The beauty of having one foot in the traditional media and the other stomping around in the digital media morass is that it provides an amazing perspective on the changes that are impacting the worlds of entertainment and information. Today, Paul Jacobs looks back on how March has been going, and what he’s taken away from his recent convention experiences. – FJ
Over the past few weeks, I’ve made the rounds at several conventions – Convergence, the Michigan Association of Broadcasters, Canadian Music Week, and Automotive Megatrends 2013 here in Dearborn, MI. Talk about getting out of the office and soaking in a variety of perspectives on our business from the inside and the outside.
We’ve written often about the importance of attending conferences like CES to truly understand the forces and advancements that are happening outside of the radio industry, but have a direct impact on what we’re broadcasting and where it’s being accessed. The Megatrends event was a case in point.
The “aha moment” came when Jim Nardulli, Senior VP from automotive supplier NNG, talked about the concept of “permanent beta” and how it is impacting automotive technology. He contended that car manufacturers and engineers can no longer strive for perfection. Instead, they need to get their best effort to the market, and then continue to relentlessly perfect it.
This is the same kind of thinking that fuels Mark Zuckerberg’s “The Hacker Way,” and why we regularly see changes, upgrades, and enhancements in Facebook’s platform.
I was thinking about Nardulli’s contention last Friday when I participated in a Consultant’s Roundtable at Canadian Music Week. In this format, a dozen consultants hang out at roundtables while attendees spend 20 minutes asking questions and picking brains before going to another table. It’s a stimulating, eye-opening experience because we can get down and simply talk about our business in a freeform, one-to-one way.
That was until a promotions director from a small market station in Canada asked me for help. She needed to convince her management about why they shouldn’t simply repeat annual promotions with the same approach year after year after year because “we’ve always done it that way and it works.”
And therein lies the problem.
In the technology and automotive worlds, there’s a constant focus on upgrading, enhancing, tweaking, investing, and yes, researching ways to upgrade the product and the user experience. Think about the apps on your phone – the larger players are regularly submitting upgrades to not only correct bugs, but to ensure that their apps are fresh and effective. Yet, our experience with jacAPPS is that too many radio station apps hit the market . . . . . and that’s where it ends. There’s a false sense of satisfaction that since they’ve “gone mobile,” that’s good enough. Yet, in many cases, their app hits the market before the iPhone 4 was introduced and now it isn’t up to snuff with other radio stations, Pandora, Spotify, and other media brands that keep refining their mobile experiences.
The world is in “permanent beta.” We live in an environment of constant reinvention, improvement, and chaos. Consumers are more demanding than ever, and if they have a bad user experience, whether with an app, the quality of an audio stream, or even at a remote, they’ll move on because they’ve got more options than ever.
Sales needs to be in “permanent beta,” too. In case you haven’t noticed, radio revenue is essentially flat. Simply selling the same way, using tried and true rankers, holding “one day sales,” offering up yet another remote package, and talking to the same media buyers is not a recipe for growth. Available dollars are shifting to new solutions, and if radio sellers and managers cannot retool to meet the new demands of devising digital solutions for clients, the dollars will go where the best ideas are created.
We used to work for a client who a few times a year would take his management team on a retreat. But instead of sitting in a hotel meeting room at a Hilton or the station conference room, he selected venues that were stimulating – like a suite at the baseball stadium during an off day for the team. Or a museum. Or on a boat. The result was a stimulating meeting that generated new thinking because the programming and marketing team was allowed to hack away at solutions outside of their usual comfort zone.
It’s time to shake it up, break some china, and get in the game, because our competition – on the radio, online, and in the car – is in a state of “permanent beta.”
That’s not a bad thing. In fact, it’s invigorating.
Try it.
After a brief stint working for the William A. Robinson marketing services agency in Chicago, where he created campaigns for Philip Morris and Seagram's, Paul struck gold when he was hired as an Account Executive at WRIF-FM in Detroit. This experience launched his sales management career, and four years later, he became the General Sales Manager for KZEW-FM in Dallas, and ultimately, the General Manager for KHYI-FM, also in Dallas. He was lured home to run WDFX-FM in Detroit, before joining Jacobs Media as its General Manager in 1991.
Along with overseeing the day-to-day operations of Jacobs Media, Paul’s main contribution has been the addition of sales consulting services. As an expert in all Rock formats, Paul has made Jacobs Media clients’ untold amounts of money by aiding them in their understanding of how to sell, market, and position their formats via sales training seminars. He has conducted hundreds of client presentations on behalf of Jacobs Media clients, and has aided the Ford Motor Company and Procter & Gamble in improving their understanding of the youth market. Paul is a true "format champion" – someone who believes in the power of branding, and developing radio’s inherent assets.
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