Youth Still Grooves to Local DJ’s 

America’s youth, 12 - 24 years old, are still rockin’ it with the Radio on. Even with all the new shiny gadgets, and tons of distraction, teens and young adults are still being pulled into the medium. Radio still plays an important role in what they choose to listen to. Check out the recent finding from the Edison Youth Study:

– 80.2% of 12-24 year-olds listen to AM/FM Radio to hear their favorite songs;
– 71.9% listen to learn about new songs;
– 66.0% listen to find out what the popular songs are

Radio is the leading source for new music discovery among 12-24 year-olds.

• 88.2% discover new music listening to the radio (50.6% frequently; 37.6% sometimes)
• 72.2% — YouTube
• 64.7% — Music featured on TV shows
• 61.7% — Music video channels
• 58.8% — Social networking sites (MySpace, Facebook)
• 41.6% — Internet radio stations (Pandora, Last.fm, Yahoo Music)
• 35.7% — streaming AM/FM radio online

Radio is also the top medium to first hear about upcoming concerts (which respondents attended), at 16.9% — far ahead of #2 social network sites (10.2%). Word-of mouth (friends, family, coworkers) are the leading source of news about concerts, at 43.5%.

Including AM/FM Radio, streamed AM/FM, and Internet-only stations, 12-24s spend over 1 day per week (24 Hours 23 Minutes) listening to Radio.

The average household with a member in the 12-24 age group has 3 Radios (not including Radios in vehicles driven by the household).

Nearly half (46.7%) of 12-24s listen to radio in places other than the car. One-third agreed somewhat to the statement that they listen to AM/FM Radio only in their cars, with another 20% agreeing strongly that in-car listening is their only venue for AM/FM tune-in.

“We were pleased to have Edison Research findings revealed at the Radio Show, and excited about the continuing prominence of over-the-air radio in the lives of 12-24 year olds,” stated Jeff Haley, President and CEO of the Radio Advertising Bureau. “Radio retains its position as the number one source of music discovery and its leadership in time spent with all forms of audio entertainment. The Edison study highlights important trends in social media and new forms of audio that I’m confident will be a source of inspiration and innovation by smart broadcasters everywhere.”

(Source: From the American Youth Study 2010, by Edison Research, 09/29/10)

Did you know that radio listership has grown 3% in the last year reaching more that  2.2 Million people in Portland and Southwest Washington weekly?

That’s over 4 million ears listening and over a hundred million heartbeats being stirred with the power of sound. Remember, when a person hears something that excites them, or makes them emotional, their hearts beat faster and the whole body reacts! Strong radio creative advertising can make a deep emotional connection to your product or service that will stick with someone hours or years after they’ve heard your ads. Make sound branding a key part of your marketing strategy.

Who’s Listening Locally?

The combined income of PARC Radio listeners in the Portland Metro area is more than 80 billion dollars, with the median age and income being 43 and $48,000. It goes deeper:

• The largest age demographic listening 35 and 44 at 22%.
• The next largest age demographic listening is 25 and 34 at 19% (Combine: They equal 41%) 
• Evenly split 49/51 between men and women tuned in
• The average Radio listener drives 150 miles a week
• 1,569,000 are listening to radio Morning Drive shows every week in Portland
• 96.4% are educated with a H.S Diploma or higher
• 70.9 earn $35,000 or more annually 
• 1,843,000 are listening in Afternoon Drive, every week  
• 77% are white
• 9.1% are hispanic
• 70% are homeowners
• 1,724,000  are listening in the middle of the day, in their offices, cars & homes

National Radio Stats:

• 96% of people who drive or ride in a car use the radio.
• In-car radio listening averages two hours and 12 minutes weekdays, and two hours and five minutes on weekends.
• 43% of drivers leave their car radios set to one station.
• There are over 600 million radios in use in the U.S.
• There are 8 radios per U.S. household.
• There are over 13,500 registered radio stations in the U.S.

The bottom line: If your marketing strategy is leaving out a sound story your missing a huge opportunity to STAND OUT and emotionally connect to millions of listeners in Portland. 

Companies that have “share-of-ear” also achieve a sustainable share of the pocket book!

