Our thanks to JazzRadio CEO Julian Allitt in Germany for sending in this international advertiser success story. JazzRadio Berlin has a bi-weekly cume of 528,000 listeners and, because the station is blockaded by bigger radio groups to stop them from getting national advertising, local and regional advertising clients are very important. Check out what they’ve done with The Ellington Hotel.
(by Julian Allitt)
The sign going up on a new hotel in the city centre was the clue which alerted the management of German radio station JazzRadio Berlin. It read “The Ellington”.
That was in late 2006. Since the 285-room Ellington Hotel opened in March the following year, the station has been broadcasting from a showpiece studio in the hotel lounge.
In that time JazzRadio has earned more than 300,000 Euro (355,000 USD) in monthly payments from the hotel and established a thriving jazz concert series at The Ellington, now generating more than 100,000 Euro profit per year.
For its part, the 4-star Ellington credits JazzRadio with having provided the hotel with a USP which has left other Berlin hoteliers envious and attracted significant new business for the hotel. “It is, “says hotel Director Tina Brack, “a win-win situation in which we work creatively together”.
Englishman Julian Allitt, JazzRadio CEO, explains, “We had actually been broadcasting for a couple of years from another hotel, part of a large chain but with frequent changes of the hotel management and we did not always feel appreciated. So we were ready for a move”.
JazzRadio Berlin is Germany’s only 24/7 FM jazz radio station, with a cume of 528.000 listeners. It is online at www.jazzradio.net/streams and, although broadcasting in German, also has listeners in the USA. Since 1999, it has picked up 24 awards at the New York International Radio Awards, including five Gold Worldmedals.
Allitt added, “We feel truly appreciated at The Ellington. They understand the power of radio marketing and we have worked closely together from the start. Being involved with the hotel gives us a standout profile in the Berlin radio landscape”.
The station operates from its own office and production studio in the next street to The Ellington but often holds client meetings over coffee in the hotel lounge.
Tina Brack added, “It was naturally a great challenge to integrate a radio station but we get on very well together and work together very creatively. We have developed many events together, some of them for many years, including the concerts and our weekly JazzBrunch.
“JazzRadio supports us with very effective on-air marketing messages – the station matches our hotel perfectly. Julian Allitt and his team are always pleasant and fair in their dealings with us”. It is a sentiment which Allitt reciprocates completely.
The Ellington is actually hallowed ground for Berlin jazz-lovers. The hotel buildings include the site of the former “Badewanne” Jazz Club where all the jazz greats played in the early postwar years, including Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole. Dinah Washington and, of course, Duke Ellington.
Fittingly, Duke Ellington’s nephew, Doug Ellington, performed at the hotel three years ago. “It was a very special evening, “ says Tina Brack.
Juliann can be reached by e-mail at [email protected] and check out the radio station at www.jazzradio.net
