This week we’re at the biggest event in the United States for New Media Creators.  As Corporate Podcast creators, Justin Kaiser and Associates - Creative Identity Group feels that this investment in education will make it worthwhile to our clients.    Through unique conference sessions, exhibit hall presentations, and networking functions the entire event is devoted to the industry of creating, delivering, and profiting from unique digital content for the Internet and any device the consumer chooses.

The New Media Expo is an annual convention that educates individuals and companies about how to produce high-quality audio and video digital content, grow a loyal audience, and market or monetize that content in creative ways.

The Expo is an event that brings together influential digital media creators, podcasters and content developers to cover the complete range of creation techniques, business objectives and future trends.  This is a a major networking event where content creators can share ideas and build partnerships.  We’d love to network with you.  Make sure you follow us on Twitter and if you’d like to meet-up, just e-mail us at mobile (at) justinkaiser.com

I never thought I’d see this from the NAB.   There are still people that do care about producing and writing commercials that work for our clients. Some clusters have just given up. Some just get “it” on.  Radio is hurting right now… economy, war, wall street, bad moon rising over scorpio, whatever. 

I care….  I get paid to care and I provide my clients with the tools they need to obtain market dominance…

Here’s my take.  Radio stations without writers or producers are the target of this article. Holiday is saying to them “pay up”. Either hire decent staff, or outsource. Either way you have to spend a buck to get good creative that works.

“Added value” Bullshit. If it doesn’t have a dollar sign attached it’s free and it’s probably not worth the screen it was typed on.  When was the last time you wrote a commercial that said, “Buy one get a second as added value!”

Fortunately, a few advertisers want a better product than ”added value”?  

It’s that very way that I’ve built my business.Here’s the deal, I have the voices, writers, and software available to make this happen “virtually” for stations around the world.  If you’d like to learn more, let me know.  It’s brilliantly wonderful and we’ve got clients who would NOT have signed without it.

With that in mind…  Take a read…

Justin Kaiser
Creative Identity Group

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Sales Tip from the RAB Training Academy: Nothin’ from Nothin’ Leaves Nothin’

By Doc Holliday, RAB Training Specialist

Have you ever told a client that one of the benefits of advertising on Radio is free production? The trouble with free commercials is that most of them aren’t even worth the cost. In fact, most of the time free commercials turn out to be more expensive because of the cost of advertising that doesn’t generate any results. They cost your station listeners who tune out because of the way free commercials sound. And just think how much money they cost your station and the industry because of clients who tried Radio and now think it doesn’t work.

There are a lot of opinions as to what makes a good commercial. Fact is, most of them are wrong. The client is the worst judge of all when it comes to knowing a good commercial from an expensive waste of airtime and airwaves. Sometimes they even insist that we run commercials filled with information that no one cares about because that’s what all the other bad free commercials are filled with. But they’re FREE…right?

If you have a great production department, and they churn out great commercials that always get great results, and they do it for free…great! If not, maybe you should consider offering your clients commercials that work instead of free commercials. There are many great commercial production houses, both local and national. It doesn’t matter where the production houses are located. Digital delivery is as easy as e-mail. Do your due diligence.

When you have found a production house that will consistently deliver commercials that are compelling and effective, work with them to arrive at a pricing structure that you and your clients can live with.  Negotiate a deal that will make it possible for you to have spec spots to play when you make presentations. Then, when your client compares your creative with the free creative that your competitors may offer, let the quality speak for itself.

Once clients are convinced that you are recommending production that is in their best interests, and they hear the difference in quality for themselves, most of them will have no problem paying a few hundred dollars more for commercials that actually work.

The benefits of getting beyond our free production paradigm are many. If the schedule is done properly, the client gets results, which means they actually see a return on their investment. As a result, they are more inclined to become a repeat customer. You create long-term base billing. And your station sounds better because your commercials are less likely
to be seen as clutter.

Great commercials get great results. Commercials that cost nothin’ and generate nothin’ are worth less than nothin’ to you and your clients.

Most of the time… most of the people are “idea challenged” because they’re afraid to take a chance… “Break The Rules”. They conceive a remarkable marketing, branding, advertising campaign yet they never seem to be able to turn the idea into a working model.

WHY? Client reluctance… idiotic, unimaginative management… and worse yet complete lack of confidence in themselves…

Finally, they suffer an inability to produce a demo of their idea so cohorts may “see” and hear how good the concept is… the result? COMPLETE FAILURE… and worst of all… the client has suffered a serious loss of investment resources.

Can Creative Identity Group help you?

This article was in the most recent Inside Radio sheet.  This is important reading if your station is promoting an HD component…

Here’s the way I see it.  After more than a year marketing HD radio with partnering radio stations… where are we?  Is there any consumer interest?  I think the 2 things that are crippling this is 1.  Cost to purchase the unit.  And 2.  lack of real quality/unique programming.

