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