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“That sounds a bit complicated…”

| jamesstodd

My-Name-is-Jack

A listener called today. She was mid 60s, with a name like Maureen or similar. She listens to JACK fm..as do many of her friends.

“Hi there. I’m trying to listening to your station and I can’t hear it today..”

“Where are you listening?”

“I live in Midhurst..”

“Well, that’s on the very edge of our area so our signal may not reach that far”

“Well, I can normally hear you, but some days I lose reception, so I switch to Smooth Radio. Can I get you on Digital Radio – I have a digital set but haven’t really used it..”

We are on digital radio. Have you looked for us”

She looks and lists the stations she can see..

“I can see Absolute, BBC stations, Premiere radio. No, I can’t see you..”

“I’’m sorry. Have you tried listening online – or maybe tried our mobile apps”.

“Sorry dear – I’m a bit old fashioned – I just want to listen in the kitchen – that sounds far too complicated”

“Ok – we’ll hopefully you’ll get the signal back soon”

“I’ll do that. I love your station. Do you know why I listen?”

“Tell me..”

“I found your station and started listening because you have the same name as my son. He’s called JACK too”.

I’ve heard many reasons why people listen – but never because the station is named after a family member.. but what are the real reasons people choose to listen to stations? The fact that she liked the name hooked this listener (someone who is out of our target). She likes the music (though I’m not sure what our overlap would be with Smooth Radio).

But the thing that struck me the most was her comment :

“Sorry dear – I’m a bit old fashioned – I just want to listen in the kitchen – that sounds far too complicated”

She’s an older listener.

She’s open to listening on Digital.

She can’t be bothered about how she gets the stations she wants.

She just wants them in one place in one box – and she doesn’t need to think about how to find them.

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We’re not making things easy for people like “Maureen”. They are getting the digital message. They  are starting to understand the range of choice. They want to listen to the content. But some of them just don’t understand how to get hold of it or can’t be bothered with the hassle.

The sooner someone cracks the connected box that has a menu that lists the stations and tunes to the station whether its via FM, DAB, online stream the better. It’s great that the team at UK Radioplayer (with others from Global Radio and Absolute Radio) are doing just that. This is the sort of radio I want..

As for us, we’ll just home the wind is in the right direction for Maureen to listen on FM. Or maybe I’ll record some output and post it to her on a cassette…

UPDATE:

Matt Deegan posted a blog today that included a presentation from James Cridland – all about the need for user experience to be better in all digital radio. It’s certainly worth a watch.

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When the Aliens Take Over

| jamesstodd

Screen Shot 2013-09-02 at 09.28.34You’ve all heard about the time when an Orson Welles radio broadcast sent America into panic, right?

Well, it’s happened again. This time, at The New Star 94.9 in Tuscumbia, Alabama.

It started when the station started broadcasting a test signal featuring “Aliens” talking about how they’d taken over the station and would make an announcement about the change at a certain date and time. It seemed to backfire as the station was flooded with calls, children refused to go to school and in a bad case of Chinese Whispers, an alien invasion turned into a bomb threat. As attention to the stunt grew, the station quickly updated the messages. My favourite part is when the Aliens bring in a PR consultant.

The reaction was more than likely down to Social Media – and probably seemed to surprise the station.

“People are saying we’re broadcasting threats to the community — I’m like, what in the world are they talking about,” program director Brian Rickman tells the Shoals News. (INSIDE RADIO)

Screen Shot 2013-09-02 at 09.28.17The great thing about this project was how they quickly managed to update it all. This was mainly due to a decision not to make the aliens sound how you’d typically expect in a promo, but to utilise the text to speech voices found on any Mac. Production is incredibly simple, really nicely written and funny too. It actually makes me think that a fun show could easily be created this way on some formats. In fact, this could be a fun thing for a station like FUN Kids or similar to do – easy to make and easy to have fun with.

Of course, in the UK, we’re all familiar with the Birdsong test transmissions. Well, the aliens are too:

It’s all a little knowing, certainly tongue in cheek – but really creative. And really simply produced too.

And it’s got them a whole load of press too.

So – the result. They’ve morphed from an urban station to a format described as “Modern Hit Music” – anything from Genesis to Pink, Kings of Leon to Lenny Kravitz, Imagine Dragons to Adele. A pretty broad playlist – maybe one for John Ryan’s Listened In blog to analyse..

