....And Now, An Editorial From A Disgruntled Listener......

[frnkp2000]

And if you can only come up with a couple examples, that's not so bad. Research companies are constantly testing products and making suggestions. Heck they even research the research. I wouldn't throw out research forever because of New Coke.

Oh there are many more examples, the two cited are probably the best known total failures. Again, it's a tool--to be used to "tighten" and "adjust". It should never be absolutely conclusive. ("Margin of Error," anyone?) Radio must keep that in mind when the results come back. Use what you need, discard the rest. Go with your gut when unsure. I never said that research was not useful and should be "thrown out." It can, however, be fallible.

LESSON I LEARNED: Don't use music tests that were done in Dallas to program your Boston-area station! And yes, a nit-wit GM tried to make me do that once, years ago. I secretly called it "Music to make your audience say "HUH?"

 

[davideduardo]

Oh there are many more examples, the two cited are probably the best known total failures. Again, it's a tool--to be used to "tighten" and "adjust".

And some research fails because it only digs one layer down when the facts are a big deeper.

A textbook case is the development after W. W. II of instant cake mixes. Extensive research showed that women would love to be able to bake without having to do everything from scratch.

The cake mix... just add water... came out. And it failed.

Instead of closing the brand, the manufacturer decided that there was more than first met the eye. They did extensive in-home testing with actual housewives (a model developed nearly 20 years before by P&G). The women made the cakes. They came out lovely and tasty.

But the women did not like them.

They did not like them because they were too easy. Taking care of the family, of course, took work. That cake was not work.

So the mix was reformulated. It had no powdered egg. Users bought the cake mix, added water, folded in some eggs, mixed more, and baked. Now it was multi-step work. The product was relaunched, and was one of the most successful new products of the era.

The problem was not research. It was not enough research. And not enough questioning and interpretation.

 

[landtuna]

There is a fairly accurate telling of the New Coke story at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Coke where it is, correctly, stated that Coke was concerned about market share declines.

Market share declines are always a concern to the biggies in any corporation because as soon as you become complacent someone will come along and eat your lunch. Pepsi and Coke battled each other since the beginning with Pepsi gaining or losing primarily on cost. It is still true. My wife's restaurant signed on with Pepsi because they are cheaper than Coke. But the prime issue was that Coke execs thought they needed to emulate the "sweeter" taste of Pepsi when, in fact, the taste of traditional Coke was exactly what fans of that brand wanted.

There is no mention of the fact that Pepsi was gaining huge advantages among Blacks and Hispanics, who were large consumers of cola drinks. In fact, Pepsi was beating Coke in a number of Latin American nations... something that made Coke worry about the changing demos in the US, too.

I don't remember anyone ever going into this subject in great detail. Pepsi, in the past few decades, has advertised primarily on youth and the so-called "hip" image associated with youth.

Nobody was fired over the incident. Because the change involved advertising and marketing, it was extensively covered in journals like Advertising Age... but only snippéts of that publication are available on the web.

I am surprised because it was easily the biggest corporate faux pas in the history of the company.

In general, the issue was laid out to be a failure to interpret the "heritage" of the product. The research was valid, but they did not ask the right follow up questions. In other words, they did bad research and then did not interpret it correctly. The proper procedure would have been to dig deeper with those who did not like the new formula or the idea of a change and see if that was the tip of an iceberg... or not.

The research must have pointed out that their customers would like the taste of the new product and have no significant aversion to the name change either. Unfortunately, both proved to be false and the people who did the research should have taken a beating for almost bringing Coke to its knees with its flagship brand.

 

[davideduardo]

There is no mention of the fact that Pepsi was gaining huge advantages among Blacks and Hispanics, who were large consumers of cola drinks. In fact, Pepsi was beating Coke in a number of Latin American nations... something that made Coke worry about the changing demos in the US, too.

I don't remember anyone ever going into this subject in great detail. Pepsi, in the past few decades, has advertised primarily on youth and the so-called "hip" image associated with youth.

That was a key issue in the advertising and marketing trades.

Since the head of Coke, Goizueta, was foreign born and very aware of international markets and ethnic groups, he saw potential issues. An example was the Coke bottler in Venezuela giving up the franchise to take on Pepsi instead and then seeing the brand move to first place in sales.

Pepsi has always been a strong advertiser and marketer in Latin America, and in the US Hispanic market... where taste tests tended to favor Pepsi over Coke, too.

 

[landtuna]

Pepsi has always been a strong advertiser and marketer in Latin America, and in the US Hispanic market... where taste tests tended to favor Pepsi over Coke, too.

Maybe it's what someone was raised with but I've always thought Pepsi tasted like paint thinner.

 

[lost45]

They CAN play all those charted records in the context of a weekend specialty show and daily feature (hint, hint)!

 

[frnkp2000]

They CAN play all those charted records in the context of a weekend specialty show and daily feature (hint, hint)!

Oh NO! How dare you "think out of the box"!!! We must do research!!!

Listeners want to hear HITS? I find that hard to believe!

Focus groups!!! Call Outs!!! Music Tests!!!! Bwahahha hahahaha hahahah.

