My opinion, that is, not my bum!  Today’s topic is imaging for the PPM world.  The role of station imaging is changing.  Not only due to the advent of the Personal People Meter, but also due to changing listener tastes.  As much as we imaging folks hate to hear it, listeners perceive our work as commercials.  And if perception is reality, then that’s the way it is.  So what can we creative types do to try and change this? 

Well the first thing to do is cut out the crap.  We may think its fun and cool to have voice guys stuttering to a beat-matched track with all kinds of flanges and echoes, but to the listener that just wants to hear the next song, it’s just noise and an unwelcomed interruption.  We have to go back to the drawing board and rethink the way we create our station’s image.   What follows are a few nuggets that I’ve gleaned from my own experiences both as a radio creative and as a media consumer.

One thing that Clear Channel has taught us thru their “Less is More” initiative is that listeners respond to fewer, shorter interruptions by listening longer.  Stream a Clear Channel station in one of the top-10 markets.  You’ll hear shorter elements, dead-segues, and promos that are :15 or less in some cases.  Also, check out a satellite channel or an online-only station.  The interruptions are few and far between.  Now, this is where I begin to opine since I’m too lazy to cite any actual research on the subject and after all this is a blog.  In my own experience as a listener, I’ve found that I enjoy listening to content that let’s the programming stand out.  One of my favorite channels on XM was Lucy (now Lithium, may she rest in peace).  I like alternative rock from the 90s because that’s where I began my radio career and it also reminds me of my college years, with lots of pleasant, albeit fuzzy memories associated with that genre of music.  The station was imaged with the standard name and position elements between songs with minimal production value (“90s alternative rock, Lucy, XM 54”), as well as dead-segues.  But every so often, you’d hear a longer, more creative message.  These then stood out because they were clever, funny and few and far between.  It was stuff that really hit home with me as both an audience member and as a radio creative, “The satellite radio station that’s playing at your gym.  You’d know that if you went there;” and, “Music from the time in your life when your boyfriend embarrassed you at parties to the time in your life when your husband embarrasses you at parties.”  Hey, I have a gym membership that I don’t use and more than once have I had to endure a silent ride home with my girlfriend/wife after some sort of “lampshade-wearing” incident. 

So from my own personal tastes as a consumer of media, I’ve gleaned some insight into how I should create imaging for my own stations when the people meter makes its appearance in my market sometime in the fall of 2009.  Imaging will still have its place, but it will be a different role.  Instead of beating the call letters and position statement into the listener’s head so that they remember to write it down in a diary, a little reminder to what they’re listening to will suffice.  Watch network TV.  There’s a little logo in the corner of the screen to remind you that you’re watching Law & Order on NBC and not on TNT or USA (who also have reruns of L&O). It’s the same thing with radio.  Lots of stations play Beyonce or John Mayer, but you need to remind the listener what they’re tuned to so they can come back if they like your particular programming.  That’s where a simple “Y108” or “Mix 106-5” will do.  Need to promote something: website, contest, feature, or event?  You can still do that between songs, just not between every song.  Music hook montages?  Unless they preview the next three upcoming songs, forget ‘em.  Just play the next song in its entirety.  Get out of the way of the music.  And for godsakes, don’t say, “we’ll be right back” or “more music on the way next” going into a stop set.  You might as well be saying, “change the channel now”.  A prime example from my own little world, when I’m watching Wrecked on SPEED and the announcer says, “Coming up…”, I’m on the DVR commercial skip faster than a jack-rabbit on a date.  Use a regular upbeat name & position sweeper into spots.  Listeners are conditioned to expect music after something like that and they’ll be 1 or 2 spots in before they even realize there’s no song playing.

Now if you’re working with a PD who is very old school, you’re going to have an uphill battle in trying to institute these changes.  The ideas of production people are not usually accepted nor implemented.  “What do we know, right?  We’re just a bunch of knob turners who know nothing about programming.”  Maybe?  But we do know our audiences.  We write for them day-in and day-out.  We get them to buy products, shop at sales, enter contests, go to remotes, attend concerts.  Nothing all that important really.  If radio is going to change, it’s going to have to change from within, from the bottom up.  If we don’t take a stand and express our opinions on how things need to progress into the people meter era, the whole thing is going to fall down around us.