A few weeks ago, I was having dinner with a friend, and he made a comment like, "I find it interesting that the creators of YouTube decided to give the website that name. I wonder, how many of the younger users of that website actually know what the name means." I found this to be a pretty thought-provoking question. The best response that I could munster up was, "I think that enough people somehow associate 'Tube' with video, but only older people would think of 'the boob tube' or of a picture tube when making that association."

Another loosely related example that comes to mind is Internet-only radio stations and music sites inserting "FM" into their names. For instance, there is "last.fm," "soma fm," "macradiofm," etc. This is peculiar not only because these stations aren't broadcast on the FM dial but also because the important motivators for anyone to listen to them would be to hear content not carried on local FM stations or because FM reception was difficult or not possible in the listener's location. It seems counter-intuitive that these stations would want to associate themselves with FM broadcasting, when logically, they should be differentiating themselves from it.

Finally, as Newflyer very appropriately asked in the KOOL discussion, do slogans ever get burned out because the audience becomes overly cynical toward their claims or because they lose their novelty? I think that the answer on both counts is yes.

Maybe soma.fm, for example, is really trying to claim an association to the older free form expectations surrounding FM.

In that case, given they do solid supporting messaging, and their behavior does that, the association is both advocacy and differentiation at the same time!

When you ask yourself (or others) if slogans burn out, lose their novelty, or develop a cynical audience... it may be helpful to look at one of the most successfully marketed and heavily promoted companies of all time -- McDonalds. Those guys spend more on research, particularly loyalty research and heavy user research, than just about any other company on earth. They spend more on research than all their franchisees spend on meat! If a slogan or marketing image was (french)fried -- they'd know and they'd act.

"You Deserve A Break Today" lasted for decades. Ditto the "Happy Meal". "I'm Lovin' It" has been around now for years, and will probably be around for many more. They've altered the commercials, but keep their slogans and key images absolutely foreground and intact.

There is a very popular and effective (but very expensive) research tool called Contextual Analysis. Essentially, you let dozens or hundreds of your heaviest users talk about your product, how they use it, what they think about it, without much interference. Essentially, you just ask 'em a question, then sit back and let them talk their little hearts out. Usually these interviews are conducted 1 on 1, to avoid group taint. Their comments are transcripted and run through a computer program called contextual analysis. It identifies all the exact phrases used by the target audience.

Essentially, this is how "Songs That Make Me Feel Good" (in whatever was its exact original wording) and its co-host for the week "Songs I Can Sing Along With" BECAME evergreen positioners for Oldies stations. These were not slogans from the marketing department that became parroted back by the listeners.... they are descriptions given by vast numbers of listeners, then parroted back by the radio station! Research at its best!

Thanks for that info!

(goes off to explore how that phrase development software might actually work)

Yeah, what happened to "Full Meal Deal!"? I liked that one. Seems it didn't last all that long.

kskd:

Contextual Analysis is often used to authenticate writings for attribution. If I show up at Sotheby's with a previously unknown sonnet by William Shakespeare, one of the first things they will do is a contextual analysis, to see if the grammer, context, phrasing in my sonnet is consistent with his known works.

Contextual analysis (I am almost positive) was one of the keys used to catch the Unibomber...by comparing the writings of Unibomber's manifesto with various known writings from disgruntled univeristy types.

In radio, I've seen some of the earliest studies which showed, for example, that almost everyone who described the first wave of soft ACs used the term "relax" and that a very significant number used the exact phrase "relax and unwind." It was a no-brainer to make sure that those phrases became the bedrock of the format's marketing and positioning.

Tell 'em who you are, tell 'em how to use you, then tell them the big benefit to them. Marketing 101

Thanks. I was not at all aware that these positioning phrases for Oldies and AC formats had originally come out of the mouths of listeners. From a research and "wanting to optimize the product" aspect, this is really fascinating stuff.

What's a "sonnet"?

"If I could write a sonnet about your Easter bonnet..."

About 1/60th of a moonit.

"You, you're the one . . ."


(Off point just a bit -- I thought the unibomber was turned in by a close relative or something!)

