#accjms11: Smart, Passionate People Talking Radio

Fill a hotel ballroom with smart people and have them talk about a shared passion for radio for 2 ½ days and you can be guaranteed there will be good take-aways.

Here are some of mine (paraphrased) from the just-concluded Arbitron Client Conference and Jacobs Media Summit for 2011 in Baltimore.
  
Tripp Eldridge, President/CEO dmr

• Social success = helping create and strengthen relationships. Connect, enhance, encourage and facilitate relationships; make the community feel special.
• “Likes” are like cume. Engagement is like TSL.
• Games can develop community. Community is what drives success.

Glenn Enoch, VP/Integrated Research ESPN

• Two of ESPN’s seven cross-platform principles: New media creates new strata of users; Best platform at the moment.
• A heavy user of one platform tends to be heavy users of others.

Edison Research/ Melissa DeCesare, VP

• Moms balance traditional and modern media. 89% listened to radio in past week, 53% learn about new music first on radio (vs. 29% on Internet; 9% on TV), 60% would keep smart phone and give up TV if they could only have one.

Edison Research/Larry Rosin, President

• In-car landscape is increasingly complex; the good news is cars don’t turn over quickly. Traffic information is being attacked by emerging technologies. Does/should radio care?

David Lebow, President/Revenue, Group Commerce, Inc.

• There is no such thing as deal fatigue.
• Radio Brands have e-commerce assets including the size of audience, brand trust, strong local voice and relationships with advertisers.
• Relevance runs amok when there’s no targeting.

Warren, Kurtzman, President, Coleman Insights; Bill Rose, SVP Marketing, Arbitron; Philippe Generali, President/CEO RCS & Media Monitors

• 93% of the lead-in audience is there at the end of a stop set (not necessarily the same listeners; includes listeners coming to the station during the commercial set as well as leaving it).
• Commercial free sweeps may help the brand over time more vs. in the moment performance.

Michael Sheehan, CEO, Hill Holliday

• Technology may be changing the game but people love great stories.
• Radio needs to make music relevant – radio needs to re-assert itself as the relevant medium of discovery.
• Relevance is the secret to sustained success. It’s the fuel to how far your content will travel.

Bob Pittman, Chairman of Clear Channel Media and Entertainment Platforms

• We need to tell our story better. If buyers don’t understand the value of radio, we’re doomed.
• Don’t let advertisers 'test' radio with sub par reach and frequency. Have the courage to tell people they're not spending enough to be successful.
• Radio is the beacon for the tribe

James Cridland/Managing Director Media UK

• Radio Brands are fragmented making it hard for journalists to write about radio whereas it’s easy to call Pandora who’ll be happy to tell you why radio is dead. 
• Improve the Internet look and feel. Radio needs to make the user experience look better, cooler. 
• Multi-platform is the right platform. 
• Why didn’t radio protect word ‘radio’ – Pandora isn’t radio. We failed to educate our audience that Pandora isn’t radio, it’s a music collection. 
• The only reason commercials are annoying is that they’re not relevant.

Ed Schultz/MSNBC’s “The Ed Show”

• First question: is this talent killer-competitive.
• Can they sell? Can they make listeners react and want what you’re selling? Can they sell themselves?
• How connected with the clients are the talent? How often do they update their pages, site, feeds, etc.?
• Expand your brand. Don’t let the show be small.“
• Ideas are to be cultivated by people in authority.”

Jeff Pulver Chairman/Founder Pulver.com and creator of the #140 Character Conference  

• New media would like to have the audience of old media. “Now media:” fusion old and new media.
• Social media teaches you how to interact; you connect with people – like radio.
• If you don’t know something, anything and everything is possible.

Jim Farley, VP/News & Programming WTOP/Washington, DC

• Listeners are always telling us what they want. Check what’s trending and talk about it instead of boring things and when there’s nothing going on.
• WTOP itself is only one vehicle to deliver the brand.
• Don’t give up on HD. It’s coming. HD icons on the dash board are going to save our ass.

Ron Rodrigues, Arbitron Marketing, Arbitron Radio

• Political consultants know that their campaigns can be more effective if their media buys target likely voters, or voters of a political persuasion. That’s a great advantage for radio and all of its formats. Each of them represent a lifestyle, and a such each of them represent a distinct group of voters that would be of interest to one political campaign or another.
• Candidates can target voting lifestyles by format.
• Spoken word formats represent the most enthusiastic voters. Opportunity for music formats: wider spectrum of voters, register-to-vote, GOTV efforts.

Walter Sabo, COO Merlin Media

• The biggest competitor is our own audience.  (A child in school) can make a video and show to the world without anyone’s permission. And it’s free.  And they can get 10-million views in a day.
• A computer is there to interact with. If entertainment isn’t interactive, it’s dull. Media is designed to be social.
• The secret of digital business is nobody knows anything. Just hit refresh. Don’t worry about analogue things like what song goes next to another. Just hit refresh.
• Sell radio’s biggest number.
• Make listeners co-conspirators.
• Experiment.

 Charlie Sislen, Partner, Research Director, Inc.

• Finding places where you station does not meet format benchmarks can help you focus on ways to grow TSL.

Attend and have some take-aways you'd like to add?