One of the highlights for me at this year’s Nielsen’s Client Conference was to actually sit in on panels and sessions that we didn’t plan as part of our Jacobs Media Summit agenda. The former Arbitron/now Nielsen team did a great job putting together a strong series of sessions. And it was fun and interesting to watch a guy like Steve Jones whose “Brand Like A Rock Star” presentation was fun, engaging, and very familiar to someone like me who has spent his entire career in rock radio.
And then there was Edison Research’s political panel – “Running Your Next Campaign – What Radio Can Learn From Pollsters.” It featured a couple of political heavyweights from both sides of the aisle – Mark Mellman (D) and David Winston (R) – interviewed by Larry Rosin and Joe Lenski.
L-R: Joe Lenski, Mark Mellman, David Winston, Larry Rosin
Everything was going pretty much the way you’d expect – including a more civil, rational conversation about politics than you typically see on Crossfire or on Fox News.
But when the conversation moved to media options for political campaigns, the session took a weird and controversial turn. Mellman – who is one smart guy and a very savvy strategist – averred that radio is simply not part of his advertising arsenal.
Why?
In his words (and I’m relying on memory and Tom Taylor), radio has not proven its effectiveness in moving the needle for political campaigns. Mellman pointed out that “You’ve got to be able to show people, in a controlled experiment, what the impact was (of radio).” And in his opinion, radio has never provided that data to political strategists and campaigns.
Mellman also opined that radio is difficult to buy and target effectively. And then he pointed to the fact that some stations have rules about how many spots for candidates that stations will allow to run. He mentioned “one a daypart” as an example of radio’s version of marketing “term limits.”
And you know the amazing part of all this? Most people in the room did not appear to react to Mellman’s dis of radio, and appeared to be buried in their laptops, tablets, and phones.
One person who did step up was up was Pilot Group partner Marshall Cohen, better known as a close business advisor to Bob Pittman. As you may recall, Clear Channel hired D.C. lawyer Nathan Daschle (pictured, and son of Tom) last June to head up their political strategy unit. Daschle is charged with focusing on “working with political and issue advertisers and advertising agencies to develop custom strategies and campaigns that leverage the unique power of Clear Channel Media and Entertainment.”
So Marshall asked about how radio might be able to win a bigger piece of the political advertising pie away from TV. And Mellman was steadfast in his belief that radio represents an unproven avenue that he avoids come campaign time. It’s just not part of his marketing tool kit.
Despite being on stage all morning and throughout lunch in our “connected car” session, I grabbed a mic. And believe me, I was sick of hearing my own voice at that point in the conference. But I could not believe that a traditional medium like radio was being left aside by advisors as influential as Mellman and Winston. (And by the way, Mellman freely admitted that in the experiments he’s seen, online advertising has not proven to be effective either.)
Mellman essentially said that radio has not made a persuasive pitch to his firm, and of course, that got Mary Beth Garber out of her chair with questions of her own.
But the bottom line to all of this is that in a glacially slow advertising environment for radio, here’s a big category that’s been around since dirt, using a medium that’s been part of Americans’ lives for going on 100 years.
And we haven’t made our case to politicians and their strategists by now?
Radio may have a lot of work to when it comes to digital, mobile, and social – topics that frequent this space. But when we see something traditional and basic like political advertising on the radio raise questions on the one hand, and shrugs on the other, there sure seems to be something very wrong with the way the medium is marketing itself or is being positioned.
I am not a fan of “radio needs to tell its story,” but it’s abundantly clear that radio needs to get a story. And then do a better job making a persuasive case to the decision makers in the political arena. We continue to hear broadcasters budgeting around political races, and yet, a couple of savvy, wizened politicos are telling us that we’re not even in the game.
Put that on your list of New Year’s resolutions.
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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I have to ask though, can radio take advantage of our recent tech advances to stay competitive with political ad dollars? I would be afraid to do much more with political ads than air them in standard spot breaks for fear that the station comes across as partisan. Just wondering if anyone has explored new and outside of the box ideas for political ads in our medium.
Matt, good questions, to be sure. But what Mellman was talking about is the overall effectiveness of the medium – something he says has never been proven. It starts there. Thanks for the comment, hopefully, the first of several from engaged radio people.
#facepalm
The cognitive dissonance is striking. Leaving aside the question of who may, or may not, be the de facto leader of the Republican Party and where he broadcasts, Salem’s purchase of Red State and the remainder of the Malkin properties, so they can be combined with the radio and publishing divisions, is…just because?
Cognitive dissonance is an apt description, Mikel. I am hoping to hear from other politicos on this topic. Thanks for the chiming in.
Fred:
There’s not mystery behind Mark Mellman’s words. Radio was given the same road map by “Bill Koenigsberg, the President, CEO and Founder of Horizon Media. Radio Ink reported it this was: “For what seems like decades, radio has only been able to muster up about 7% of an advertiser’s budget. So we asked Koenigsberg what it was going to take for radio to increase that number.” https://www.radioink.com/article.asp?id=2383402
Mr. Koenigsberg ‘s response: “I think return of investment proof and engagement proof is critical.” Pretty much the same as what was said by Mr. Mellman.
I deeply respect Mary Beth Garber, but she makes good money defending radio – using statistics that carry little weight in today’s ad buying market.
Accountability is what’s being sought today. Prove ROI, not through statistics, but through the use of metrics. Radio is still delivering impressions, using commercials that sound as if they were created in the 1960s.
