Do you know who needs them?
Every single radio station across the entire country, is who needs them. What do they bring to the table? A full course dinner with dessert. In real estate, the word is LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION……IN THE WORLD OF RADIO, IT STARTS WITH CONTENT, CONTENT, CONTENT!

Every personality on a radio station has a job to do, and that job is no easy task. They have to create unique content every day to engage their listening audience. That personality is the moderator of a “community”. A community analogous to communities you find online, like blogs, Facebook, and Twitter. It’s people who can relate to that DJ, whether its their programming including views on subjects, poking fun at people, news events, satirical opinions- the list goes on and on. What’s most important is that they add value to the station, and changes the “vanilla” flavor to something that adds “spice” for the listeners. There is such a disparity between “cookie cutter voice tracked programming,” to a personality who can relate to the local community and listeners alike. It is like going from one end of the spectrum to the other. Yes, radio stations CEOs can save money by eliminating the talent on air and replace it with voice tracked programming, but at what price? You save a salary but you deteriorated and cannibalized your audience as a by-product. That same audience you worked so hard to acquire.

crusaders-of-content2So let’s get back to the original question, why do radio stations need them? Their unique content becomes the personality of the station and an integral part of the fabric composing their listening audience. Their loyal followers are the audience that advertisers are attracted to. Local programming, talented DJs, unique original content are just some of the important ingredients that go into the recipe for a successful radio station. Top the cake off with a talented well trained sales department to market this to their agencies and advertisers, as well as a strong digital component; and behold, you have a formula and blueprint for success, and one helluva cake! See what jacobsmedia blog says about promoting local radio. The digital component is where there is a tremendous uptick in potential. It changes the face of terrestrial radio like a facelift and brings radio into the new millennium. The unique generated content on the radios respective web site allows the interaction with the audience but on a new platform. Some stations have a webcam set up in the broadcast booth(link to story), others are streaming, and still others are providing UGC that do not fall under the FCC regulations. Watch an interview online with a guest in its entirety without the timeline given on terrestrial radio. Today the consumer is in charge of what they want to listen to and what they want to watch. If radio stations hit those aforementioned benchmarks, then they have successfully engaged their audience. And that is something they have to earn! » Continue Reading and Join the Conversation


mourning-radio Before I begin let me commend Kathy Kiely, President of the Ad Club; Pierre Bouvard, President of Sales and Marketing for Arbitron; Mike Sheehan, CEO of Hill Holiday; Peter Smyth, Chairman and CEO of Greater Media; David Field, President and CEO of Entercom; Julie Kahn, Vice President of Entercom and everyone else involved behind the scenes, in putting together what could have been and should have been a fabulous afternoon.

Here we are (a few hundred people in attendance, including radio reps, management, advertising agencies, and clients alike) at the Ritz-Carlton from 2:30 in the afternoon to 6:00 in the evening listening to the leaders in our industry speak to us about the power, the future and the opportunities available to us in radio. The excitement and anticipation of what lied ahead was truly inspiring.

As Kathy introduced the guest speakers from all over the country, and having them gathered all in one place and at one time was no easy task to accomplish. Beginning with Pierre’s keynote introduction and his speech about PPM and the opportunities that lie ahead in radio-to Mike’s passion for the creativity that radio, like no other media affords us-to Peter Smyth’s excitement and inspiring talk about reinventing ourselves in the radio space with our clients; to David’s Power Point presentation that included the stability of the radio audience across the country as compared to the deterioration in newspaper readership and TV viewership, you had all our hearts pumped up, and our mind’s craving for more.

Unfortunately, that was the beginning of the end. When the next guest speaker, the President and CEO of Clear Channel Radio, John Hogan, gave his perspective the enthusiasm changed. Listening to him talk about the demise of the radio world, the deterioration of the quality of programming, the less than quality sales people in the industry was enough to make me angry!! How dare you, Mr. Hogan, come into our home, of which you are a family member, and totally change the entire sentiment in the room to “shit.” Yes, Mr. Hogan, these are challenging times, not limited to the radio world, but to “ALL” businesses! » Continue Reading and Join the Conversation


In the last 24 hours I have witnessed and participated in 3 online blogging contests. Contests are always fun but they are really powerful too. Lets take a look.

We all know the power of social media networking and it’s ability to go viral. We also know it’s not easy to get people talking and working for you. This is where contests come in. We can offer something of value in exchange for a little bit of work and interaction.

Mashable is having a contest right now giving away a free pass to Demo 09 worth $2,995. All they ask for you to participate is to post a comment, which finishes this sentence: “I’d like to attend the DEMO 09 emerging technology conference because…”

This is not particularly difficult. It requires you to spend a few moments being creative. Writing something intelligent with a mix of goofy and a bit of sucking up and poof you have a comment.

