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Reignite the Passion for Hot AC
The winter book was not a banner one for Hot AC. Our usually safe harbor of females 18-49 and 25-54 left some Hot AC's wondering what happened. When R&R asked me to be a guest columnist this week, I thought it was a valid question:
What happened to the passion for Hot AC?
Plenty has been discussed about Hot AC being stuck in the down portion of Guy Zapolean's music cycle. Others say our format has never been associated with passion. Dwindling marketing budgets and voice tracking always make the list too. I even read where one major market GM went as far as to declare the format "dead."
Dead? That sounds serious, and that could be the problem. We take ourselves too darn seriously. The choice our consumer (the listener) makes to use our product does not involve a complicated line of thinking. We can fool ourselves into believing they are attracted to our:
- No Talk Triple Play
- No Repeat Workday
- No Rap and No Hard Rock Promise
- Best Mix of blah, blah, blah …
Let me propose that we are missing the mark. Why would a 25-44 year old female's choice in a radio station be arrived at any differently than her choice in a coffee shop, mp3 player or car?
My iPod, my Honda and my love of Starbucks pretty much define my worldview.
Does my radio station?
Worldview
I recently met former CNN and ABC news anchor Aaron Brown while he spoke on the state of the media. He warned that journalism today is moving toward presenting a popular worldview. His comments were meant as a "dig" at Fox News, but it reminded me that Fox News, NPR, and Lifetime TV are all doing what we should be doing in Hot AC.
Talk radio gets it. Country and Rock understand it.
Why don't we?
The most effective way to live in someone's worldview is to figure out their hot buttons. What grabs their attention? What makes them happy? What is their deepest fear?
Before you dismiss my next statement, think about it.
Too many Hot AC stations wrap themselves around the music.
They give away trips to "follow the band." They brag about breaking artists & songs. The talent feels it necessary to rattle off facts about artists in every back-sell.
Yet when you sit and talk with 25-44 women, that stuff isn't even on their radar. Hot AC is a song driven format and the artists have little meaning. Our "soccer mom" listeners are pre-occupied with their:
- Family's Well Being & Happiness
- Health & Finances
- Time Management
A GM recently shared a telling story about his cluster's theme park promotion. The CHR station had people camping out over-night to be the first in line so they could get in free. The Hot AC had fewer than a dozen people in line.
What was the difference?
The Hot AC listeners told us the investment of time and effort (packing kids in the minivan before dawn) was not worth it. The CHR listeners made the wait into a party.
Do you see a difference?
We did ... and will not waste our listener's time again.
I cannot tell you how many times a concert fly-away winner told me they never ended up using the concert tickets. One said she was having too much fun in New York City to stop and go to the concert.
What does that say about her worldview?
Promotions Make the Connection
I have given away cars, trips and backstage access to every show in town ... Yet the light-bulb didn't go off until WKTI gave away a room remodel (winner gets a $20K credit to remodel a room in their home). Our listener database doubled in size due to sign-ups. We hit a major hot-button inside our listener's worldview - home remodeling.
The previous book we did a $20K cash giveaway. Sure - plenty of players: but very few new sign-ups in the database.
How can that be? The winner could have used the $20K to remodel a home. Why did we get more attention when giving away the remodel?
We "tweaked" a hot-button and asked the listener to imagine them self winning this prize.
Here is a very effective promotion executed by KKJO in St. Joseph Missouri. Health is a Hot AC hot button so KKJO designed a 12 week competition in which the team of four that lost the highest percentage of body weight would win a thousand dollars, a treadmill for each member and four memberships to a sponsor's fitness program. The "Pound Plunge" enrolled over 1200 listeners and had such an impact on St. Joe that the newspaper and local TV had to take notice.
KKJO PD Gregg Lynn told me about touched lives including a man who lost a quarter of his body weight. "He was insulin dependent before and his doctor has taken him off it. People who missed out are already asking if we're doing it again next year."
Hmmm: When was the last time anyone ever asked if you were going to give away a car again? How about a fly-away?