Do you ever watch Extreme Makeover: Home Edition? I have in the past, and I cry every time they move that bus. I can’t help it. I know it’s coming. I try to fight it. They get me every time.

That inflection point got me thinking about, for a lack of a better term, ”Formula.” The engineered emotional experience created when we view a homeowner breaking down at the sight of a newly made life.

Then it dawned on me. Just as we try to catch a magician slipping up during a trick, I have a tendency to dissect and understand formula.

Take Las Vegas. They provide low cost leaders to get you into the mix, then a floor plan layout which both gravitates guests to the tables, and minimizes tendency to exit. Then with a festive atmosphere, including colors, sounds and lights, along with oxygen levels enhanced to keep your spirits alive, they meet your mood with a very compelling product. At the end of the day, a collection of tactics which comprise a winning formula for a casino.

How about Zynga (Farmville, Petville, Mafia Wars, etc.)? To begin, they are located on the most popular social network on the planet, catering to idle time, and provide a progressive gaming engagement to both educate and hook you into the infectious nature of the game. At the right inflection points, Zynga will navigate you towards the conversion of real to virtual currency.

To some extent, the art of formula is for users to not know that their experience is being engineered.

So I have to laugh a bit, as I can imagine in every brand, marketing, or advertising brainstorm session of late, at some point in the conversation the team comes to the same conclusion; “We need to let our users tell their story.” I typically roll my eyes, but Toyota recently launched a campaign and seems to have a winning formula. Each time a new minivan commercial comes on, I find myself tuned in to decide if I have a similar circumstance. Each time, at least one element within the message resonates. Perhaps it has some to do with reach and scale, but I think they have figured out a winning implementation of a user story.

So, I keep plugging on, in the endless search for formula. Whether its landscape layout, the ultimate afternoon adventure, sales engagement or article writing … HA! I would love to hear yours.

Andy Van Oostrum
Strategic Account Manager, ISITE Design
Board Member, Portland Advertising Federation

Are you tuned in? Do you hear it? That sound? My guess is you don’t because you’re staring at a computer screen and thrusting your creativity into whitepaper digital groupthink trying to figure out what it will take to drive numbers. I have an idea for you but you’ll brush it off ‘cause conventional wisdom says it’s not “sexy”. I think results are sexy. Don’t you? Curious?

Good. Now, unhook from the cyborg grip and check it out: classic radio.

Radio drives MORE traffic to websites than any other medium. Are you really tuning in here? Let me say it again: exposure to radio advertising can boost online brand browsing by an average of 52%! Radio is one of the most powerful tools digital advertising has EVER seen in its toolbox, but for some reason “Creatives”, like yourself, don’t even consider radio and focus on “trendy” rather than using the most effective behavior driving medium in history. Pathetic isn’t it? In a world where everyone (EVERYONE) has a Radio, TOP Agencies aren’t even coming close to utilizing its power to populate websites and social media pages. What gives?

Really, what gives? If a “sexy” campaign is what you want for your portfolio use radio with digital. Bam! Sound. Sight. Action.

Facts about radio:

• Its audience has increased steadily since its introduction.
• It is the only medium that calls people to use their imagination.
• It uses oral tradition, song, and sound (Historically, the most effective mode of communication.) to unify many around a common experience.
• It is a sound force that pulls an audience into a world that involves their whole body - Listeners can feel the beat of a drum or the cry of a baby.
• It uses the most powerful sense we have for activating emotions and driving behavior: the power of the ear.
• It is the only medium that produces recall in both passive and active mental states.
• It is the number one trusted communication tool people count on for information for emergencies or disasters.
• It bonds Americans with a common national experience and yet provides a vocal niche for small tribes to identify themselves as sub-cultures like “Diddo heads or Alternative Rockers.”
• It reaches 92% of the general population weekly and 71% daily.
• It everywhere and accessible 365 days, 7 days a week, 24 hours a day.
• It is free.
• It is hyper-local and can have a national/world audience.
• It is on average 4x more cost-effective at stimulating brand browsing online.
• Just 10% of its use in a media mix can increase traffic to a unique URL by 52%.
• It is still the number one place youth use to discover new music.

