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Author Archives: Steve Mays
Google lets me target ads at myself
“Not only will Google now target ads at you based on your interest, but it will also let you target yourself. Anyone can go to Google’s Ad Preferences Manager and see exactly how Google is categorizing their interests. Now, here’s the really smart part: Google lets you add or remove any interest. In effect, it is inviting you to declare what kind of ads you want to see. You can also opt out of the program completely.”– TechCrunch
It took me less than 3 minutes to update my interests for Google. And I’m sure I’ll go back from time to time to tweak them.
Are radio commercials spam?
A little preface here: Most of the food I ever put in my mouth was paid for –directly or indirectly– by radio commercials. My father was a radio guy and for many years I wrote and produced radio “spots.” Lots and lots of them. Some were good, some were just the right length, if you know what I mean.
So when Seth Godin –one of the keynote speakers at the recent Country Radio Seminar in Nashville– refers to radio commercials as “spam,” it’s a problem for me. I’m a regular reader of Mr. Godin’s blog and have purchased and read a number of his books. I think he understands marketing in the 21st century as well as anyone.
So what’s spam and what’s not?
When you get your hands on my email address and send me an unsolicited email trying to sell me something (or get me to give you money, or visit your porn site, etc) …without my permission, we call that spam. You invaded my inbox without my permission.
When I turn on my local radio station, I know there will be commercials. They pay for the music/news/weather programs for which I tuned in. I’m giving tacit permission for the the station to try to sell me something on behalf of their advertisers. Value for value. That doesn’t sound like spam to me.
And if every commercial I heard was talking about something I cared about, something of interest… I’d probably pay more attention and the commercials would be worth more to the advertiser.
This is how cable TV programs work. If I’m watching HGTV (House & Garden), there’s a pretty good chance the commercials will at least marginally relevant.
I’m sure a lot of radios stations attempt to do this when and where they can. But it’s tough. They’re trying to reach the largest audience they can and will sell a spot to damn near anyone (preachers and politicians pay in advance).
Given the choice, most of us will choose NOT to listen to a poorly produced or irrelevant message. Commercial or otherwise.
So are are radio spots spam or not?
Only the listener can answer that. And he or she does, every time they punch the button to another station. And keeps punching it until they find a song or talk show they like (at least more than the commercial). Or pull out the iPod.
Seth talks “Tribes” at radio seminar
J. T. Gerlt (Program Director at KTKS, Lake of the Ozarks) recently attended the annual Country Radio Seminar in Nashville, where Seth Godin was one of the keynote speakers. From Country Aircheck:
“Best-selling author, entrepreneur and self-proclaimed “agent of change” Seth Godin delivered one of the best received keynotes in seminar history. Beginning with the premise that “ideas that spread, win,” Godin detailed the changing realities for mass media. “It isn’t ‘mass’ anymore,” he warned. And he laid out a new approach. “Music isn’t in trouble,” he said. “The music business is. The good news is, there’s a huge number of opportunities.” Those can only be met, however, by those willing to commit to innovation. “Timid trapeze artists are dead trapeze artists,” he joked.
The business model, Godin explained, is shifting to the point where the radio business will look a lot more like the magazine business. Fragmentation of mass media, in Godin’s view, means building strong and self-perpetuating communities he calls tribes. “More isn’t the point,” he said. “Tighter is the point.” The “television industrial complex” is being replaced by the “fashion/permission complex.” He suggested that stations will know they’re reaching their tribe with the crucial “anticipated, personal and relevant” messages when they get complaints from listeners when it isn’t sent out. Getting there means a break from the pattern of demanding success before making a full commitment.”
“Demanding success before making a full commitment.” We’re not going to try something new (risky) unless we’re sure we can make a lot of money doing it. Man, that sounds familiar.
Sen. McCaskill Flips and Twitters Missouri reporters
“After finishing a serious interview with a trio of reporters on various topics, Sen. Claire McCaskill suddenly whipped out her own mini-cam to turn the tables. McCaskill apparently wanted to put Tony Messenger, Jo Mannies and I in the uncommon role of answering questions. Then, I begin filming McCaskill’s experiment shooting us. The Senator asked for quick soundbites and hit me with a tough criticism about my own blog — that it’s video heavy.”
— Springfield TV reporter David Catanese