OK, sarcasm button off .

 

[davideduardo]

Oh NO! How dare you "think out of the box"!!! We must do research!!!

Listeners want to hear HITS? I find that hard to believe!

Focus groups!!! Call Outs!!! Music Tests!!!! Bwahahha hahahaha hahahah.

OK, sarcasm button off .

In the same vein...

"I know what the listeners want..."

"I can pick the hits"

"I have a golden ear."

... all famous phrases or paraphrases of infamous phrases of PDs who thought they did not need listener input as part of the toolkit for building a good radio station.

Those are the same PDs who ended up with a decimal point to the left of any significant digit in the share rankers.

 

[frnkp2000]

Oh NO! How dare you "think out of the box"!!! We must do research!!!

Listeners want to hear HITS? I find that hard to believe!

Focus groups!!! Call Outs!!! Music Tests!!!! Bwahahha hahahaha hahahah.

OK, sarcasm button off .

In the same vein...

"I know what the listeners want..."

"I can pick the hits"

"I have a golden ear."

... all famous phrases or paraphrases of infamous phrases of PDs who thought they did not need listener input as part of the toolkit for building a good radio station.

Those are the same PDs who ended up with a decimal point to the left of any significant digit in the share rankers.

Somewhere in the middle....

What ever happened to hearing your listeners' concerns? Picking up the phone when they call, reading their emails/snail mails? Hearing what they're saying (and not saying) at remotes/NTR events/live appearances?

Your listeners are your real customers!

One station I worked at years ago had a sticker on every phone that said "Listeners are Gods".

 

[frnkp2000]

Duplicate post.

 

[davideduardo]

Somewhere in the middle....

What ever happened to hearing your listeners' concerns? Picking up the phone when they call, reading their emails/snail mails? Hearing what they're saying (and not saying) at remotes/NTR events/live appearances?

Your listeners are your real customers!

One station I worked at years ago had a sticker on every phone that said "Listeners are Gods".

First, nearly nobody calls a radio station any more. Most people who do interact use text, email or otherwise communicate via a station's website. Phones are soooo old school. 8)

And stations do read emails and text messages and web posts. Most today are understaffed, but they do deal with the significant ones... and have to take into account any that also have to go in station's public file.

Remember, there are very, very few communications with stations about programming in general terms. There are complaints about disliked songs, disliked morning shows and such, but I can't even recall the last time I heard any spontaneous suggestion or commentary about a station in general.

And that is why stations do research... to reach out to people who would not call a station or send an email (and who represent something above 90% of listeners) to inquire about perceptions, performance and expectations.

At station events, there is seldom time or opportunity to glean anything useful from listeners who did not come to be surveyed. And, the folks at an event are likely to be atypical "active listeners" who think the station is fine and couldn't be better. It's not a representative and actionable sample.

And listeners are a station's consumers. But they are not the "customers". Advertisers are customers. Radio has a bimodal marketing model where the customers are not the same as the users.

However, stations know that without listeners, they have nothing except for some hardware. The more people a station pleases, the more advertisers will like the station. And that is the model that sustains OTA radio.

 

[ok walters]

The audience is the "product" that you offer an advertiser, who is your customer. Ad rates are determined by reach and response, both related to audience size - which is your product just like donuts on a bakery shelf. i know you can make this as complicated as you want, but that is the dynamic. there are two things to worry about, and one is dependent on the other.

I totally agree with the statement about listeners at events not relating any information you can really use.. We have had several live remotes lately and I can tell you before I even get there which listeners will show up. Those listeners all love you - everything is great - and that doesn't do much for you except make you feel good.

 

[inthebag]

This thread reminded me of something a PD said to me way back in the early 90's.

He said, "There are 4 stations doing CHR in this market, us and three others. We all do the same call-out research, the same auditorium testing, we all look at the same numerical passion scores, which means we all play the same songs, scheduled by Selector in the same rotation. So every time the book comes out, why are we stomping a mud puddle in those other station's behinds? Simple. It's because of what we do when we're not playing the songs."

Amen.

 

[frnkp2000]

This thread reminded me of something a PD said to me way back in the early 90's.

He said, "There are 4 stations doing CHR in this market, us and three others. We all do the same call-out research, the same auditorium testing, we all look at the same numerical passion scores, which means we all play the same songs, scheduled by Selector in the same rotation. So every time the book comes out, why are we stomping a mud puddle in those other station's behinds? Simple. It's because of what we do when we're not playing the songs."

Amen.

Amen indeed! That PD is a wise man! (or woman!) He knows what it takes to win, and that's the "little extra" that you do that makes the big difference! Too many of today's programmers are either too busy (programming multiple stations) or simply can't be bothered to do this. This PD has probably asked himself "What can we do to make folks choose US over the Ipod/Pandora/Spotify," etc. Instead, more stations are trying to sound LIKE those services. Barry Scott has the right idea: Play the hits, be brief but interesting, and throw 'em something from the "Wow Factor" once in a while. Could we build a whole station around that concept? Sure, but "corporate" won't allow it! Play the songs and imaging that come from corporate only, please,and thank you.

I think only food should be homogenized.