A Chief Insights Officer for a major national radio broadcasting company posted this statement on Linked In: “Lets face it: the only media that can insure brand safety are TV, Magazines, Newspaper, Out of Home and AM/FM Radio. Digital has no capacity, understanding, will or ability to insure brand safety.”
Here’s my reply: “Sir, you just made a statement on Linked In and then linked to a website to make your point. You have 21 Likes and 11 Comments which shows engagement of up to 32 different people. You can see their names, titles, resumes, and current locations and if you like connect with all their friends as well expanding a network through this one post to up to 500 x 32 or 16,000 new connections. So now you have analytics and the ability to grow a network as well. The problem with radio is that the industry is too obsessed with the medium. It’s the content that’s important, not the medium. Radio is dying because:
- The content is often not compelling, original, or local.
- Arbitron as a rating service does not provide accurate and detailed data for advertisers.
- The way people consume media is different, I don’t have to wait for that song or show because I can listen to it now. Listeners are moving to the world of podcasts where individual podcasters can be their own network.
With digital you can customize and run multiple campaigns that can drive subscriptions, purchases, phone calls, and store visits. You can geo-target the ads by interest and watch in real time as people interact with your website. Digital ads are less expensive, more customizable, reach more people faster, and you can adjust them after they launch. Frankly, there’s no comparison.
“Lets face it: the only media that can insure brand safety are TV, Magazines, Newspaper, Out of Home and AM/FM Radio.” No let’s face it, all of those mediums are dying and Google, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft are four of the five largest companies in the world. Why is that? Because we use those tools to consume digital media everyday. Don’t take my word for it though. Just check stock values.
