It happened again. And again, we shook our collective heads while watching the train wreck with interest.
Two American-based brands stepped into a pile last week. One revealed a change in leadership and a fired CEO whose policies resulted in millions of dollars in losses.
That brand – Target – went all in supporting a polarizing cause. Even Target’s founding family members warned against planting a D.E.I. flag in with their brand initiatives. Target lost market share, shareholder value and C-Level leadership.
The other fumble was higher profile, causing a social media firestorm that still is white-hot a week later.
Nearly everyone with a digital account and a keyboard has voiced their opinion on The Cracker Barrel’s rebrand and image makeover. Company losses already have topped $100 million in market value as diners voice their displeasure, while pundits say – not so fast.
Lessons From Past Marketing Missteps
Choose any brand ‘ball drop’ and the following marketing carnage.
The 2023 Dylan Mulvaney experiment – a transgender activist promoting America’s beer – cost Bud Light huge market share and dozens of jobs. Now, a Mexican beer – Modelo – is America’s favorite.
Staying on the beverage category. Pepsi’s 2017 Kendall Jenner Ad. Pepsi created a commercial with Kendall Jenner handing a police officer a Pepsi during a protest. Some considered the ad to be trivializing serious social justice movements. Backlash forced Pepsi to pull the ad within 24 hours.
We see it all the time in all formats.
A brand gets new leadership, and that leadership has an ego-driven desire to place their mark on the brand. Not listener-driven. No market forces precipitate the moves. All internally driven.
Long ago, we worked with a General Manager who – pardon the language – referred to this practice as “pissing on the bushes.”
So, where is the lesson in these mishaps for Adult Contemporary brands?
Successful AC stations and all adult radio brands foster a loyal, mature audience that has become brand loyal, which enjoys ‘routine’ and rejects change.
At any point in your evolution, ask yourself – and your audience if change is necessary.
A quick look at where various radio stations fumble:
Brand Foundation
- As an Adult Contemporary brand, choosing a solid Music Matrix is the easy part. Free resources and research guidance are plenty, as we wrote a year back in THIS piece. Variances from this basic foundation could spell disaster, leading to audience loss.
- We DO encourage you to build a solid Secret Weapon Category. That stack of tunes – even providing a ‘WOW’ factor – needs to be in line with audience expectations. And properly promoted to explain the listener benefit.
- Clustering of commercials has been a raging debate for decades. What does your listener have to say about the stop set length? Ask them through simple surveys or Listener Panels. Switching from two to four or five breaks could benefit or break both ways.
Visual Logo
- Logo redesign is one of the first places new leadership seems to want to ‘piss on the bushes.’ Your logo is your long-term calling card, and any changes will confuse your listener. In addition, a logo change requires loads of marketing and several seasons to ‘print’ with your listener
- Legacy logos that have served corporate brands well for decades, including the Spencerian script logo of Coca-Cola, created in the late 1800s. Jack Daniel’s black and white look is a century old, while Campbell’s Soup’s red and white logo dates back to the 1890s.
- We DID write in THIS piece last week about adding seasonal changes to your logo to remain relevant. However, never change your base logo without solid reasoning.
Audio Logo
- We discourage a change from audio structure in your on-air atmospherics. If you deploy a jingle package, stay consistent with that particular audio signature and chord progression. While fresh music spots brighten your brand, stay true to the original audio signature. You own it.
- The same discipline with a jingle signature extends to your voice-over talent. A tenured VO actor on your brand is also an instant audio cue for the listener. Change your voice talent only when it is necessary, such as a dramatic fee increase or issues beyond your control.
- Examples of audio that haven’t changed in many of our lifetimes include the 1927 NBC Chimes. Which are the longest-used audio logo in broadcast history. “Nationwide is on Your Side” is six decades old. Even the Intel Bong dates back to the early 1990s.
Air Promotions
- We encourage clients to keep the same successful on-air promotion season after season, another item you own. Time needs to be invested in explaining the mechanics and benefits of any new promotion. A change to the how-to-win architecture will confuse the listener in the short term.
- Create a unique audio piece that signals the listeners to call. Keep it consistent. Examples used in the past include The Free Money Tookie Bird, Elvis the Prize Cow and telephone/cash register sound effects. You will also ‘own’ this.
- iHeart has run the same $1,000 Weekday giveaway national contest for years. The name of that quarterly content may change by season, but the mechanics remain the same. A change in how to play will take a season to burn in with their listeners.
We use the phrase “Be The Moon, Not The Sun”.
Reflect the light of your target audience. Make the spotlight on them, NOT you.
Discover the audience’s expectation of your brand and the desired experience with your station.
Then stay consistent with your tactics to avoid a big brand or marketing blunder.
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Kevin Robinson is a passionate award-winning programmer, consultant and coach – with multi-formats success all over the country. He has advised numerous companies including Audacy (formerly Entercom Communications), Beasley Broadcast Group, Westwood One, Midwest Communications, Townsquare Media, Midwest Family Broadcasting Group, EG Media Group, Federated Media, Kensington Media, mediaBrew Communications, Starved Rock Media, and more. He specializes in strategic radio cluster alignment, building lean-forward tactics and talent coaching – legacy and entry-level – personalities.
Known largely as a trusted talent coach, Kevin is the only personality mentor who’s coached three different morning shows on three different brands in the same major market to the #1 position. His efforts have been recognized by The World Wide Radio Summit, Radio & Records, NAB’s Marconi, and he has coached CMA, ACM and Marconi Award-winning talent. He is also in The Zionsville High School Hall of Fame as part of the 2008 inaugural class. Kevin is an Indiana native – living near Zionsville with his wife of 39 years, Monica and can be reached at kevin@robinsonmedia.fm.
