mediums and that revenue keeps the papers printing and your favorite shows on the air. Yes, you also pay for a newspaper and we’ve become accustom to a subscription service to watch stuff, but in most cases, you need the right combination of audience and advertisers to stay in business.

Many newspapers created a paywall and originally there was a lot of resistance because the common thinking was the internet is free.  As younger generations have not experienced the free media that their parents and grandparents expected, we’re seeing a growing acceptance of paying for services online.

Radio. You may have noticed I skipped over the details of radio, and that’s because I want to really give it some focus and because I believe it’s deserving of some extra attention.  Broadcast radio’s heyday was in the earlier days some would say.  My primary radio station WOWO turned 100 on March 31st this year and it’s not the same radio station it was originally.  I’ve only been around for the last 65 years of WOWO but let’s say the last 50 because my family wasn’t living in Fort Wayne when I was born and it wasn’t until my teenage years that I “caught the radio bug”, that led me to pursue working as a radio personality and disc jockey. Generally speaking the past 5 decades many radio stations have transitioned as technology transitioned.  What I grew up listening to was music stations with d-j’s playing recorded music from vinal records.

Compact Discs replaced vinal records and were the first forms of digital music, but still required a physical disc to hold the recorded music.  It was similar to records but different too.  By the way, magnetic tape was the standard for recording before digital and we had special tape players at the radio stations we could load a song, a commercial, or a jingle on.  In the consumer world, tape players were thought to be a threat to radio stations as cars had 8-track players and then cassette players which made listening to a record portable.  Those tapes may have had a small impact on radio listenership but never became a complete substitute.  Same thing with C.D.’s.  My 2012 Mercedes has both a CD player and blue tooth options.

Radio listenership moved from the AM Band to FM Band in the late 70’s and 80’s as the sound quality of FM was superior to AM.  Many AM radio stations audience size declined and locally WOWO-AM  radio was finally beaten in the ratings by rival WMEE-FM during this time..  I was part of the WMEE-FM air staff that knocked WOWO off their throne around 1981 or 82.

What has saved the radio stations has been the programming changes that they’ve made over time too. Around 30 years ago, WOWO at 1190 AM transitioned to become a full time talk radio station.  Many AM stations around the country dropped playing music full-time to move to some form of talk.  The content of what these radio stations were playing as talk stations attracted an audience and kept many struggling AM stations alive.

When I say Talk radio, another industry term would be “Spoken Word”  Whatever you call it, it’s listening to people talking instead of people singing as I explain to others.  There are many variations of Talk radio including what we do at WOWO which is News Talk with some occasional sports broadcasts.  I also represent a Sports Talk station.  There are a bunch of religious talk stations and some Spanish language talk stations.  Odds are if you listen to an AM radio station, it will feature talk.

Now what does any of this have to do with Kleenex and Facial Tissue?  Hang on because here’s where I’ll tie it all together.

WOWO and other radio stations now have multiple ways for listeners to listen.

For WOWO, you can listen on 1190AM.  We also added a full power FM signal that broadcasts most everything on WOWO AM.  That’s 92.3FM which legally is WFWI.  107.5FM is a Low-Power legally known as W298BJ; and if you have an HD radio 97.3 HD-2 FM which is WMEE-HD2 also is WOWO.

All of the above are broadcast signals that carry WOWO.  The internet has given us multiple other ways to listen to WOWO via what we call streaming.  Some of you have a smart speaker named Alexa.  You can ask Alexa to play WOWO radio.  I use Google in my home office for my smart speaker and if I say, “Hey Google, Play WOWO radio” I get WOWO.  You can go to the WOWO.com website and listen to the WOWO stream on your computer, phone or tablet.

There are plenty of apps that you can load to your device or smart TV that also carry the WOWO programming.

WOWO is more than a set of call letters, WOWO is a brand and for the past 30 years, that brand has been conservative news talk radio.  While we carry some national shows we also have local content including our Fort Wayne Morning News, 20 hours a week, and local news 13 hours a day, plus our regional afternoon host for 15 hours a week.

