Long before I read the famous Ries & Trout Positioning book, another little book from the ’70s helped guide how I’ve approached messaging and marketing throughout my career. Written by an ad guy named Tony Schwartz, The Responsive Chord is one of those neat guides that helps clarify the power of how a message or campaign needs to impact the entire nexus of attitudes, beliefs, and cultural touchstones that consumers carry around in their brains.
Lately, I’ve been doing my usual number of Listener Advisory Board groups – or L.A.B.s – a window into the souls of radio listeners from Seattle to Southfield. And if you dig deeper than just the standard radio questions, you learn a great deal about what consumers are thinking, worrying about, and feeling.
These days, it is indeed the economy (stupid). And if you go beyond asking them about their favorite music or the morning show they listen to most often, they’ll open up about their lives, their concerns, and how their lives are being changed by the price of gas and the precariousness of their jobs. People are hurting; they’re worried about their careers, their nest eggs, and paying for the next tank of unleaded regular.
And that tells us a great deal about how to best strike their "responsive chords." Will we do it by playing the top 350 songs from the last music test or by featuring 40 minutes of non-stop music or by giving away concert tickets? While those are all things that stations should do to keep even or stay ahead of the ratings game, they aren’t going to move the needle.
But reflecting listener lifestyles and concerns is something that radio can do – that iPods, satellite radio, and their cell phones cannot. That’s why we’ve dusted off and updated our gas memos for our clients. And why we are looking for ways to help listeners make their lives easier and better in an increasingly difficult environment.
It’s not just good radio – it’s a way to reach them that no one other medium or gadget can.
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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Fred, kudos to you for citing Tony Schwartz. You may recall Tony was the media consultant to LBJ. His “Daisy” TV commercial featuring a little girl, a countdown and a mushroom cloud ran only once but some say the ad was instrumental in positioning Goldwater as the wrong guy. Tony’s book from the early 1980s, Media The Second God, is also a good read.
The music is merely a ticket to the club. Once we got them there we have to show them that our club is the place to be and stay…otherwise they go across the street to the other (competitor’s) club. That club has music too.