If you are going to relaunch or stunt – a project to analyse for ideas, flaws and improvements?

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UPDATE

I’ve not listened since they were in their test transmission phase, but judging by their Facebook updates, they really are listening to what their audience wants and are asking for honest feedback too. How many other stations would be brave enough or open enough to do that these days?

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Time to look again at online video?

| jamesstodd
Image from Youtube.com

My former GCap Media boss Dirk Anthony shared this article yesterday.

According to the article, YouTube’s skippable ads now make Google “as much revenue per hour as ads on cable TV”. That’s according to YouTube’s global head of content Robert Kyncl.

This is a huge deal. The talk of platforms such as Apple and Google eventually becoming a new way of consumers consuming content are long gone. These platforms are already there – and by logic, will overtake the traditional platforms in a matter of years. The question is – what are traditional broadcasters (and I mean TV and radio), doing about this?

Now some will argue that advertising online is dead as viewers can simply skip it. This is what is happening on TV. Currently most TV I watch is recorded on my Hard Disk recorder. I can skip AD breaks at the touch of a button – so never need to see them. And with the content I watch on iPlayer – I never see trails for programmes since they are only broadcast on the linear TV platforms.

But viewers skip ads don’t they?

According to Robert Kyncl at YouTube:

 We’re making ads optional. Users can skip them if they don’t like them. That’s a big deal. When advertisers pay only when ads are watched – and when viewers are watching only the ads that they care about – they won’t and they don’t mind paying.

Therefore – the ads and trails that they watch are ones that interest and engage them. And whilst this post is about visual content, radio promotions need to be equally efficient at doing this too.

The argument should be – how do we hook the consumer in to watching the ads or trails? Are we intriguing them? Are we exciting them? And is there some clarity to tell them what we’re selling them?

With YouTube ads, it’s pretty easy to integrate extra targeted overlays. This technique could be particularly useful for relevant Tx details which could be targeted to viewers.

Since people like the BBC now have YouTube channels, you’d guess that pretty soon, we should be expecting relevant programme trails to be scheduled to appear here – around the content that already exists. There needs to be a way where potential audiences to linear programming become aware of it on digital platforms. And whilst there are no trails on iplayer at the moment, surely there needs to be some thought as to how content is promoted to BBC online viewers on that platform. The argument up to now has been that people must always opt in to auto playing content. I think this is sensible since not everyone wants it. But maybe the ability to opt in would be useful.

As long as its relevant and targeted, it’s unlikely I’d skip it. Agree or disagree. Let me know..

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Thinking Big

| jamesstodd
Image: TBWA\NEBOKO

Sometimes you just need to add and add to an idea.This new Ad from Heineken does just that. Why drink at just any old bar? Open your world! It’s thinking big on a huge scale..!

Music: Clairy Browne & the Bangin’ Rackettes – Love Letter
Agency: TBWA\NEBOKO
Director: Martin Krejci

Mobile Link here http://youtu.be/MZtDqpdvy7s

Originally found at Ads of the World

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Inventing a solution

| jamesstodd

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The BBC Proms are back.

In this job, there are a number of projects that crop up every year. The same thing happens in the yearly life cycle of most production departments. At Capital it was Party in the Park and Help a London Child. And here in the Cross trails team, it’s The BBC Proms. Essentially the same event every year with a different lineup.

There’s always a temptation to promote these kinds of events in the same way – ie a fairly simple billboard promo with clips of music pointing towards a TX time or the date that the season starts.
Add to that, the need for the radio campaign to closely tie in to the TV creative campaign.

This year, the challenge was that the TV trail essentially combined 3 key Proms pieces with some beautifully shot images showing people’s emotions as they listened to the music. The easiest solution was for the radio trail to reflect that and simply be a simply cut montage of 3 or 4 key pieces and a VO guiding the listener through the highlights. And that’s what we did for the trails for Radio 3 and 4

Mobile link

There was more of a challenge for us for the trail to run on Radio 2. Whilst there is a good part of their audience that appreciates the broad part of the Proms programme, it’s quite hard for the media schedulers to fit a purely classical music trail across the whole Radio 2 schedule.

Luckily, there was perfect creative hook available.

One of the highlights of the Proms for the past few years, particularly for the younger and family audiences, has been the Family Prom. Over the past 3 years there have been 2 Doctor Who Proms and also a Horrible Histories Prom. And this year, it’s a Wallace and Gromit themed concert.

