Today in two conversations two separate radio stations told me how they were promoting their brand using Pandora. Yes, you heard that right. One is a Christian non-com that is pitching its Christmas programming in season – just click right through to the station! This is an incredibly elegant and (in hindsight) obvious tactic to meet the music-loving audience where they are for a unique programming proposition that’s only a click away. A targeted message that, this station re

That’s the lesson from the vivid interview just posted by Radio Ink with a New Jersey car dealer. Much credit goes to Radio Ink for this post, because I have no doubt that they will receive oodles of complaint emails from broadcasters who presume that the secrets of accountability can be kept from their clients in a digital world. Well, they can’t. From Radio Ink: William Feinstein is the President of Planet Honda in New Jersey. He was so impressed with the results and the tr

A couple years ago, radio industry vets would have scoffed at the idea that a leading broadcaster like Radio One would ever consider erasing the word “radio” from its name.  But that is exactly what’s on the table for the folks at Radio One who are finding that more of their revenue is coming from local media activities and less of their revenue is coming from radio advertising per se. If and when they make this change it will not constitute “giving up on radio.” Rather, it w

“Did it work?” is rarely the question since most radio sales operations don’t care to know (and neither do many agencies). But “most” certainly does not mean “all.” And in this age of rampant accountability – an era when return-on-investment is a readily available metric as close as a Google Adword, some broadcasters are offering up something to advertisers that they’re not accustomed to seeing from radio: Proof. Proof that their radio buy works. Lurking in the sales pit at C

A reader sent me this note recently: Dear Mark: As a radio copywriter, one of the largest frustrations I’ve had is never knowing how our campaigns do. We get the “great job”, “I love it!” from clients and reps alike but we rarely hear how much interaction it garnered with the listening audience. Did it bring in more customers? Increase sales of the specific product? We never know and are adamantly dissueded by sales departments who don’t want to open the door allowing clients

One of the reasons why ratings are less important than ever is because accountability – measuring what works – is more important than ever. In an ideal world, you need both reach and accountability.  You need stuff to be heard (and seen) by a broad audience – AND you need results for your advertisers.  This, of course, is one of radio’s great opportunities in the new – more accountable – world. One of my great frustrations about radio is that we invest so much effort in being