Unlike Kleenex, WOWO is unique.  You can not find a substitute way of listening to our content.  Facial Tissue on the other hand, is not unique and if you have to blow your nose or need something to sneeze into, nearly any brand will do.

While I get data about all the local radio stations from a couple different rating and research companies, some of it you have to step back and think like a real person.  A client of mine and I were talking a few days ago and he told me that no one has ever told him they listen to “WOWO’s stream”.  That’s not surprising because a real person listening to the WOWO brand doesn’t put much thought into the technology that they are using to listen.  Next to nobody except industry insiders would even know what the WOWO stream is.  it’s just WOWO.  I’ve already listed all the ways a listener can listen to WOWO and that’s all that matters.  If the question “Do you ever listen to WOWO with your Alexa?” was asked, I’m sure some people would say yes.

Many of us listen multiple ways.  A national study shows that advertisers are probably missing a portion of radio station listeners if their ads are not also played on that stations stream. The numbers I have specifically for WOWO from a couple years ago showed that at least 30% of WOWO listeners were listening to the WOWO stream.  I don’t know if that is in addition to listening to WOWO on AM/FM or if they listen to the WOWO stream exclusive but it’s grown to a significant portion of our listenership that in most radio campaigns, I included streaming.

One last piece to what makes WOWO successful is that along with fantastic programming content that attracts thousands of local listeners every week, WOWO’s advertising sales team is top notch too.  Unless Federated Media, our parent company had the financial income to support the continued program content and expenses to operate, WOWO would have died years ago.  The only way Federated Media earns money is by selling advertising that connects our listeners to businesses and organizations.  We’re doing that in such a way that is profitable for those businesses to continue while we provide connections to trustworthy advertisers to our listeners.  I used to lead that sales team and then a couple years ago stepped away from management to return to being a member of the sales team that can help you directly.

Radio Still Rules

Radio Still Rules

by | Jun 9, 2025 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

At the end of March, my radio station, WOWO officially turned 100 years old.

As the year progresses, we are doing a variety of events both on the radio and in-person to mark a century of service.

WOWO is not the same station it was in 1925.  Back then very few people had access to a radio to listen to WOWO, but within a few years this new technology grew as AM radio’s became the norm for household news and entertainment.  Instead of just print delivery of news and information with newspapers and magazines, people could actually listen to audio for the first time in this manner and it was free, once you bought the radio.

Growing up in Fort Wayne, my dad worked for a couple of electronics firms. Magnavox was the first one that brought our family here and later my dad retired from General Electric. Turning on the radio was as routine as turning on the shower every morning to start the day.

There was once a concern that when television started in the 1950’s that it would kill radio listenership, but instead radio stations adapted.  While many of the old radio shows moved to TV, radio enjoyed a revival with recorded music and live personalities.  WOWO was one of those stations that I listened to as a kid to find out if we had school delays due to winter weather.  I also listened to AM radio stations in Cincinnati to hear the play-by play of the Reds baseball and from Boston to hear the Celtics basketball teams.  Back at WOWO, we were the home of Komet Hockey for over 70 years.

But enough history, we still have people wondering about radio listenership today in 2025.

Streaming services for music, podcasts for news and information, does anyone listen to radio anymore?

Yes they do.

Recently research company and long time rating company Nielsen shared a fresh report:

…shows that within the ad-supported audio universe for adults 18+ in the U.S., consumers spent 66% of their daily listening time with radio, vs. 19% for podcasts, 12% for streaming audio services, and 3% for satellite radio, based on Edison Research’s “Share of Ear.”

That’s huge.  2/3 of ad supported listening is still traditional radio, like 100 year old WOWO.

WOWO began broadcasting on what is known as the AM band, for most of those years 1190 AM and still does.  However WOWO also added additional ways to listen to our live programming including FM at 92.3 FM, 107.5 FM and 97.3 HD2 FM.  The last report I saw from Jacobs Media a couple of years ago showed that 30% of WOWO listeners are listening via a streaming device.  That includes Alexa, Google, an app, or our website.

These technology upgrades have helped WOWO and other stations retain and grow.