There’s a way for the radio industry to deliver accountable advertising campaigns; we’ve just not seen any company invest in this system to date.
Ken, thanks for adding perspective to this. You’re correct about the accountability piece. But I would bet that even in that “controlled experiment” that Mellman talks about, a radio spot campaign would perform better than Mellman suspects. And that’s where Mary Beth was coming from. Appreciate you continuing this conversation. Thanks for reading our blog.
There were actually three distinct reasons Mark pointed to regarding his “underweighting” of radio in their media portfolio, and the industry could stand to listen to and address all of them–and not just relating to political advertising:
1. Insufficient data on radio’s effectiveness in changing voter opinion or behavior. This is largely true and would require a controlled experiment to gauge. It is also true that there are some other media that also haven’t demonstrated that, but given points 2 and 3, below, it’s a strike radio doesn’t need.
2. Insufficient data on individuals, ROI and accountability. This goes beyond simply “the effectiveness” and gets to terrestrial radio’s achilles’ heel — audience data tied to individual profile data. TV has this (and certainly online radio has this) so terrestrial radio sticks out a bit in terms of the richness of the audience data it can pass along to advertisers and how it can be more accountable.
3. It’s too expensive. A lot of people didn’t believe this, or understand this, but it’s dead-on. Yes, an individual station is “cheap” – even buying a market, perhaps. But he needs to buy “Florida.” Compare what it would cost to do that with radio to what it would cost to do it with TV (you’d need a LOT fewer stations) and you get a sense of what he was talking about.
In short, I think he had some great points, and I hope people took them constructively. Compared to digital media and even TV, he perceives Radio as harder to buy, less accountable and unproven for his needs. Does radio need to tell a better story? I am with you, Fred–I’m not a fan of that belief. Radio needs to do some rewriting of that story as well.
The story is about the data.
Thanks for that POV, Tom. Radio very likely was the beneficiary of political ad campaigns over the years because it was there, by default, because of scarcity of mass media outlets. Today, it’s a whole different game, and radio’s lack of proof of performance is going to hurt – in 2014 and beyond. In my heart of hearts, I believe that in a valid test, radio would acquit itself well. I also wonder that in the heat of political campaigns, several spots in TV’s commercial clusters are political, and that “environment pollution” may not be optimal. Again, it’s academic until it’s tested.
Thanks for adding to the conversation, Tom.
From a content perspective – Political is a bottom feeder category.
Perhaps the ROI is so low because the quality of political messaging is divisive, misleading & manipulative? It’s hard to imagine increased political messaging doing anything positive to the users experience of our products. Conservative talk being an exception. Maybe.
I understand the $ is huge and Big Radio must increase it’s share of available political spend merely as a method of survival.
So I guess my point is . . . . ultimately hopeless. Still. Political Content is a cesspool and getting more money from it will have it’s own costs.
So erectile dysfunction vs. political advertising? I realize it’s like a bad version of “Would you rather?” but radio cannot afford to cede any more ground to TV or emerging media outlets. Given the poor overall quality of most commercial clusters (and it makes me sad to say that), I’m not sure that spots for the local congressman could be any worse. Radio needs these dollars.
“Radio stop sets are wastelands anyway, so … gimme us money.” Fixed it for ya. 😉
Now you’ve got the right idea!
The is radio better off without political ads question is at least with of mention. “… No political ads EVER” seems like impactful positioning. And I think the typical political ad is far worse and more off-putting than one for ED.
That said, radio has little to no research supporting its impact in any sector. Jerry Lee seems to be the only one working to maximize radios ad effectiveness ; the net being that radio needs to develop a verifiable case for itself using contemporary metrics before it can hope to increase its share of the ad dollar in politics or anywhere else .
That takes investments of money, work and a willingness to implement real changes if necessary.
Oh well…what costs can we cut instead?
Oh, yeah – that! You are correct that research and attention for stopset content is beyond an afterthought. It is off the radar screen (aside from the aforementioned Mr. Lee). If the industry were focused on serving its advertisers (including political parties, candidates, and issues), there are ways to research messaging and delivery that could yield results. But your last two sentences are where there’s a hang-up. Thanks for weighing in, Bob.
Fred,
I was in the room last week in Baltimore and was surprised by these initial comments as well. Here’s an interesting potential perspective that few political strategists would state publicly.
We know that employed persons drive radio consumption. However, what if employed persons are less likely to vote than non employed persons. If that’s true, it’s easy for a strategist to say that radio hasn’t made its case for more political dollars, when in fact, that’s not the audience that campaigns are actually targeting.
According to recent research reported on by PBS in the link below, the target voter that campaigns are trying to connect with, might just be TV’s audience.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/businessdesk/2013/10/working-more-voting-less-how-e.html
Wow, Andrew – talk about counter intuitive. So unemployed people may be more apt to be likely voters. Well, radio has lots of them, too! Seriously, I think it’s more about the data and radio failing to communicate a success story (or more) to the people holding the purse strings. Maybe it’s a matter of misplaced entitlement, but radio no longer has a direct line to political dollars, if you believe Mellman and Winston. Tom Webster (who commented earlier) certainly concurs. Thanks for weighing in on a topic that might be an important one to radio’s economic health in the new year.
If radio isn’t being considered on radio buys, there is ample opportunity for category growth with political. The unemployed voter might create a ceiling for radio’s overall potential, but apparently there is a lot of upside before we get to that point.
I sure would think so, but as you saw, to hear them tell it, radio has a lot of work to do.
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