Another Hot AC PD who asked to remain anonymous offered this insight. "Our station wastes too much time trying to counter national contesting. Nobody cares about local versus national winners. They just want to be entertained."
How true.
But you cannot skimp on the reward. Does anyone watch Survivor because of the million dollars? No, but the characters would be less entertaining without greed as a motivator. Contests and promotions that have listener engagement and entertainment as their premise always have the most impact - national or local.
Tell Me a Story
Community events like the "Pound Plunge" offer us a great platform from which to tell a story.
WKTI's award winning "Mothers Helping Mothers" began as a diaper drive. It was warm and fuzzy targeting our core listener. It just existed without any sizzle. The event took on a new life last year when it evolved into "Mothers Helping Mothers." Needy mothers told their stories on the air. One mom asking other moms for help is more powerful than any jock doing it. MHM tripled our collection from the previous year and sure enough, everyone wants to know when we are doing it again.
Radio stations have a long history of being there when the community is in need - and that is a good thing. It just bugs me that we are not getting the due credit.
My guess is that today's "radio-row" model in which every station in the cluster lines-up in front of Wal-Mart for a remote just does not cut through.
As the Hot AC station, you are targeting one of the most generous and caring listeners. She needs to feel the impact with more of the human touch. Instead of a coat drive, find a needy kid and name the drive after him. "Little Timmy's Coats for Kids" will have more impact than the Mix/Star/Magic FM coat drive.
Mixed Messages?
How much time have you spent with listeners in an advisory board or focus group setting? You would be amazed at how irrelevant the average Hot AC message sounds to even our most core listener.
We all agree that "best" and "most" are hollow claims, but somebody needs to kill that "Radio - You hear it here first" campaign. It's laughable in the age of iTunes. Plus, in the Hot AC world nobody cares.
The most damaging claim made on Hot AC is "variety." There is a negative connotation associated with the word when used on the radio. Now, before you take my head off with research and on-line surveys:
- Variety is an expectation - not a position. Basing your message on playing the "Tri-State's Best Variety" is like an ice cream store saying the "Tri-State's Coldest Ice Cream." The consumer says: "Okay - what else?" It's empty.
- Hot AC does not even deliver variety! When you drop a variety sweeper between Nickelback and Kelly Clarkson it's laughable.
- Everyone thinks their favorite station has the best variety.
Music
Hot AC is a format that plays hit music for adults. Since we are searching for passion, it might be worth looking at where we find those adult hits. Our super core 25-34 female audience has become more fragmented in their music taste. I asked Mike Donovan from Vallie-Richards Consulting to share his always keen insight into the state of Hot AC. Mike pointed out CHR's move back toward pop and the evolution of AC to be more contemporary - even if not necessarily more current:
"In the past Hot AC was simply a Recurrent driven format to CHR. Times have changed and the format shares too many Recurrent and Gold titles with Mainstream AC, CHR, 'Jack' and Pop Rock 80's based formats."
Using Black Horse and the Cherry Tree by KT Tunstall as an example of a song more Hot AC programmers should have seen happening, Mike advises:
"Let's not allow traditional thinking about the format or the record companies to place boundaries on us or define the lines of programming between formats. Look for the opportunity regardless of whether or not the song was 'worked' at Hot AC by the record company."
I would add that keeping an open mind when choosing gold songs is a good thing too. Why can't we play Billy Joel or Survivor?
Make an Impact
If we want to drive passion we have to deliver a product that impacts our listener's worldview.
You will not find that worldview looking at Power-Point presentations in the board room. As programmers, we need to spend more time in the listener's world than in Selector. Let's tell stories in everything we do: promos, contests, charity events, etc.
Hot AC is in danger of positioning itself into irrelevancy if we do not address our credibility problem. The biggest offender: "variety." We play mass appeal hit music for adults. So let's go out and find those hits - wherever they may hide.
While we are at it, can we have some fun? It's contagious!
Bob Walker is Program Director of 94.5 WKTI in Milwaukee and consults winning Hot AC stations