The Jacobs Media Blog

Ecommerce is exploding and will hit records this year. Meanwhile, the traditional shopping experience – going to the mall – is under pressure to pivot, adapt, and innovate. Here are 4 ways malls are reinventing and reimagining the shopping experience. And they’re directly applicable to radio’s challenge to adapt and thrive in a fast-changing digital media environment.

The holiday season is in full gear, and as our app research has shown the past several years, downloads sharply rise as consumers open up their gifts and fire up their gadgets. The expected rush of smart speaker sales – especially the Amazon Echo – means gift recipients will be learning Alexa commands – the perfect time for radio to step up its promotional presence of these devices.

It’s truly a legacy media conundrum: how to protect the franchise – the “mother ship” – while ensuring the brand has a successful future with new and younger audiences in mind. For inspiration and answers, we turn to the new “Star Wars” movie where flat is most definitely not the new up.

Many have said podcasting won’t take off until there are reliable, standard metrics so seller and buyers can do business together. Late last week, Apple introduced its long-awaited Podcast Analytics, giving podcasters insights into their shows. Guest blogger and podcaster, Seth Resler, chimes in with some observant first impressions.

An oft-repeated frustration in the world of podcasting is about discoverability – the difficulty of finding the best content out there. Seth Resler queried an all-star cast of podcasters and smart people in the field – and it turned into a conversation about podcasting itself – specifically, why more people aren’t listening to podcasts in the first place. This is a must-read for companies and executives looking to add podcasting to their content repertoires.

A new report from Nielsen reveals critical data about radio – P1 listening time, how the full-time employed use radio, and away-from-home listening – that can help both programmers and sales managers with their 2018 planning and budgeting. But did anyone read it?

New technology knows no bounds, and today’s post highlights three new potential tech trends – some of which may surprise you. “The next big thing” doesn’t always come from Amazon, Google, and Apple. In fact, it may come from the unlikeliest of places.

Broadcast radio – especially commercial stations – has struggled in the podcasting era. But a look at the most popular podcasts reveals radio stations and shows have a huge on-demand opportunity by deftly managing, producing, and marketing already existing “evergreen content.” For companies trying to get their arms around podcasting, here are some great examples of where it’s working.

The auto companies are innovating, and radio should be taking notes. A new embedded dashboard app from General Motors allows consumers to directly purchase goods and services from the driver’s seat – a potentially powerful new tool for advertisers. But the radio industry has some solid options of its own that could improve response and results in its #1 listening location. Today’s post discussed how this could work.

Podcasting is a growing platform, but sometimes it takes a powerful catalyst to unleash the power of a platform. Enter Oprah, who along with partner Midroll, is killing it in the podcast space. Oprah’s “success formula” is something that everyone in radio intuitively knows. Today’s post breaks down how broadcasters can cash in on podcasting.

Amazon and Google are pulling out the stops this holiday season to ramp up sales of their hottest product: smart speakers. But at the root of these innovative gadgets is voice command technology – a force we’re predicting could be the highlight at next month’s CES Convention in Las Vegas. Today’s post is all about the power of voice and what it will mean to radio’s future.

In just the last several weeks, the media and entertainment world has been rocked by sexual harassment scandals, leading to the dismissal of superstar talent in the wake of these controversies. Last week’s shocker – the sudden exit of Matt Lauer from “Today” is loaded with lessons for radio about how these environments are allowed to exist and how to prevent them from overwhelming the organization. It’s not an easy topic, but an important one.