So what’s your excuse? I’m sick of people telling me all the lame reasons they don’t use local radio. None of which have anything to do with facts or effectiveness. If a radio campaign failed it was not because of the medium. You don’t blame the megaphone when people fail to relate to the guy screaming in the streets.

Great radio advertising comes down to this: EXCELLENT CREATIVE and a schedule that says your committed to the audience.

Excellent radio creative requires a passion for understanding how human beings hear, process, and interact with sound and story. Superior radio creative is art and it is art that produces results.
Radio is the superpower of sound and story…maybe that doesn’t interest you but it is the ultimate megaphone with the power to unite and move people through emotion and a common experience.

I don’t know if any of this will break through to the assimilated many who only believe in the seduction of eye candy (digital or not) but its my hope that just one of you will break-a-way from the barriers of misperceptions and bias and explore how the sweet sound of Radio can make your digital and social media campaign a crowd roaring success.

Melissa Kunde
Executive Director, Portland Area Radio Council

Much has been written on this subject. There is no doubt that, at worst, the advertising award show is insular, self-serving and wildly in need of change. I’m not sure, however, that it’s the exclusive domain of dyed-in-the-wool boomer Mad Men and their beloved thirty-second TV spot as some would have it, but I do enjoy listening to these kinds of acid review.

I do think the award show still matters. It is a useful tool to determine the competitive bar, for recruiting the best and brightest, and it actually does matter to some clients (perhaps the ones you’d like to have…). It’s also a great way to promote community and celebrate our industry. While it makes sense for us to turn up our 2010 noses at the self-indulgent, champagne-soaked excess on the Cote D’Azur (although I’m bummed I never got to go), I do think there’s room for a celebration of the best in our industry. It just needs to change.

I absolutely don’t believe, as some have argued, that what we need is a fragmented, multi-category candy-sharing event, where everyone gets a pat on the back. There is simply no need for a newspaper category vs. email vs. public service vs. banner ad and so on. And there’s no reason why a truly captivating and effective email should not be judged alongside truly captivating and effective TV (for example). Along the same lines, I recently heard, to my abject dismay, some cohorts refer to ”performance” work as separate to ”creative” work. They’re all the same, for ****’s sake! We do this to sell stuff. The fundamentals of the job involve using creativity to perform.

So we’re all in the same game and if we do an award show at all, I think it has to be about celebrating the groundbreaking and the impactful. Did the work change the game? Did it exceed its goals by an extraordinary margin?

Competition is not democratic. Not everybody wins. You source the best judges and, in theory, the best work gets its just deserts. For the most part that actually happens (seriously, you can’t deny Wieden & Kennedy’s Old Spice work.) And not just because one idea had a bigger budget than another or because the judges value creativity for creativity’s sake.

This year, the Portland Advertising Federation’s Rosey Award Show will attempt to throw out the old bathwater without losing the baby. It won’t be perfect. But it will be different, inclusive and relevant. And next years’ will need to be different again. Ditto the year after. If we’ve learned one thing from these times, it’s that there are no formulae and we need to be constantly examining and re-examining our work, its effectiveness and, by extension, how we celebrate it at its best.

We’ll see you on December 2nd at Portland’s premier celebration of creativity: the all-new, all-happening Rosey Award Show.

Rebecca M Armstrong
Managing Partner, NORTH
Board Member, Portland Advertising Federation

* With apologies to our more sensitive British readers.

The City Should Know Better

Recently, the City of Portland put out a call for creative firms to submit free ideas for the “the city’s online Web presence,” Portland online. This is a slap in the face of Portland’s design and creative community. Essentially, they are asking for free ideas without context, without strategy, without an overall goal of what the Web site wants to accomplish. The request makes the assumption that all they really need is a fresh new look and viola, they’ll have a pretty new website. The Web designers in town should be incensed. Web design is much more than a pretty skin over HTML code.

This originally appeared as an email letter circulated to PAF members and others associated with the Portand Creative Community.

Many of you have questioned why the PAF chose to disparage other cities in this year’s Rosey call to entries. The answer is that while some of us fervently believe that Portland is a creative hot spot, it is more in the nature of our creative culture to be humble and soft spoken about our talents.