For those of you not in the UK, Wallace and Gromit are an animated duo who have featured in a number of TV programmes and also an Oscar winning film over the past 10 years or more. The characters are a man (Wallace) who is a prolific inventor (of fairly improbable gadgets) and his world-weary dog Gromit (who is the more intelligent half of the duo).

And with that material as a starting point, the idea was born – to feature the characters in a specially written trail for the Proms – inventing a Proms machine that composes music – which of course goes wrong.

It’s not so much the idea that I’m proud of, but the fact that we came up with it in a creative meeting where collaborative ideas are always welcome and discussed. The fact that we have the relationships with Aardman, the animation company, helped. And the fact that the stakeholders (including the director of the Proms) were open to a different creative idea.

And the creative journey was fairly simple. From my idea in a meeting to the script from the ad agency, the process involved the creative team at Aardman checking we had the language right for their characters and finally recording the character voices for us.

The point I’m trying to make is that whatever the project, you can pretty much always find a creative angle to solve the brief. If its something that you come across time and again (maybe another advert for a dull client), work out what you can do differently. For us, it was the fact that the character was an inventor. But we could equally have focused on the numbers involved – over 150 composers over 3 months – and worked up an idea from there.

The proms start on BBC Radio 3 and across the BBC tonight and the Wallace and Gromit Prom is live on BBC Radio 3 on Sunday July 29th and will be on BBC TV later in the Summer.

Here’s the trail. The agency is Karmarama and the producer who made it for me is Gav Matthews at Kalua Creative.

Mobile link:

A break from the Norm

| jamesstodd

How many times are you tempted to fall back on the same routines? How often do you approach creative challenges with the same, often predictable solution? I suggest that the answer it yes – on both counts – in many situations. This is totally understandable in many cases. We all have huge pressures on our time these days – and sometimes it’s easier just to get jobs out of the door. But don’t let that become the norm.

I’m working on a project that encompasses almost every part of the organisation I work for. It will involve programming on radio, on Tv and an equally large body of content that will live online. The creative brief was challenging – but the solution has been surprising – putting a contemporary filter over very traditional content. It’s taken bold decision-making to make it happen. And the challenge for me has been to try to make the radio part feel relevant – rather than overly traditional – but also accessible to a wide range of audiences – and to sound relevant to the station sound on a range of radio networks. The project delivers at the end of the week – and I’ll share he tv and radio creative (along with the story behind it) once its on air.

The problem with breaking creative boundaries is that you have to be brave and take risks.

I’ve been lucky enough over the years to work with Programme Directors who have been very creative – and loved to try new things. And I’ve worked with a couple who have not. Some ideas led to ratings success and were celebrated. Others led to audience indifference and were swiftly dropped. But whatever the outcome, they always needed someone with the balls to say yes.

It’s easy to push back on highly creative ideas. They may cost too much. They may be too risky. They may be challenging to your peers or the people you are trying to impress as you line yourself up for your next job. But sometimes, you need to go with a gut feeling.

If you aspire to work somewhere truly creative – you need to take creative risks once in a while. Are you brave enough to do that..?

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A Demon of an Opportunity

| jamesstodd

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of visiting the Media department of De Montfort University in Leicester. I was there as a guest of Rob Watson, who runs the Media Technology Degree.

Every year, they invite a load of industry practitioners from various areas – from business, to engineering to creative – to talk to the students about their real world experiences. We were on a panel called “It’s all going interactive”. You can read more about it here.

My fellow panelists were  Andrew Dudfield – who manages navigation for BBC Online and Chris Skinner who is a freelance producer for shows like Dave Gorman on Absolute Radio and The Bugle Podcast. We all shared some of our experiences in getting into radio, and I also shared some audio tips on creating and developing audio brands.

What was good to see was the enthusiasm from so many of the students. What also really amazed me was the opportunity they have available to learn new skills.

Rob showed us around the facilities of the department – and there’s a jaw dropping amount of learning spaces. From fully specced Pro Tools HD suites to acoustic engineering workshops; a green screen studio; AVID suites and even a mixing studio with a huge analogue NEVE desk.

