The 30% Formula - Ambitious Imagination
Can "Fun" Be Systematized?

What are the real reasons people listen to radio? Is it to hear their favorite songs? Only indirectly. The root motivation of radio usage boils down to: information, companionship, and entertainment. Too often, music radio stations forget that they are (or should be) in the entertainment business first, and the music business second…or maybe third, after companionship.

The result of this mindset is that stations that are musically excellent, often fail to achieve their ultimate ratings potential.

What's often missing is imagination and ambition in stunts, bits, promotions, and events.

In a period such as this one when budgets, especially marketing budgets, are shrinking, imagination and ambition become more important than ever.

Why? Imaginative, ambitious ideas for a radio station can generate four benefits -

1. Loyalty and TSL - when you entertain people, they stick around and then come back for more.
2. Word of Mouth - if you stimulate them, listeners talk about you.
3. Recall - when you generate mental reactions, you increase recall - and that's what Arbitron's all about.
4. Publicity - the right ideas executed well (and supplemented by a couple of well-placed phone calls) generates media coverage.

Let me give you an example: One of our clients recently went to #1 in its (very large) market when it changed one thing - the station made ambitious imagination a priority. Now that station sees its weekly tracking shares increase by 30% or more when it executes those ideas well.

We could all use an extra 30%. "How do we get that in this era of lower budgets, smaller staffs and increased time pressure, you ask?

(Thanks for asking)

I can give you the following suggestions, which are the result of seeing the difference between stations with ambitious imagination and those without - and in many cases, helping the latter become the former.

1. Make it a priority and set goals. You'll never devote the time and energy it takes until you adopt "entertaining people" as one of your top three priorities. Make it a policy, and a goal and make sure everyone knows it. "We're going to be ambitious. We're going to be imaginative. We're going to entertain people." Then set goals: "we're going to be (fun/wacky/entertaining/over the top, etc) _____ times per month/quarter/year."

2. Devote time to it. Not necessarily a lot of time, just whatever it takes for your station to generate and execute some unusual ideas. Now that you've made it a priority (see #1 above), you'll feel it's worth at least one or two brainstorming sessions a week.

3. Take some risks. This is the scary part. It's risky to try something no one ever did before. It can even feel risky to try a bit you've heard about that worked somewhere else. But if you just keep doing "safe" things you'll have a hard time exciting your audience. Safe is boring. Risky is entertaining. That's why people go to Vegas or watch action/suspense movies.

Look at it this way. If you're too cautious, you might try one or two "safe" ideas a year (if that). Let's say they all succeed. You've stimulated the cume twice, but possibly at minor levels.

Now, let's say you take more risks and try 10 things a year. Let's say your batting average is only 75% - that's 7 or 8 things that worked in a big way.

Which way is more productive? Hitting two singles or hitting 8 home runs while striking out twice?

4. Tiptoe up to the line. Every station, format and target audience has an invisible, ill-defined line of taste and titillation that should not be deliberately crossed. Most stations (especially adult contemporaries) stay too far from that line, and wind up being less entertaining than they could be. The ideal place is right at the line - wherever you think it is - and pushing the envelope. If you do this, you will be a more entertaining radio station - but know also that you will at some point accidentally cross the line. If you establish your station as a "good citizen" your audience will forgive you as long as you don't do it too often. Here's a rule of thumb - if you never cross the line, you're too far from it; if you cross the line regularly, you're either an AOR or you're too aggressive.

5. Commit to your ideas. Once you decide to try something, throw yourself into it. You might tiptoe up the line, but once you start, go for it. Commitments make ideas work. Trepidation insures failure. Watch Robin Williams - if you sit back and analyze some of his material logically, it doesn't all work. But audiences laugh their butts off because whatever he's doing, he totally commits to.

6. Brainstorm. It's how most people and organizations become creative. There are rules and guidelines that make brainstorming sessions more productive. E-mail me if you'd like a short survey of good brainstorming habits.
7. Be topical if possible. People get into wackiness faster if it relates to something they know or are dealing with. Start with a topics list, or a single topic (i.e., "the election") and ask "what fun, unusual thing can we do with that on the radio?"

But don't let that stop you from committing the occasional wild non-sequitor.

8. Avoid "Table and Chair" thinking. People develop habits of thought - some good, some bad. If we were to play word association and I said "table" the odds are very high the other person would say "chair" - it's an automatic association. Many stations develop table-chair thinking when it comes to topics and promotion. Here are a couple of examples -

Table C Chair
Concert C Give away tickets
CD C Give away copies

Find your station's habits and break 'em.

9. Top yourself, keep raising the bar. What are you doing for Valentine's Day this year? Same thing you did last year and the year before? Why? It won't be novel to either your audience or the local media. Analogy: Great amusement parks always build a new ride for every season.

10. Refine your sense of "show biz." Pay attention to other entertainment media and what works for them. Watch how film directors manipulate the audience. Analyze successful TV shows . Go to the circus - especially Cirque Du Soleil - and absorb the experience.

11. Use Sound. Hey, it's radio.

12. Focus on key elements. I've already given you topics, ambition, and commitment. Add in: sizzle, unexpected, unusual, larger than life, emotional, absurd, lighthearted, playful, exaggerated, fiction.

13. Above all, have fun. Creating and planning fun stuff is fun itself. If your group is cracking itself up in brainstorming sessions, you've gone in the right direction. People can be their most creative when they're playful.

If you'd like to add up the 30% to your shares, get the music right, but never forget we're in the entertainment industry. Work your way from #1 (make it a priority) to #13 (have fun doing it!) and you'll be in good shape on that front.

Call or write us if you'd like to discuss any of these points. Go make great radio!