Back during some of the darkest days of COVID in 2020, I wrote a blog post called “Giving Your Listeners The Feels.” I have found that in conversations with radio listeners and colleagues that some of us have already forgotten what it was like during this uncertain period where we seriously did not know how the story would end. Other tragedies, whether weather or economic-related have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Not so for the pandemic.
In the post, I evoked the quote you see above by author Maya Angelou, the brilliant writer, who passed away back in 2014. Known as one of the most banned authors throughout the history of America, that’s all the more reason to pay attention to her words. While today’s post is about product marketing – specifically your radio station – it goes to the heart of how we connect our products to the people who buy and use them.
So often in the world of marketing, we cling to product benefits, often to the deficit of everything else. If you worked in radio during the “P.I.” period – pre-Internet – you know just how easy it was to get consumers to sample a radio station.
Most of the time, it was a matter of telling them what you did. Assuming you found a format hole big and compelling enough to matter, a handful of billboards or a newspaper ad or two often started the cume-building process. After all, where else were consumers going to be able to consistently hear the music you specialized in?
But in the competitive era we’ve been a part of these past couple decades, getting their attention – and keeping it – is a much bigger challenge. There’s too much of everything thanks in no small part to the “long tail” nature of the web.
Anyone can start up a “radio station” online, launch a Twitch channel, or a YouTube or TikTok enterprise full of catchy videos that attract millions of downloads.
It’s true in most other product categories as well. If you spent any time on Amazon during Prime Day(s), it may have hit you just how much stuff there is to buy. As a consumer, it can be overwhelming. But we have tools to make consumption easier and even more satisfying.
Back in the “P.I.” era, we didn’t have product reviews outside of Consumer Reports perhaps. We didn’t have an opportunity to scan others’ experiences with a product. There weren’t social media sites to discuss how products lived up or down to expectations. And there weren’t “Contact Us” resources to speak back to the company that made the product in the first place. Whether you bought a car or a can opener, you pretty much took your chances on the product, often relying on the brand of manufacturer as a guide.
Back then, a company name went a lot further than it does today. And that’s the realization that the first chief marketing director of Bose – Jim Mollica – has rapidly realized. Think about it –
Bose has a great reputation for making quality audio products. And they have longevity. The brand celebrates its 50th anniversary next year.
The fact he’s their first CMO says a great deal about how the company traditionally markets its products. For most of its nearly half century in business, Bose has been about its products almost exclusively – what they are, what they do, and their “specs.” Coming from Disney, Under Armour, Ralph Lauren, and Viacom, he understands what it means to compete for attention in a chaotic marketplace:
“Rightly so, the priority (at Bose) was always about the engineering and the product that took center stage.”
In radio parlance, tell them what you do, keep it simple, boil it down to a simple, memorable statement:
“We’re Norfolk’s Country Station.”
“We play 10-song commercial-free marathons.”
“We’re where you go to hear school closings.”
“We’re Tampa’s public radio station.”
“We’re the place for traffic and weather together in the Bay Area.”
A new story in The Drum by Hannah Bowler – “Bose No Longer Wants To Be A Product-first Brand And Is Rooting Itself In Culture Instead” – tracks Jim Mollica’s journey at Bose.
As he assumed the marketing throne at the Massachusetts-rooted Bose, he knew full-well simply hanging out the company banner, leaning on the company’s reputation for producing quality products, and displaying the well-known company logo wasn’t going to cut it.
Stealing a page out of the Maya Angelou playbook, Mollica’s plan is a simple one:
“It’s not what the product does as much as it’s what it does for you and how it can transform your mood.”
Techsurvey fans and stakeholders know the drill very well. As we discovered more than a decade ago, brand loyalty and sustainability is often pinned to the emotional foundation a brand creates.
Our “Why Radio?” question series paints the picture of the emotional underpinnings that great brands create – and audiences appreciate.
Those little red circle e’s tell the often untold story about how brands stand out, capture attention, and maintain their distance and uniqueness over the competitors:
Companionship, mood elevation, connectedness, a sense of place, and the knowledge the station will be “there” during an emergency are some of the emotional hot buttons that emerge year after year on the charts and graphs that make up Techsurvey.
For Mollica and Bose, it’s about “creating products for passionate music fans by passionate music fans then it’s not about utility and functionality, it’s about emotion.”
Those little red circle e’s.
Mollica’s battle plan is only a click or two away from how many radio stations might design their architecture. For Bose, it’s about leaning into cultural events, music festivals, and even “certain sporting events those things inherently have music as an intertwined moment. We just need to be able tt tell stories off of that. That was the assignment.”
That signals the end of “that was/this is” for Bose – as it should be for your radio station.
To make it come to life, Mollica’s team is leaning on short-form videos, podcasts, and even the creation of a “brand ambassador” program “that hands over control to trusted talent.”
Interestingly, Dave Beasing who many of you recall as
senior consultant at Jacobs Media for more than a decade, is the founder of Sound That Brands, a company specializing in podcasts for companies like Bose that need to artfully tell their stories, showing off the emotional patina of their brands to consumers often overwhelmed by repetitive commercials and annoying come-ons.
Dave was also the force behind “The Sound Backstagers,” a novel group of energetic, social media-savvy brand ambassadors who he deployed when he was the “chief programming officer” of the much-respected KSWD in L.A.
I’ve blogged about this group of uber-fans, many of whom still are connected to one another, despite the fact their favorite station was spun off to Christian broadcaster EMF six years ago.
This is a similar playbook to the one Mollica is running at Bose. He’s connecting the brand with “music geeks” who already use the company’s products. In this way, the company’s marketing connects the emotional fabric of consumers with the great DNA of the Bose brand:
As Jim Mollica reminds, “Bose has always created incredible products. But the opportunity that I saw for the company was to tell stories about how these products help people fulfill their emotional needs and desires.”
You might want to get in touch with your inner-Maya Angelou to guide your brand through the challenges of today. And answer these questions:
Who’s telling your radio station’s story?
How can you leverage the passion of your fans?
What are your brand’s little red circle e’s?
Jacobs Media has consistently walked the walk in the digital space, providing insights and guidance through its well-read national Techsurveys.
In 2008, jacapps was launched - a mobile apps company that has designed and built more than 1,300 apps for both the Apple and Android platforms. In 2013, the DASH Conference was created - a mashup of radio and automotive, designed to foster better understanding of the "connected car" and its impact.
Along with providing the creative and intellectual direction for the company, Fred consults many of Jacobs Media's commercial and public radio clients, in addition to media brands looking to thrive in the rapidly changing tech environment.
Fred was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2018.
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Bose makes the Wave radio, which has a really good (analog) tuner, Fred. So why have they never supported HD Radio?
This one really resonates with me. When I was running a station, I always told my staff that the brand of the station wasn’t the music. Music was the product, but not the brand…and that brand wasn’t about what WE wanted people to feel about US – it was about how people felt about THEMSELVES in the presence of our brand. People can get music anywhere, but where do they go to feel connected to their own local music scene or to connect with other that also love what they love. Its about tribalism…and that is not formed around a product. People don’t just seek out others who love coffee, they seek out their Starbucks tribe. So, yes yes and yes, its time for radio to embrace its brand attributes!
Abby, appreciate the thoughts and the comment. Radio – done well – provides a sense of belonging, connection. Often when we moderate focus groups for public radio stations, we pack up for the night, only to discover a handful of respondents energetically talking in the parking lot. They are members of “the tribe,” often organically forming around the station, NPR, or public radio in general. How can we lean into that?