And then there were the facilities on offer to the students who work on the student/ community radio station – Demon FM. All of the students on the course have the opportunity to get involved – planning, producing and presenting shows. They have 4 production booths for pre recording and prepping shows. Plus an office/ talks studio too. And they’re equipped with access to all the IRN feeds and news management tools to be found in any big newsroom. To be blunt – a wealth of opportunity they are unlikely to have to hand in many real world stations.

The temptation for many is to emulate what already exists. Some want to produce station sound that emulates Capital or Radio 1. Some want to be just like Chris Moyles or Greg James. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

However, this will probably be the one station that they get to work in where they can pretty much do what they like. Test out some new formats,
devise new ways of doing things, write some experimental drama, broadcast some sound art, or try out some comedy. It’s precisely the place where you can try and fail.

I really hope that they realise that this is their chance to experiment and create something fresh and exciting, learn some new skills and think differently. And then hopefully reap the rewards that should follow when they create something extraordinary.

 

 

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Global Radio finally living up to their name..?

| jamesstodd

Two pieces of news yesterday finally cemented Global Radio’s ambitions.

First, they announced “an unprecedented long term partnership” with News International – creating a range of partnerships. The UK Press Gazette reports

Capital Breakfast will partner with The Sun
Classic FM’s More Music Breakfast will be presented in partnership with The Times and The Sunday Times
Heart’s Club Classics on Friday evenings with The Sun and Fabulous Magazine
LBC 97.3 will run special features, news round-ups and advertorials with The Times and The Sunday Times
The Big Top 40, the chart show syndicated across various stations UK-wide on Sunday afternoons, will feature Sun advertorial features.

They also announced a “new media opportunity” with Clear Channel Media in the US to create the Official World Premiere across Global Radio and Clearchannel airtime and advertising assets across the UK, Europe and the USA.

According to Radio Today

Ashley Tabor, Founder & Executive President of Global Radio said: “This is an unprecedented partnership between Clear Channel and Global Radio. The combined worldwide reach of over 150 million people, as well as the innovation of combining radio & digital outdoor, together with the geographical spread of this initiative, is truly eye watering. We’re delighted to be partnering with Madonna and Universal music for the very first ‘Official World Premiere’ today.”

This is pretty clever strategically for Global on both counts.

With the NI deal, there’s a tie up with a huge publisher, giving a tie in with the editorial power of a huge newspaper group. I’m guessing the showbiz-loving Sun will happily be featuring the sort of content that Global breakfast shows will be talking about, and featuring stories about Global’s huge events. I’m sure there’s no compulsion to do this – but an alignment like this certainly won’t harm either if them. One wonders how impartial reporting of Rajar day stories will be – but I’m sure the benefits will outweigh the challenges.

With the Clear Channel deal – the benefits are far more rooted in music partnerships. The recent Official World Premiere of the new Madonna track tied up the Capital Fm Network, Clear Channel’s Radio stations and billboard sites. The event trended worldwide on Twitter – driving traffic back to Capital and helping build the Madonna Brand. I’m guessing this will be sold to various labels to promote their content – 150 Million potential consumers is not to be sniffed at. And I’m guessing that if Global wanted to use it to promote any of their acts – they’d get a good deal..

I’m wondering though if the CC deal will go further. Both Global and Clear Channel operate music events for their stations. Capital has the Jingle Bell Ball whilst New York’s Z100 has the Jingle Ball. In the future, will huge headliners be tied into the type of partnership deal – whereby Rihanna or Jay-Z or similar artists headline both events over one weekend in two continents? An extreme idea – but with lots of possibilities.

The challenge for radio is to constantly come up with new ideas. Global are doing this with new strategic commercial partnerships – that could ultimately create exciting and unique new content partnerships. This must ultimately be good news for all radio brands.

BBC Radio 1 – New Music TV Ad

| jamesstodd

BBC Radio 1 have been championing all their specialist music presenters this week by showcasing them all in the daytime hours. So Zane Lowe (who usually is on at 7pm) has been presenting the breakfast show, along with Annie Mac, Huw Stephens and a load of other DJs.

And to support this, the new marketing campaign for Radio 1 has just launched including a new TV trail featuring Fearne Cotton and Zane Lowe. Great to see the new music output being given some big promotion too..

Of course – not everyone likes it….

Here’s the Fearne Cotton one:

Should you love the track ,the song is Antidote – Swedish House Mafia vs Knife Party. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcdk3ghymzQ

And here’s the Zane Lowe version:

Vodpod videos no longer available.
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