S.F. Talk Ratings in 1997

[DavidKaye]

I suppose this is the difference between a merchant and and ad agency who gets all warm and fuzzy about ad 'impressions.' What you really want is for people to be listening a bit more actively so you can hit those who will come in and buy your products.

Research has shown that impressions matter. Use print as an example. One full page ad will have far less impact than taking that page, cutting it in 8ths and running the ad 8 times.

There's a reason why TV ads went from 60 seconds to 30 seconds and then began repeating the 30 for a second time in a spot cluster. Those two impressions get more response than a single 60.

Take a radio ad I hate: European Sleep Works. I detest their bogus scare tactics about gases and artificial fabrics and their whole spiel about "a safe sleep". If sleeping on "artificial" mattresses was so bad there'd be major product recalls and investigative stories on the TV news.

HOWEVER, even though I detest their ads the repetition has locked into my head that the company is called European Sleep Works and that they're at Adeline and Ashby in Berkeley. I even remember that their domain is sleepworks.com -- and this is from an ad I DETEST.

 

[SFStatic]

Research matters, until it doesn't. New Coke was pretty well researched...much more so than radio ratings, and bombed big time. Research doesn't always translate to listeners who patronize advertisers in the real world. The best impressions generally come from personal endorsements of hosts the listeners strongly identify with...which, of course, not every advertiser can get. OTOH, impressions by, say, Rosanne, are pretty worthless. Have seen the graph of the PPMs when one of her Consolodated Resorts spots hit the air. It dropped to ZERO meters. Now THAT's an impression!

 

[DavidKaye]

Research matters, until it doesn't. New Coke was pretty well researched...much more so than radio ratings, and bombed big time.

I give you the Wikipedia entry:

Early acceptance
The company, as it had planned, introduced the new formula with big marketing pushes in New York (workers renovating the Statue of Liberty were symbolically the first Americans given cans to take home)[21] and Washington, D.C. (where thousands of free cans were given away in Lafayette Park). Sales figures from those cities, and other regions where it had been introduced, showed a reaction that went as the market research had predicted. In fact, Coke's sales were up 8% over the same period the year before.[22]


An 8% gain in a year for a mature product is a very good gain indeed. Looks like Coke's marketing research on the flavor of the product was correct.

What they didn't think of was Pepsi's counterattack or the positioning of the brand. Had they simply changed the formula without any change in marketing at all they would have done just fine.

People keep wanting to pooh-pooh research but research does work. In broadcasting, seat-of-the-pants song selection simply does not get high ratings. They knew this as far back as 1954 when Todd Storz decided to play the top 40 hits. His research was simply based on tracking what records were selling and then playing them on the radio. But it was market research just the same.

Having been a business owner of various sorts over the years as well as having read lots of radio and TV and print marketing research, I'm convinced that people do indeed make a lot of their purchases based on numbers of impressions. True, personal testimony from friends counts more with most people, but for a lot of decisions people are simply not going ask their friends for recommendations. Take laundry detergent. Are you going to call up your friend and as, "Hey, should I buy Tide or Dash, or should I go with one of those Mexican detergents that comes in a bag?"

 

[recto101]

If you spend 10 minutes in a store, and they're playing KOIT, KOIT gets credit, even if the panelist hates KOIT and would never listen to it. All measurement systems have their biases and flaws.

But that really doesn't matter, does it? If the person is hearing KOIT they are also hearing the ads on KOIT and they will be influenced by them as much or as little as if they heard the ads on a station they liked. Given that Arbitron ratings are for the benefit of advertisers, I see no sampling problem due to people carrying the PPM units into stores with them.

Exactly. Advertising isn't done to reward what people say are their favorite radio stations. They want impressions.

Let's say you listen to KFOG driving to and from work every day. 15 minutes each way. But your office plays KOIT all day long and the deli where you spend your lunch hour every day is always playing KCBS.

Your favorite station may be KFOG, but you are 2 times more exposed to KCBS and its advertisers and 16 times more exposed to KOIT and theirs. And that's far more relevant information to an advertiser than which station you prefer to listen to.

I have to agree with you mike I like KDFC, KXPR, KFOG and KUFX but the ppm will record me listening to KCBS, KUIC, KQED and KPFA more. Look when I shop at a store in Fairfield KUIC-FM will blair out more and when i'm at my MP3 player on the bus I go to KCBS, KQED, KPFA and KALW a lot. I go to KUFX when the Sharks are playing and Big Rick is there. I rarely go to KFOG now since both Big Rick and Dave Morey left. KXPR when I''m at my stereo at home and KDFC when i'm at my computer.