So what if we suddenly awakened in this current competitive environment and showed a little more chutzpah and brio? What if we started bragging and ultimately, what if we started out and out trash talking like they do on the basketball court? That was the premise the PAF started with for the Rosey Awards; let’s let those other cities know who the heck we are.

And it worked, the campaign is being noticed by you, in Adweek and in other cities. Ironically, the execution seems to have bruised the sensibilities of a few of us in the community who would rather remain modest.

Personally I enjoyed the fun of the concept and know that at the end of the day, it isn’t the trash talking that matters, it’s that you win the game or in this case, a Rosey. So enter the Rosey Awards and show us what you got. The trash talking is optional.

Jerry Ketel
President
Portland Advertising Federation

Alcoa presents (sorry, that’s the beginning of a TV commercial of “The Catch” in the 1982 NFL NFC Championship flashback when Dwight Clark levitated to grab a perfect pass from Joe Montana to lift the 49ers over the Cowboys). But, I digress. My mind faded to the dramatic music to Monday Night Football, but it’s now back on the prize - bragging rights to the Third Annual PAF Battle of the Bands at Someday Lounge in Old Town / Chinatown, Portland, Oregon where the creatives show their true colors after dark.  If you want to take a look at videos from prior year’s Battle of the Band, now is your time to really soak in some entertaining video for 2008.  It’s going to be almost impossible for eROI to win it for yet a third year in a row, but we’re going to bring our “A” Game.  Check it (this is PAF’s main event email and all the info is below):

BATTLE OF THE BANDS

DATE:
Wednesday June 17, 2009

TIME:
6:00 pm

PLACE:
Someday Lounge
224 NW 5th Avenue
Portland, OR

COST:
$300 per band

Register your Band!
Contact Mike Terry at mterry@magnetoworks.com

(more…)

On Friday, March 20, a big group of us went to a PAF workshop with On Your Feet today. It focused on how to use improv theater techniques to help teams create fresh ideas. It also seemed really beneficial for anyone who needs to think quickly on their feet (presentations!)

One of their key points was that people doing improv need to be really good at going with the flow. It is detrimental to discourage ideas. When someone throws an idea out at you, instead of saying “no, that’s a bad idea” think how you can use it, play off of it, include it into the flow. They spoke about not being too attached to your “shadow story”, which is your pre-conceived notion of what something should be. Instead, be open to new interpretations of a concept. They talked a lot about turning off your “inner censor” and letting ideas flow regardless of whether you think they are good or not.

Another key idea was to look at things from a different angle than you usually do. If you are stuck, get someone who is not used to thinking about the issue to help you come up with solutions.

They taught us three games/techniques that were really fun, too!

1. Swedish Story (this game is good for two people)

First, you both look around your surroundings and find something that you never noticed before. (for example, I saw a hook in the wall, and Charles saw a vase that looked like a tree trunk) you then combine the two things that you noticed to form a simple title. “Tree Trunk Hook” was ours. The point of this is to get a starting place for your story.

Next, one person starts to tell a story based on the title that you came up with. (for example: “So I was walking in the woods, and I saw these trees with hooks in them”) While the first person tells a story, the second person throws out random words. “Octopus!” I yelled. The person telling the story has to work these random things into their story. “So I look up in one of the trees, and there is this tree octopus up there”

Continue in this manner for a couple minutes, and then switch sides, so that the person who was throwing out the random words becomes the story teller.

It’s really fun, and helps you think on your feet. We all thought that the story-telling part would be hard, but it turned out that it was harder to think of the random words. You’ll both be laughing a lot.

2. Object Storm (this game is good for a small group of people to do)

First, identify something that you want to think about differently/brainstorm solutions for. (for example, “How can I keep my employees engaged?”)

Next, pick a random object and list out a bunch of characteristics for it. For instance, you could pick a lamp and list off:

“it gives off light”    “it is pretty”      “it is blue”     “it sits on a table”      “it uses electricity”

The last step is to pick one of the characteristics to focus on, and then think about how that characteristic might apply to your original issue. So if you picked “It is pretty” you might come up with “You could help keep employees engaged by encouraging them to make their work spaces more attractive” or “you could bring in plants to the office, cause they are pretty”

It was surprising all the ideas we came up with based on the object characteristic. You can move on to different characteristics of the object for more ways to think about the original problem.