WOWO’s news talk format is targeted to reach grown-ups.  Adults 35 and older which according to the same report:

The report, which includes data from Nielsen and Edison, shows adults 35+ spending 73% of listening time with radio

Want to invite our listeners to become your customers?  Contact me.

 

Your Marketing Mix in 2025

Your Marketing Mix in 2025

by | Jun 2, 2025 | ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, ScLoHo's Media, ScLoHo's Web World, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

A couple of headlines came into my inbox last month:

How To Offset Diminishing Returns On Social Media and New Study Shows How Radio Exposure Drives Social Media Advertising.

So let’s take a few minutes and talk about the marketing mix for your business in 2025.

A couple weeks ago I shared information from my Sound Advice newsletter and a story of how one of my radio clients was spending gobs of money on social media and a fraction of that amount on the radio but digging deeper, he should have been doing the opposite when we analyzed the results.

When you do more than one form of marketing and advertising, or use more than one platform or station, this is what we refer to as your marketing mix.

In case you were unaware of my background, I’ve worked full time in both the traditional radio world and also the digital world where I was the “Social Media Magician” for a multi-million dollar e-commerce company and none of the tech stuff is foreign to me.

The issue is that if you rely on something bright and shiny and quit the older media, you risk losing the momentum that you had with what you were doing previously.  The reality is that you can do both, but you need to understand how they can work together. If done properly it’s not just an adding effect, but a multiplying effect.

First let’s look at the problem some social media marketers are having:

Almost 8 in 10 performance marketers experience diminishing returns on social media, meaning that their return on ad spend (ROAS) declines as they spend more, according to a survey [pdf] from Taboola.

For almost one-third of those, diminishing returns set in before they’ve reached even half of their social media advertising spend, per the results.

The main culprits behind diminishing returns from social media advertising are perceived to be saturation in the target audience (66%) and user fatigue (59%). Rising costs – a key driver of concerns over paid social ROI – are also seen as a reason for diminishing returns by a significant portion of the respondents.

While many of the respondents in the survey are trying new and different forms of digital marketing, they are missing out on adding a method that can actually enhance hat they are doing.  But don’t just take my word for it, here’s a quote from the other article I mentioned:

Results of a study conducted by Critical Mass Insights find that radio listeners show a greater likelihood to click on social media ads for products or services they’ve heard advertised on radio.

The survey, conducted during March 2025 among 1,000 U.S. consumers, shows more than half (55%) of listeners say they’re more likely to click if they’ve already heard a radio ad… Overall, CMI finds, average listeners are twice as likely to click a link for a product they heard advertised on radio vs. one they haven’t.

The study also finds that 72% of consumers are more likely to notice social media advertising for a product after they’ve heard about it on the radio, while 7 in 10 say they’re more likely to read a social media ad for a product — and two-thirds more likely to try a new product — after hearing about it on the radio.

Consumers are inundated with advertising every day, on every platform, and they’re increasingly navigating an environment that includes fake AI-generated content, so it’s no surprise that first hearing about a product in the trusted, familiar environment of broadcast radio increases the legitimacy of the advertiser and the product in their minds.

The power of radio goes beyond just consumers’ behavior when it comes to social media ads, as 8 in 10 respondents say they trust broadcast radio hosts to recommend products and services to them, 44% say they’re more likely to buy a product they see in the grocery store if they heard about it on the radio first, and 49% say they’re more likely to visit a fast-food restaurant after hearing it advertised on radio.

This research highlights how radio can help brands cut through today’s advertising clutter and make them more top-of-mind — not just in that moment when listeners hear an ad, but later, when they come across a product in a store, in a digital ad, or while driving down the highway. Hearing about a brand in a high-attention environment, like radio, changes how they respond to that brand in a more crowded environment..

Before you jump in by yourself to figure out how to expand your marketing mix, it’s important to understand the role each form of media has in taking consumers thru the journey from strangers to customers.  That’s where I can help.  Contact me.

 

A Fresh Introduction to ScLoHo

A Fresh Introduction to ScLoHo

by | May 26, 2025 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, Really? The Personal ScLoHo, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo

Here we are, smack dab in the middle of Summer 2025 and I’ve been meeting new people and reconnecting with older friends and a common question is, “What do you do?”

