I’ve created this post for any Radio Advertising Letter subscribers who would like to comment on the radio station sales imaging I critiqued in the newest issue.
An excerpt from the most important radio book of the 21st Century, THE INFINITE DIAL, by Larry Rosin.
I’m a huge fan of words.
I solve the crossword puzzle every day. When I’m over there, I even give a stab at those British ones, which are very, very hard for an American.
Recently I came across a new English word: retronym.
A retronym is a word or phrase created because an existing term that was once used alone needs to be distinguished from a term referring to a new development.
Kind of a long definition, but if I give you a few examples you’ll quickly understand.
Retronym Example #1
For the first 500 years that a guitar existed, that word was sufficient to describe a guitar.
Then along came the electric guitar, which forced us to rename the original “guitar” as an “acoustic guitar.”
So, “acoustic guitar” is an example of a retronym.
Retronym Example #2
This was once known as the telephone or phone.
But over time it became called a “rotary phone” to distinguish it from the more advanced phones that came along.
Retronym Example #3
The stuff that came out of a faucet was once known as water.
But because so many people now drink so much bottled water, we had to rename this “tap water.” All of a sudden this stuff got a new name.
I was looking at this list of retronyms that someone had published and it occurred to me that I work very closely with an industry which is now also a retronym, which was once known as radio.
What was once known as radio has been rechristened as “terrestrial radio” — radio that just comes out of antennae.
All of these are cases where a new technology or advancement came along and forced the language to adjust to those changes.
But it’s not just language that has to adjust. Businesses have to adjust as new things come along.
The previous name for our entire radio industry has traveled way beyond its former meaning as just AM and FM.
I’ve researched this extensively in terms of what the consumer perceives different kinds of radio to be.
We have satellite radio, but the consumer perceives that as merely more radio.
Internet radio is seen by the consumer as more radio.
There’s radio that comes through the TV. You might not think of that as “real” radio, but when you ask consumers what it is they say,”Oh, it’s radio that comes through the television.” They see it as just more radio.
Podcasts are radio. Radio that has been captured and moved to your iPod.
In America, we are positioning HD radio as just more radio, extra radio, with extra stations.
So the consumer is already aware that radio no longer just means what’s on AM and FM. They are already aware there’s been an incredible expansion.
What they see is what I refer to as an Infinite Dial, a world where pretty much any kind of radio they ever might want to consume is available to them.
June, 1994, Part 2: Immediately following my seminar in Stowe, Vermont, I drove back to Burlington and caught a flight to Boston and then to London, England. I was surprised on this trip to discover London did have some reasonably priced hotels.
My hosts booked me at the Swallow International Hotel (which since has been supplanted — no doubt for the better — by a Marriott) for the amazingly modest corporate rate of £49 per night. (That was not their regular price, and you probably had to be a great negotiator to get it.)
The Swallow wasn’t fancy, but it wasn’t a dump. (I’ve stayed in far worse London hotels.) Lots of international tours stayed there, so it was pretty busy. Its location was neither great nor terrible. You couldn’t walk to the theatre district (a disadvantage for me). It was, however, within walking distance of both the Natural History Museum and Harrod’s.
The biggest thing the Swallow had going for it, actually, was price. I’m pretty sure very few guests stayed there for the food. (Insert your own “British Cuisine” joke here.)
My flight was a red-eye across the ocean, so I arrived early Sunday morning in a state of exhaustion. I checked into my room, collapsed on the bed, and slept…until I was awakened by loud, booming sounds from down the hall. It turned out the hotel was undergoing renovation. (Possibly one reason for the cheap room rate?)
Somehow I eventually managed to fall asleep again, and I slept soundly…until I was startled out of bed by the sound of someone opening the door to my room.
It was the hotel maid.
Furious, I bounded to the door, pointed at the “Do Not Disturb” sign hanging from the knob, and said, “Do you see this sign??”
“Yes,” she replied, “but I have to make up the room.”
“What’s the point of my hanging a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign if you’re going to disturb me?” I thundered. I do not recall her precise response.
Before taking the train to Hull on Monday, I found time for a one-hour walk. I don’t think I’d ever seen such a diversity of nationalities, modes of dress, languages…as well as every ethnic restaurant imaginable.
The TV weather report mentioned England’s heavy pollen count (odd for an American to hear a weather report that covers the entire country), and I felt it: maximum hay fever. Sudafed didn’t make a dent in it.
My very first train ride (if you don’t count theme park trains, subways, and the commuter train out of New York’s Grand Central Station) took me to the industrial port of Hull. In my naivete, I had pictured a mammoth chug-chug-chug train. I realize some people love riding on trains, but I can’t say it seemed like anything special.
The only even mildly interesting things that happened were when an international spy was chased up and down the aisles by an Interpol officer…and the shots they exchanged…and, of course, the dead body in my first class compartment.
Hull isn’t exactly a tourist destination. In fact, it’s been “honored” by the BBC as “the worst place to live in the UK.” I happened to be in Hull during the one day of the year when the weather was nice, however, and (British readers will read this with mouths agape) found the waterfront to be quite pretty.
On Tuesday I conducted How To Create Maximum Impact Radio Advertising for Metro Radio Group, thanks to Maurice Dobson and Mike Bersin. At the time, Metro Radio Group made lots of money by selling its creative expertise to its advertisers. By this, I mean that Metro:
1. Invested lots of money in its creative teams (as opposed to putting all its emphasis on sales but having its commercials written by some bright, low-paid young person who puts clients’ fact sheets into complete sentences).
2. Actually charged its clients for Metro’s production.
Metro’s “Creative-Led Selling” was a breath of fresh air (okay, except for the pollen), and I was flattered to be invited to speak to their salespeople and creative team members from across the UK.
Next Week: Brussels or Antwerp?
Alan David Doane of Adirondack Broadcasting offers this heartwarming Christmas advertising tale. (You do remember last week, right?)
Hey Dan,
You may find this story funny…and it has a shock ending, too.
An AE wrote a script for an out-of-the-way gift shop in our area that sells handmade gift items. I didn’t think much about the script, because it was a rush job and I didn’t write or voice it, but when I was producing the voicework, one thing stood out to me like a brick to the head.
As I write this, it’s the Friday before Christmas in the worst economy perhaps ever, and where I live we are facing blizzards tonight and Sunday. So the client’s ad has the chance to work for them, really, only Saturday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. And then, well, we can all guess how the first quarter of ’09 will be for out-of-way shops that sell handmade gifts, can’t we?
The spot talks about all the wonderful, unique items you’ll find at this shop, closing with the location, and the perfect two word tag:
CLOSED MONDAY.
After laughing for 20 minutes or so at the client’s bird-flip to listeners and to their own bottom line, I had to go ask the AE: “Does the owner of the store get dialysis on Monday?”
He looked at me a little blankly as everyone else in the cubicles around him laughed uncontrollably. (I had already played the spot’s tag line for pretty much anyone who would listen.)
Then I explained that, unless they really have some life-threatening reason they can’t be open Monday, they might want to reconsider the idea of being closed on one of the last four days this year (or perhaps decade) that they will be able to make any money.
Then, the AE shocked me. He said, “If I can get the client to open on Monday, would you be willing to re-edit the spot?”
I told him, quite honestly, “That is one re-edit I would be happy to do.”
And shockingly, the client saw the wisdom in staying open, and now instead of CLOSED MONDAY the spot ends with directions to the store, so listeners can actually go there and spend their money. Even on Monday.
It’s a holiday miracle!