3. Category Die (this game is good for a large group of people)

Get a few people to stand in a row in front of the rest, and have one person be the the “pointer”. Pick a category that you want to generate ideas for. Our group’s category was “Portland.”

The pointer chooses one of the people who are standing in the row, and when they get chosen they have to say something that Portland has: (for example “rain”     “coffee”    “rose garden”). If they can’t think of something, say somethign that has already been said, or that wasn’t applicable, everyone in the audience would yell “DIE!” (I’m not sure why it is so harsh).

This game was fast paced, and didn’t allow people to censor themselves. You had to come up with something fast! You also had to listen to what everyone else was saying so that you didn’t repeat them.

I encourage you to think about using these games the next time you are stuck on something. Also, check out the Improv Encyclopedia, which is has a great list of more improv games to try.

Verity Kent

Anvil Media, Inc., a search engine marketing (SEM) services agency, announced today strong financial growth in 2008, continuing in 2009. The combination of a growing team, expanded services and new business led to an 20 percent increase in revenue over 2007. Anvil expects continued growth in 2009 through a new set of SEM audits and the trend to focus advertising dollars into more measurable marketing channels during a recession.

“Client demand for Anvil’s social media marketing services was greater than expected,” stated Kent Lewis, President of Anvil Media, Inc. “While we’ve seen early success with social media marketing efforts for clients like Animation Mentor and Hungry Man Entertainment, we believe it’s a long-term commitment and payoff. We’re bullish about the benefits of social media marketing moving forward.”

In addition to social media marketing, Anvil announced a new set of audit and planning services targeted at Fortune 1000 companies looking to evaluate or validate the effectiveness of their current SEM efforts. Current SEM audits include search engine optimization (SEO) audits, pay-per-click (PPC) audits and online reputation management (ORM) audits. Anvil will also offer strategic consulting retainers and staff training for companies with existing SEM resources interested in taking their SEM campaigns to the next level.

“Since a majority of Fortune 1000 companies already have SEM agencies or dedicated in-house teams, the audits are a cost-effective way to fine-tune SEM efforts,” stated Hallie Janssen, Vice President of Anvil Media, Inc. “We’re committed to providing our clients with valuable insights that will result in a measurable improvement on the return-on-investment for their SEM programs.”

In 2008, Anvil has helped more than 100 companies increase awareness, leads or sales through SEM. A partial list of new SEM clients includes: AboutUs, Animation Mentor, Daily Journal of Commerce, DoneRight, ExpressJet, gDiapers, Grand America Hotels & Resorts, HorsepowerFreaks, Nautilus, PeopleFinders, Point6, Sterling Trucks, Tea Collection, Travel Tacoma and World Class Driving.

Anvil also received local and industry recognition in 2008 for its financial performance and work with the local community. The Portland Business Journal ranked Anvil Media as the 10^th Fastest Growing Private Companies in 2007. Anvil also continues to take on pro bono charity client projects, most recently Ronald McDonald House Charities and FORGE. Lastly, Anvil continues to stay involved in the SEM community, through support of SEMpdx and helping incubate local SEM agency, Formic Media.

To help meet the growing demand for search engine marketing and social media marketing and optimization services, Anvil added seven new employees. Nick Herinckx, Eric King and Heather Schwartz were added as Account Coordinators; Kurtis Alward, Mike Nierengarten and John Robbins were added as Account Executives and Yael Livneh as Office Manager.

About Anvil Media

Headquartered in Portland, Oregon, Anvil Media, Inc. is a search engine marketing (SEM) consulting agency specializing in search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC) management, social media marketing (SMM), SEM PR and online reputation management (ORM) auditing and ongoing services. Anvil helps Fortune 1000 clients generate a return-on-investment (ROI) on their online marketing programs by auditing existing agencies, programs or managing SEM efforts. Current clients include Concordia University, Extensis, Flowerbud, GolfNow, Jive Software, Lucy, Oregon State University, PC World Magazine, Planar Systems, Provenance Hotels, Travel Portland, Tumbleweed and Yesmail. For more information, visit www.anvilmediainc.com.