Christian was talking about how Internet advertising has figured out how to follow users around the Web after that person shows interest in a certain product. From website to website the ads follow you if you showed any interest in purchasing that product. Christian said Brooks Brother is stalking him. And, here’s how he brought it all back to radio.
After describing his Brooks Brothers nightmare, Christian asked the question: what is radio doing about this? Then he answered: not much. He says the Internet ad stalking is the same as radio playing stopsets so long, stations become unlistenable (something we’ve written about on this website for many years). And Christian believes it’s getting worse. “Selling more at lower prices does not work in radio. Quality control is important. This is a problem for the industry. It’s damaging something special. It is destroying the ambiance of radio. It’s destroying radio’s image.”
Christian said he recently spent some time discussing the issue with former WBEB owner Jerry Lee who, he says, was a maniac about the length of stopsets and the content of the commercials. Lee has invested heavily in the science of ad effectiveness in recent years and has been trying to get more of the radio industry to buy into ads that really work. Imagine that.
Radio advertising is only good for one thing. For event advertising. Why? because of the annoying repetition. Sound familiar! Repetition! Repetition! Repetition! Outside of that, digital marketing and targeted marketing is where the rubber meets the road. Radio is not as effective as TV when it comes to driving people into the digital space. Content is King and Video is Queen. If your content is compelling, the audience will stay engaged. The simple fact that you are all bitching about ads you have seen tells EVERYONE it is working. Love them or hate them, you saw them, they were delivered, and the client knows that in real time. Unlike your commercial in a stop set, you have no idea who heard it and what they did with the information they consumed. Currently when you hit a commercial, it is an invitation for a person to check out and stop listening and engage with whomever (or whatever) they need too on their smart devices. The big question is, how do you drive the audience into YOUR own space using the commercial content you create? Think about the true data you could present back to that paying client, if there is something there for your listener. Oh yeah I forgot that every radio station site is about as homogenized as radio itself has been for the past 15 years. The day you design your site to connect consumers with your clients for true engagement, then you have a right to bitch about targeting and re-targeting. Until then keep driving them into the digital world in :30 and :60 second intervals so companies have a real chance of engaging YOUR audience (for months at a time like you are talking about). By the way Amazon and Facebook are just two small ways to track you! Unfortunately, you can’t hide so stay engaged and learn what works.
I just love it. “I’m going to attack everyone while wearing a mask and not let anyone know who I am because basically I’m going to make up half of everything I say and since no one will be able to hold me accountable it will not matter.” DIGITAL COMPANION obviously sells DIGITAL advertising and has never spent a single dollar advertising anything with his own money. We have all kinds of clients who are seeing tremendous success with their RADIO advertising and it is NOT for events. The results speak for themselves. RADIO GETS RESULTS when you know how to use it. Obviously, DIGITAL COMPANION has never studied radio or any other medium and has no idea how to offer helpful advice.
Don’t ever look at a mortgage on line. I made the mistake a year ago and I’m still being dogged.
I was served ads for hot tubs for 15 months AFTER I bought one. Once the online advertisers figure out how to “untarget” after purchase, their ad waste will drop – and value will increase.
I am currently being stalked by a lawn mower I purchased in early March (same day I checked prices and availability on-line). Over the summer I have been served up hundreds of “highly trackable” digital Ads for a product I will not consider purchasing again for perhaps a decade.
I read a news story about medical marijuana recently. Since then several companies have paid good money for me to be fed an endless stream digital Ads for a weird array of grow it at home devices including slicers, dicers, indoor grow tents, fans, pumps, lights etc. all of which is completely wasted on me.
No doubt all these companies are receiving impressive data on the excellent targeted delivery of their campaigns.
Enough said.
Multiple forms of ads work for different consumers at different times. Radio Still has the largest reach but yes it can do a better job with the long commercial brakes. Effective ads can be a mixture of multiple media outlets but it does not meat you will buy the product. For example if you hear a car ad and you just purchased a car the ad may be reaching the target audience but your decision has been made. This is similar with digital. If you are buy a refrigerator on Amazon and you start getting targeted ads for refrigerators, they are targeting the correct consumer. The hope is perhaps the ads catch you while you are in the search process and the radio ad supports the message and steers you to a particular brand or product while you are in the buying process.
Well, contrary to the opinions I see here so far, with regard to “Targeting and Retargeting”, I’m completely in the other direction. I stopped using facebook long, long ago for this very (and creepy) reason and I can honestly say I have never (and I mean literally never) responded to any pop-up ads targeted at me supposedly offering my a product I’m interested in. As a matter of fact, they drive me crazy and are an annoyance to me at best. I close them as soon as they pop up (if I can – sometimes I close them three or four times – pain in the ass). . And speaking of a pain in the ass ….. YES, iHeart, Cumulus and many, many more large company (AND very small company) radio owners, managers and employees CONTINUE to run WAY WAY too many commercials per hour and LONG stop-sets. The radio industry lack of real leadership (money where your mouth is) has allowed this to begin and continue on and on and on. The actual model of live people on the radio who curate content is the much superior model if done correctly but that is a big IF. Algorithms ain’t gonna cut it, however, neither is running 18 minutes an hour of bad spots.
I’ve been “targeted” many times by Amazon. But after giving some serious thought to the issue, for me it is not bad. Amazon targeted (enticed) me with ads about purchasing a specific genre of books that I have an affinity for. And in the past I have purchased a number of them. It was a good thing for me.
As a pure radio consumer, (and not a radio manager) for the first time in my career. There is no bigger issue for my past industry than this “piling
on” of commercial inventory. It is UNLISTENABLE and worse than that, it’s a tremendous disservice to the advertiser.
And yes, it’s called targeting on line, after a business determines you have interest in a product. Clients love it because it’s trackable and radio CEO’s hate it because they’re in massive denial of true consumer purchasing patterns. Clients won’t cross their fingers anymore and hope their :30 second ad that’s the 9 unit in a stop set will work. ##truth
its called targeting and retargeting..you radio dinosaurs!!!
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