Until these items are fixed, there will be no demand and no product on the shelves…

Justin Kaiser
Creative Identity Group

Readers chime in. Trying to buy an HD Radio at retail has not been easy. Inside Radio reported Tuesday on our experience with a weekend shopping spree in New York, and our attempt to find and buy an HD Radio receiver.

While we love the technology and the sound quality, retailers appear to be the weak link in moving HD Radio forward with the consumer. We asked readers to let us know about their shopping experiences … and they did.

Sarasota FL: “At Sound Advice, the local high-end store, the salesman and I agreed on a model and he had it installed. Only upon tuning around after installation did we learn that this particular head unit (a sheepish Kenwood phone rep let us know) ‘was not multi-cast ready’. We could tune in HD1…but no side channels. A bust!”

Connecticut: “Went to Best Buy — Brookstone — Sharper Image — Circuit City. Zero units in stock. ‘Yeah, we get some calls for them. Hear we’re gonna stock some soon.’ That’s the response from store clerks. I see nothing on TV or in the daily newspapers (about HD). Or on billboards. No ads for HD paid for by the radio industry to create awareness or a
need for HD Radio sets. Ads saying you can have HD in your car, den, walkman, poolside, kitchen, bedroom, etc. Where’s the Industry push?”

Chicago: “I tried to buy an HD receiver for my home stereo system last weekend at Best Buy. There weren’t any HD receivers there, and the salesperson tried to sell me an XMHD receiver. I ended up explaining to him what HD was. I checked the car radio section and they had only one.”

St. Louis: “My experience was in a local Best Buy, and the clerk escorted me to the HDTV display, confidently telling me that there was no such thing as HD radio, and that it was an Interent urban legend! If our retail partners don’t see fit to properly train their sales force, perhaps we should put our efforts into encouraging online purchases. While not able to offer “instant gratification”, we can at least offer our listeners a higher expectation of dealing with competent and well-trained representatives. I bought mine online and got free shipping!”

Kansas City: “Whenever I’m passing through a Best Buy or a Circuit City, I’ll stop and check to see how much store employees know about HD. I often get blank stares. At one Circuit City, I tried listening to standard radios and reception on all of them was poor. The employee [said] they don’t get good reception in the building. Anybody tried a master antenna? How can you sell anything, much less an HD Radio, if you can’t get a good signal into your demo radios?”

I saw this article and thought I’d pass it along…

Justin Kaiser
Creative Identity Group

“Old Media” Resilient, Survey Finds

 How do different generations use media? That was the question of a study released last week by Deloitte & Touche’s Technology, Media and Telecommunications practice. Drawn from a Harrison Group survey of 2,200 consumers 13 to 75 years old, the topline findings of the “State of the Media Democracy” offered hope for traditional media and yielded some fresh insights into new-media trends, according to Ed Moran, director of product innovation in Deloitte’s New York office.

 For example, consistent across all generational segments-millennials (13-24), Gen Xers (25-41), boomers, (42-60) and matures (61-75)-nearly three-quarters of consumers said they enjoy magazines even though they acknowledge being able to read the same publications online.

Despite their widespread embrace of new media platforms and a “trickle up” effect on older consumers, that tendency was even prevalent (71 percent) among the millennials, Moran said.

Moran said he was also impressed with “the real popularity of user generated content,” particularly in terms of its widespread demand. The survey shows that over half (51 percent) of all Internet users consume user generated content across generations.

Even so, what Moran called the “resilience of old media” remains a prominent feature of the landscape. “And one of the main activities online is going to a television Web site,” he said. The survey found that 46 percent of consumers do that regularly, including over half (52 percent) of all Gen Xers.

“Television is still a core activity,” Moran said. “Even though we see the expected amounts of online, text messaging, cellphone use [and] games-consumers are doing more things, but still watching television. It is always on.”

For advertisers, this could be “both troubling and reassuring,” he said, predicting that “participatory TV,” with some level of interactivity, will become more prevalent, especially as the millennial generation grows up.

Moran said there was also an unexpected result regarding digital video recording devices such as TiVo. “It’s the Xers and boomers that rely on DVRs for television use,” he said. “But the number-one use for DVR is not commercial skipping.”

In fact, the time shifting and the “season ticket” functions (the latter refers to being able to record an entire season of a show) rate highest, he said. The ability to fast-forward through commercials came in third. (The study showed that women like DVRs slightly more than men, and that men are more likely to watch commercials than women.)

Other findings:

• More than a quarter of consumers would pay for online content in exchange for not being exposed to advertising.
• Overall there was more receptivity to print ads than to Internet advertising.
• 60 percent of consumers visit 10 or more Web sites a week.
•  More than a quarter of leading edge millennials (26 percent) plan to shop online in the coming year.
• Search engines were rivaled by word-of-mouth in driving Internet traffic. Although search was No. 1 at 84 percent, 82 percent of respondents visited a Web site because of a personal recommendation. Ads on television (65 percent), Web site ads (55 percent) and e-mail campaigns (54 percent) followed in influence. (Gregory Solman http://www.adweek.com/aw/national/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003625365