The short answer is, “I help businesses and organizations connect with potential customers and clients.”

And that begs for more detail, so today, I’ll dig in and reintroduce myself.

I’m from the 1900’s.

That’s become a fun way of saying I’m older than 26.

I started working in media as a teenage radio disc jockey at 16 and worked in and on the radio for the next 10 years.

At age 26, I moved my family to Detroit and started working in the advertising side of media.  Specifically to write and create radio advertising campaigns for businesses and organizations on radio station WMUZ-FM.  During the nearly 8 years we were there, I also returned to the air, either as a fill-in or as the morning show host; and I had my first venture in sales.

When we returned to Indiana, I also returned to on-air doing either afternoons or mornings full-time at a Fort Wayne radio station for about a year and then left the business for a few years and worked “real jobs.”  I drive a fork lift, ran a tool crib, set up a barcode system for a manufacturing facility, and ran a thermoformer as some of the jobs I took. I also did some part-time on-air work and was paid a few times for commercial voice work when I returned to Fort Wayne.

2003 was when I returned full time to the world of media and marketing.  By this time, on the personal side, I had 3 kids and two step-kids and was a couple years into my second marriage that is still going strong.  By the way, my wife and I are good friends with my previous wife and husband, but that’s another story.

In 2003 I had been in Fort Wayne again for a few years and joined a group of radio stations as a member of their 12 person sales team.  Over the next 8 years, the stations went through ownership changes, I did some management work at the stations and eventually got bored and left.  From 2011 to 2013, I took 3 different positions, each lasting 10 months before I decided that it wasn’t what I wanted to do.  I did website development sales, radio ad sales for another group of stations and then managed the social media for several brands of a multi-million dollar ecommerce company.

By the end of 2013, I had returned to radio, specifically Federated Media and their news-talk station WOWO.  I was the 5th person on a 5 person advertising sales team.  That last seat on a team often is a revolving door, but not for me.  By 2019, I was leading our sales team and in 2020 won the Sales Person of the year award for the entire company.

2020 also saw me change from selling to leading our sales team as the WOWO General Sales Manager.  By 2022, my management duties grew to include additional stations, Big 92.3, 1380 The Fan, 98.9 The Bear and WOWO.

Finally at the end of 2023, I hired myself back to sales and they brought in someone else to take over most of the management duties I had been doing for nearly 4 years.

I know I haven’t mentioned the origin of ScLoHo yet, but I will in a moment.

The past couple of decades, I’ve been able to help business owners with the advertising and marketing of their businesses.  Sometimes this includes an advertising schedule and campaign on the radio stations I work with, however, I’ve been able to help many more that never spent any money with me because of what else I’ve given them.

It started when I was 26 and began working with local business owners in Detroit.  I got to know some of the ins and outs; challenges and successes; and learned so much from those people.  Working for WMUZ and Crawford Broadcasting was my continuing education as I helped create ad campaigns for auto body shops, mortgage companies, doctors, transmission repair companies, retail stores and so many others.  I read some excellent books by Harvey McKay, Trout & Ries and a few others that helped spark the creativity and common-sense approach to what I know call Human Relationship Marketing Principles which I apply to the work I do now.

It’s not that I’m some great guru, it’s just that I’ve had these opportunities to not just listen to others, but to apply what I’ve learned and repurpose these concepts.  No matter what the medium, there are timeless principles that should be applied to your business’s marketing.  Many times, I look for ways they can make adjustments that cost them little or no money.  Sometimes it’s obvious to me but not to them because they are in the thick of it all and need an outsiders viewpoint and experience.

That’s the kind of stuff that lead to the creation of ScLoHo.

Initially ScLoHo was just an email address that I created.  While not as common as Smith or Jones, my name, Scott Howard is not uncommon.  I know personally another Scott Howard here in Fort Wayne and no, we’re not related. ScLoHo is a mash-up of the first two letters of my first name, middle name and last name.  If you pronounce it with just two syllables you say, :Sclow-Hoe.

