Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
You’re likely not going to want to read today’s post. And I can’t blame you if you feel that way. It’s Friday of a long week, and the last thing you’re likely to want to read about right now is the Coronavirus outbreak of 2020 and its reverberations.
But a look on your calendar will remind you it’s been precisely five years right now since the world began shutting down – businesses, cities, family time, sports, movie theaters – everything.
And I haven’t even brought up the more than one million COVID deaths in the U.S. alone. Even if you lost someone near and dear to you as a result of the pandemic, most people have gritted their teeth and tried hard to move on from the biggest disaster of our lifetimes.
The New York Times published a brilliant, interactive photo essay in their “Opinion” section called “How COVID Remade Our America, Five Years Later.”
Fair warning – none of you who take the time to read or peruse it will agree with all of its conclusions. It’s an opinion piece after all. But its takeaways and the accompanying photos should remind you not even how much we lost as a result of this event, but how our lives changed as a result.
And yes, that means the radio industry. Most of us may have hoped (and prayed) at various points on the COVID curve for things to “get back to normal.” But they haven’t…and we know it.
Radio, and how consumers and advertisers use it – changed perhaps for all time. And yet, we’re programming and selling our stations (or asking for donations) like it’s 2019. We’re also marketing our stations like it’s a different era. For most broadcasters, that means little or not at all.
Perceptions about radio and the role it still plays in most people’s lives have been allowed to languish, which has led to erosion. And in recent years, the slippage in pretty much every performance column (ratings, sales, stock price, head count) has come even faster and furious than most anticipated.
During COVID, Jacobs Media conducted nine tracking studies – three each for commercial, public, and Christian music radio. We didn’t charge participating stations a dime to participate as
“stakeholders,” enabling them to receive their discreet audience data for each survey.
Nope, I’m not expecting a round of applause for our efforts. These studies were our givebacks to an industry we love. Anyone and everyone could participate, from our clients to our competitors. The goal was to make radio management and ownership more knowledgeable and informed about the war they were fighting, and how they should respond to a truly unanticipated event. In many ways, these studies provided important insights about the environment radio was in from both the programming and sales (or membership) perspectives.
But what they didn’t reveal to any great degree was the emotional toll the pandemic was taking on all of us – our lives, our families, our careers.
Among some of the conclusions in the Times essay that may resonate with you:
“It may have halted the years long decline of Christianity in America” – In radio these days, the rise of Christian stations over the past few years has bucked the trends. More stations, more purchases, more success. Why is it happening? COVID played a role:
via NYTimes
“It changed the geography of work, probably forever.” During COVID, WFH became a common acronym, describing the new work habits and environments that millions adopted during the early days of COVID. And here we are, five years later, and companies (and the federal government) are still trying to figure out how to bribe or bully their employees to return to their cubicles and work spaces. For radio, fewer commuters on the way to work has taken its toll on what was once known as “drive time.”
via NYTimes
“It turned us into hyper individualists.”
There’s no convenient pie or bar chart that illustrates this one, but I believe it might resonate for you – and perhaps the audience constituency you’re tasked with serving. In that sense during COVID, we were fixated on our own individual screens, listening with our Air Pods to our own unique playlists, and driving alone and insulated in our cars.
Rather than hang out at the water cooler with our fellow employees and teams, many of us ended up holed up in our homes, juggling taking care of pets and kids, streaming Netflix content by the box car, and occasionally, even getting some work done.
On the radio, our Techsurveys indicate that station brands with the most trusted personoalities may have enjoyed a decided edge in engagement and loyalty during these worst of times.
Emotionally, radio had the ability to connect with listeners on a companionship level it perhaps never had before. Again, personalities were the difference-makers, but Christian radio watched its influence expand as growing numbers of fans utilized them for inspiration and to feel more “uplifted” during this tragic time.
The COVID crisis has abated. As many experts have predicted, we have learned to live with it. I’ve been on airplanes most of this week, and I’d estimate the number of mask-wearers is no more than 5%. People are still getting sick, but much fewer are dying as a result.
But our emotional understanding of the role radio plays in the lives of consumers is suspect. We are much more fixated on making our numbers than we are making the lives of our listeners better – even though the pursuit of the latter would likely improve the former.
And that brought to mind a nice piece in AdAge by Yonder’s Tom Wormald
(pictured), “5 Ways To Make Consumer Insights work For Your Brand.” The article’s subhead, “The hidden influence of consumer perceptions” goes to the heart of what I’m talking about.
Like your friendly blogger, Wormald is a big fan of listening to the audience, rather than just using research to just test stuff – like music, personalities, and contests. He points out that consumers these days have bigger issues than song burn-out or face-offs between two competing radio stations.
Wormald is focused on those audience (and advertiser) perceptions and opinions “shaped by personal experiences and larger societal issues are far more influential in shaping consumer views about the product than any surface marketing concerns.”
I cherrypicked some of his most salient advice, although you can read his entire article for yourself.
Start by looking outside the brand – He advocates trying to gain an understanding of how a radio station or a host connects with a listener personally. When radio understands what motivates people, programming takes on a great sense of relevancy.
Great stations and shows have a deeper sense and appreciation for the factors moving the audience – a local sports team, layoffs in the community, a weather disaster, a major event that comes to town. All these change the calculus of connecting with your consumers.
Be obsessed with understanding people – This goes to the heart of Simon Sinek’s “What’s your why?’ rather than “What’s your format?” It is about gaining insight into what motivates people – whether it’s the insatiable need to see Taylor Swift, go to the Super Bowl, support democracy, or connect with Jesus.
As Tom Wormald says it’s about “understanding people’s motivations’ in order to build trust.” And this next statement goes to the heart of what we stand for at Jacobs Media:
“I’ve worked with companies that see people as consumers. But if my next client happens to be a charity, that company will view people as donors, political parties will treat them as voters, and so on. But at the core, it’s the same individuals seen through different lenses. The key is to recognize people in their full complexity, not just through the narrow scope of an organization’s objectives.”
Give people a voice – Another Jacobs tenet, this mindset goes beyond having that empty chair in strategic meetings so the team doesn’t forget about the listeners as we map out the tactics designed to have a great spring book.
As Wormald reminds, the challenge is to figure out “what truly matters to people.” I can tell you it’s not “the station that plays too many bad songs along with the good ones.”
He also suggests that the glut of misinformation has made it even more difficult for a radio station or personality to win over the audience’s trust. By giving people a voice, they can assist in solving a problem or a challenge, rather than being part of the problem themselves.
To me, the COVID crisis can seem like it was yesterday – or 20 years ago. But to deny its impact on us and what we do, especially within an “always on” local medium like radio is to deny the potential radio still has to play a larger role in people’s lives.
But radio’s fortunes aren’t going to turn by doing the same things we were doing, saying, and playing five years ago.
The world’s changed. Trust me on that.
Originally published by Jacobs Media
