Millennials Love Radio

News is about the exception. A car driving down the main street of your hometown is not news. But let that “radio on wheels” run into something and that’s news.

It’s the same with radio listening. The fact that 92% of the population of America listens to radio every week is not news, but finding out one of them listens to something other than radio grabs the headline.

Millennials Outnumber Boomers

It was just a year ago that Millennials outnumbered us Baby Boomers. That was news, because the Boomers have ruled the roost for several decades. So how does radio listening stack up for the Millennial generation? 91.3% of Millennials are reached by radio every week. 94% of GenX’ers are reached by radio and us Boomers come in at 93.5% reached by radio every week according to Nielsen.

Millennials Don’t Hate “Old Media”

MediaLife magazine just reported on what’s really happening with Millennial media usage versus what many believe is happening. Example: Newspapers – more Millennials read a newspaper once a week than use a tablet. Another example: Radio – more Millennials crank up the radio (80%) than have an MP3 player (45%).

What Millennials Aren’t In-Love With

What you might find surprising is that Millennials aren’t swooning over Satellite Radio, smartwatches and connected cars. In fact, Millennials would rather ride share or use public transportation than even own a car.

Time For Another Paradigm Shift

It was Thomas Kuhn who is credited with coining the term “paradigm shift.” He defined it as changing from a set of beliefs or views that members of a community all shared.

It’s hard to predict the future and many of the models people develop to predict levels of risk really miss their mark. Two examples are the Fukushima nuclear disaster where the “experts” said a twenty-foot wall would protect the plant from any Tsunami. However it was a twenty-four foot wall of water than would take out the plant. And everyone knows that insurance companies are in the business of predicting risk, its how they come up with the premiums people will pay them. So how did AIG miss the financial collapse in 2008 that would bring down the company?

The Lesson of Procter & Gamble

Procter & Gamble aka P&G is a huge company. They primarily make cleaning products; soap.

When commercial radio was born in 1920, P&G was quick to move their advertising monies from print to radio.

When TV came along, again P&G would lead others in moving their advertising monies to TV. (The radio & TV “Soap Opera” name comes from the creation of serial dramas that were created by P&G to sell their soap products in.)

When the internet came along, P&G was a leader in moving their ad monies from traditional broadcast to online.

Except this time, it didn’t work as it had in the past.

The Wall Street Journal ran a story entitled “P&G to Scale Back Targeted Facebook Ads.”

“Procter & Gamble Co., the biggest advertising spender in the world, will move away from ads on Facebook that target specific consumers, concluding that the practice has limited effectiveness.

Marc Pritchard, P&G’s chief marketing officer, said the company has realized it took the strategy too far. ‘We targeted too much, and we went too narrow’

P&G could be the bellwether on how consumer goods companies and big brands use digital advertising. Over the past year some marketers, specifically consumer product companies, have discovered they need to go ‘much more broad’ with their advertising”

Bob Hoffman, “The Ad Contrarian” has been predicting this for some time. He recapped his prediction on a recent one of his blogs that you can read here.

Advertising Is Sloppy

The problem with today’s “targeted advertising” is that it misses lots of targets. Great advertising works, in part, because it’s sloppy. By that I mean it produces results because it reaches a large and diverse audience through a mass medium like radio.

Radio is the number one reach and frequency medium in America today.

I’ve advertised on radio stations I’ve run for help for positions we had open. What never ceased to make an impression on me was how many people I’d interview who came in for the advertised position and had never heard the ads. How did they know about the opening? A friend of theirs who heard the ad told them about it. That’s what I mean by advertising being sloppy. That’s what I mean about hitting the target even when you are not aimed at it.

Great Ad Copy

The one thing that is critical is your advertising copy. Great copy will produce results on virtually any radio station. It’s not about being on the most listened to station in the market that will produce results for the advertising client, it’s the radio message itself that will make the difference. Next, it’s the ability to deliver that message consistently day-in and day-out, fifty-two weeks a year.

Breaking News

Radio has always been the advertising medium that gets results when used correctly.

To be successful, you need to build your brand in the mind of the consumer. Radio let’s you whisper in the ear of the consumer every day.

Radio will not only help you build your brand but keep it top of mind too.

The “breaking news” is target marketing is OUT.

Mass media sloppy advertising is IN.