Ultimately, it was his younger brother, David, who provided the authorities with the last pieces of evidence needed to catch the Unabomber. Prior to that, the New York Times and the Washington Post had reluctantly agreed to publish the Unabomber's manifesto, in hopes that somebody would recognize the writing style. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unabomber

I always liked positioning statements that, we are now finding out, are not believed because they don't generally accurately reflect the product...
"Greatest variety"
"Less interruptions" (it should be "fewer")
"In depth team coverage" (then going for a high story count in 3 minutes...no wonder NPR does so well.)
When KGW started using "More Music" in the early 70's it was absolutely true as compared with 91 'derful.
"New" (Someone once told me it was the most powerful word in marketing. I think you can only use it when the product is really "new" as the listener perceives it. That's where you should hire the best research person you can afford.)

Yes...I have almost all of the answers!

If a positioning slogan originated from the mouths of listeners, is it possible to overuse that slogan, to the point that it is no longer effective?

It was a LONG time ago, but wasn't there a connection between McDonalds, Barry Manilow, and the TM You Jingles? Did McDonalds use TM?

This was before the "you deserve a break today" series.

The TM YOU series must be one of the most successful radio jingles of all time.

"we do it for you.."
"you are the reason we do what we do"

Maybe the ads McDonalds was running, and the 70s top-40 station jingles were just similar. Didn't Barry Manilow sing some McDonalds commercials?

I always liked. "all day, all night, all nice"

We didn't think we could get away with "keep on Kupl-ing"

Probably could now. :-)

I also always liked what I heard Michael Bailey say one time:

Please keep listening or I'll shoot this dog."

KUPLing is not as bad as what KOME used to say!

Barry Manilow wrote the "You deserve a break today" jingle.

And there is no such thing as macradio.fm. That is a figment of someone's imagination.

Somebody had been promoting a Live 365 station called "Macradiofm" on this board. I have never heard the station, but as far as I know, it did not have its own domain name -- i.e. it was never http://www.macradio.fm/

KYXI ,during their AC leaning Beautiful Music period used a jingle/liner imaging package that included the old Olympia Beer musical melodies in different arrangements. Mostly for joiners and so forth. At the time it was extremely familiar to most people, but most couldnt tell you that it was all about ' Beer '.

When was KYXI AC leaning? I remember them as Beautiful Music, AC, All News and Nostalgic as Stardust but that's all.

Well I use that term for what KYXI was doing a several years before they went full out AC in 1975 ( " The only Station you'll ever need ).

The format wasnt exactly traditional 'Beautiful Music". KXL was traditional beautiful music. KYXI was a tweak to the MOR side of that. And that is what I should have said to begin with. They had a sound that was a bit more contemporary and generally more upbeat than KXL's version at the time. And that was the whole point, the idea was to attract some of the younger demos that enjoyed artists like Cass Elliot's ballads. Or some of the softer and less played pop artists slower tempo album cuts mixed in with the traditional B.M. of the day ( like the Hollyridge Strings and Ray Coniff ). Also included were select cuts from some traditional Country & Western artists ( a category that is obsolete now ).

The Idea was to be a little younger than KXL.

I wasn't paying enough attention to know the difference. When I flipped by, I heard Beautiful Music. The same thing happened with KOMO, which was MOR, even though I only heard Beautiful Music when passing by. I'm pretty sure KXL had already incorporated Carpenters and the like by then.

Ok, Lets see ineffective marketing in portland

K-hits- 10 in a row

K103- 5 feel good songs in a row

Kool 1059- Songs that make you fell good

First off, if anyone believes this crap and actually cares, k103 will look bad because they are only playing 5 in a row, while kits plays 10 in a row.

I'm not going to get this verbatim but it was something like:

KXRX, Seattle. 100,000 watts of totally disorganized power. We have absolutely no idea what we are doing.

I loved it!

Almost forgot...KXRX sister station, at the time, ran an ID that went:

"You're listening to KOOL 105...KXKL, Denver.
How'd they KOOL out of that?"!