Melanie Nathan just opened the doors to her new blog, Canadian SEO. After introducing herself, the blog and talking a bit about what she does she offered up a small contest.

“And now, in the interest of keeping things er, interesting…. I’ll be picking one commenter below by end of day Friday, to receive a fun-filled Canadian themed prize package. Hmmm. What *ever* could it be???”

Again all you have to do is post a comment. This prize package is probably not valued at $3,000 like the Mashable contest but it still invokes a challenge in us. It’s fun and interesting and I want to be apart of it. Even if all I get is a mini Canadian flag and some maple syrup.

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Now that I have your attention from the Radio World; I love radio as a medium on a number of fronts – in short, to build a brand memory, to have a call to action for in-market consumers and to engage the transition audience you all bring to the table.

Lead Funnel

Let me further explain – the transition audience are those consumers in the middle of a “Lead Funnel”. The top of the funnel are consumers out of market but we can start planting a brand memory (they’re our future, residual business). The end of the lead funnel are the people in-market for your product or service, but the middle of the funnel are the transition consumers. Those are the people who will be looking for your clients’ products or services shortly. But if you engage them with the right message (creatively), something compelling, you can in fact move some of them down the lead funnel to the in-market group.

Instead of selling radio, flights, etc., try identifying what goals your client wants to attain, including the type of people they want to attract. Now, here’s the tough part! Sit back and listen! Got it?

Now, do I have their attention? Are you ready to have them “buy into radio”?

No one wants to be sold anything, including all of you! But if you buy into radio as a “solution”, it opens up a whole new way of positioning radio as a viable medium to reach those goals.

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winding-road2

As an advertising agency and marketing company specializing in traditional and interactive media, we often find that the path of least resistance with our clients is in reality, doing what they say they want us to do. But is it in the best interests of our clients? That is the question!

Our mission is to move the needle and accomplish the goals set forth by our clients. In order to do that, our recommendations may not necessarily be what the client had in mind. The client didn’t hire us to agree with them, they hired us because we bring value to their company. I feel we have a fiduciary duty and obligation to take the HIGH ROAD on this, and recommend the media we feel will produce the best results for them.

Our game plan is to strategize, create, and integrate the message in traditional as well as interactive media. Measure the results, tweak them, and continue to ratchet up the mediums giving us the results we want while eliminating those that are not performing. We explain to our clients why we take this approach, why we chose specific mediums and how we measure the results. The job of the agency is to take accountability from the beginning, right through to execution and reporting. We are a team player with our clients and not a vendor. We are their advertising and marketing arm. We don’t have all the answers, but we sure have the target in our sight!

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COULD vs. SHOULD

If there were one thing that will trump any COULD versus SHOULD debate in a strategy discussion it would be HAVE TO.
How many of you have found yourselves in a situation where no matter how hard you try to discourage a client from using a new, “cool” online tool, you wind up “just giving it a try?”

We COULD

Recently, a major luxury automotive manufacturer offered Rovion intros (you know, the little video people that step out in front of the site and talk to you) to its dealers, free of charge. One of our clients happens to be one of those dealers and so…now that we CAN do it SHOULD we do it?  First off, we’re starting this entire process backwards. Instead of setting a goal and identifying tools, which will help us achieve that goal, we’re starting with a tool and creating a goal so that we can use the tool.

So what is the goal? Make it easy for visitors to find what they are looking for.

At first look, the homepage (which we did not design) is already packed with more information (I’m counting thirty different elements) than one person could process during a twenty-minute lunch break.  So, I ask myself, who is visiting this site, what are they looking to do and how is a video of the dealer popping up in the bottom corner going to make it easier for them to do whatever it is they intend on doing?

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@JasonNarciso Twitter Got You Hired!

- by Jesse Friedman | January 13th, 2009 | Be The First To Comment | Tweet This
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We all know that Twitter has a ton of uses whether it’s an RSS Feed, IM client, Email Service, or a Chat Room. Recently I was able to use Twitter to take out a Classified to fill a position at Neal Advertising.

@professor – Looking for a strong designer with a good flash background. If you live in RI you’ll be able to telecommute. Great opportunity great Co. 8:14 PM Sep 10th, 2008 from web

6 minutes later…

@jasonnarciso – @professor This is interesting… care to elaborate? 8:20 PM Sep 10th, 2008 from web in reply to professor

20 minutes later…

@professor – @jasonnarciso My company is looking for a designer w/ flash experience To design sites and develop monthly flash sites. Great co to work for 8:39 PM Sep 10th, 2008 from twitterrific in reply to jasonnarciso

2 days later…

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