Around 2004, I started a couple of blogs.  The first was a personal blog to capture random thought and ideas, the other was a place to save and share media and marketing ideas.  I got permission from a couple of online publishers to include their articles as long as I credited them and linked back to their website.  By 2008, I was writing and publishing over 25 articles a week to my blog websites under the ScLoHo name.

In 2011, I left the radio stations I’d been working for and joined a website development company and one of my friends and co-workers challenged me to combine the online ScLoHo with the in-person Scott Howard and marry the two with a fresh website.  The dot com domain for Scott Howard was taken by another Scott Howard as were a couple other domains so I settled for ScottHoward.me and launched in October of 2011.

I was able to take many of the previously published articles from my ScLoHo blogs and move them to the new website.  ScLoHo is still my nickname, and my ScLoHo email address is both a personal email and for anything not related to my work at WOWO and Federated Media.

When I started blogging a couple decades ago, there were a few other local people that were also blogging.  A blog was the written equivalent of having your own podcast these days. Many of those early bloggers stopped.  Either they lost interest, or thought that a blog was a way to fame and fortune online, I wasn’t looking for either.  I was just looking for away to save in the cloud some of the stories and articles and ideas from others and myself for future reference.

Speaking of podcasts, in 2016 Federated Media wanted to launch a marketing podcast and I was asked to consider creating one since they were aware of my blog and that I might have some experience behind a microphone.  March of 2017 was when I launched the Genuine ScLoHo Media and Marketing podcast and except for about a year when I was in management, I’ve been updating both this site and the podcast every week.  When I was in management, I decided to update monthly in order to keep up with my other duties.

This year we will surpass 1700 articles and 400 podcast episodes, all free as a resource to anyone interested.  My website does not accept paid ads and any ads you hear listening to the podcast are placed by the hosting company, not me.

As we look forward to the rest of 2025 and the years ahead, feel free to reach out to me personally about nearly anything.  Email is probably best. Scott@ScLoHo.net

Beyond the Click

Beyond the Click

by | May 19, 2025 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Web World, Sound ADvice, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

The Truth About Trackable Advertising was the subject of a recent Sound ADvice email newsletter that I sent to my subscribers.  I’ll add you to the mailing too if you ask, it’s free and is delivered once a week.

Not everything that counts can be counted.

It’s easy to fall in love with advertising you can track. Clicks. Conversions. CPMs. These numbers can seduce business owners because they make us feel smart and in control.

Digital ads – Google, Social Media, YouTube, etc. – can absolutely play a role in your marketing. They’re great for short-term wins and direct response.

But the kind of advertising that builds great brands, that earns customer loyalty, price flexibility, and long-term growth, that kind usually isn’t trackable. Branding advertising is emotional, it’s remembered, and it often takes time before it shows up in a sales report.

Here’s the trap: When everything has to prove ROI in 30 days or less, you end up making ads that say little, do less, and vanish without a trace. You stop planting seeds and only harvest what’s already grown. Keep planting seeds.

The truth is that your brand lives in the minds of your future customers. You don’t know when they’ll be ready to buy. If they don’t know you, trust you, or like what you stand for – then no amount of perfectly targeted digital ads will change that.

So yes, keep running those trackable campaigns. Just don’t stop there. Great businesses are built on stories, feelings, and familiarity – none of which fit neatly in a spreadsheet.

If you’d like to see 3 Tips to Think Beyond the Click, click here.

Besides my work in radio, I’ve also worked full-time in other medias including social and other digital spaces that I just mentioned.  I know the benefits and shortcomings personally and even though I was paid the big bucks to run digital campaigns, i know that it’s not enough.

A few years ago I had a client that was a local business owner who was spending $20,000 a month on Social Media ads and just $4,000 monthly on my radio station.  When we looked at the results, the number of appointments from Social Media ads were double the number of appointments from his radio ads.  How many of those appointments stuck and became a real selling opportunity?  90% of the radio ads and just 40% of the Social Media ads.

How about actual sales?  Of the appointments kept, the radio ads were also 90% real sales compared to less than half the social media ads.  And the total dollars per job from the radio ads were 50% higher than the social media.  It was eye-opening.

Yes, you need an online presence.  but you also need to build relationships with potential customers the way radio can do.