Good Mood Marketing from Magic

Looking for a nice way to involve your listeners with your next TV campaign? Take a look at London’s Magic 105.4 and their latest offering that I've placed below. They call them “Good Mood Films”… and there’s even a dedicated website where listeners can get involved.

The ideas a simple yet very effective one. DJ’s ask listeners to send in original photos that make them smile. Lovely and simple. Then Magic pick some of the best ones, stick a Michael Buble song underneath them… and hey presto… a user generated content TV ad!

It’s a really nice way of getting listeners involved in the marketing of the station, and reinforcing the image that Magic is really a great “good mood” station. Those who submit photos will no doubt spread the word. Plus, people that take photos love nothing more than the opportunity of someone else seeing their work.

And I guess you don’t have to fork out loads to film a massive, all singing, all dancing TV ad too! When budget’s are tight, then creativity takes over!

I think it’s a beautifully simple bit of marketing that work for me. Right now I’m off to submit about 400 photos of my kids just to see if I can get them on the next ad. God... I've been hooked in...

"And the nominations please"...

The announcements last week of who’d won Sony Radio Academy Award nominations was another good indicator of who the stars of commercial radio are, and how dominant the BBC are in certain areas.

With beer in hand, I dutifully stood at the back of the room and listened intently as Chris Evans & co read out the list of names of those going forward to win a gong. With over 30 categories, it took quite some time, and the announcements were met with either large cheers (usually from the boys and girls at Kiss 100 – they turn up to anything in the West End of London where there’s a free drink, you know!)… stunned silence… or a stifled laugh into the hand.

Some of the nominations that caught my eye…

It was nice to see 3 commercial radio Breakfast shows feature in the 5 nominations for The Breakfast Show Award (Capital, Trent and Clyde) who will battle against Radio 1 and 5 Live. I’d be delighted if Johnny picked up the award for Capital. He’s taken so much flack over the years and consistently delivers a very strong product.

The Entertainment Award sees Russell Brand up for a gong (which would be well deserved, as the show is so unique and entertaining)… but the category includes the rather brilliant Mike Toolan from Key 103, who again delivers consistently funny radio.

Jonathan Ross gets nominated for Music Radio Personality of the Year along with Zane Lowe, Jamie Theakston, Geoff Lloyd and Adam from Rock FM. Again… nice to see commercial radio delivering some great nominations up against the BBC, showing that in the area of mainstream entertainment, UK commercial radio can hold its own.

The Irony Award goes to Planet Rock who got 3 nominations, despite the “Fru Master Plan” calling for it to be shut. Shows that sometimes in radio, decisions aren’t based on any artistic or creative merit… it’s just about the money. Shame really. Still, I have a hunch it will survive! (“Fish on Friday” is probably the best name for a show I’ve heard in a long time!)

A couple more ‘tips of the hat’ go to the following: The guys at Jack FM in Oxford got a nod for their imaging. I hope they pick up the award for having the balls to do something different. In a sea of similarity, Jack FM is bobbing about being very unique. And that’s got to be worth something.

Finally in the Specialist Music Programme Award, a full sweep of BBC nominations was only stopped by “Friday Night Floorfillers with Krystle” from 97.3 Forth One in Edinburgh. Being the Programme Director that thought she’d make a rather good presenter one day and gave her first show on Forth One a few years back now, it’s nice to see that she’s recognised alongside heavyweights such as Zane Lowe on Radio 1. Well done Krystle!

So, the countdown is on. The dinner jacket is being dry cleaned, the pre-show drinks party is being arranged and the ‘Nurofen Plus’ is being ordered in bulk. If you’re nominated for a Sony Award this year… good luck. Winning is a great feeling. Losing is pretty crap… but alcohol does help. And if you’re going to the Grosvenor House Hotel on May 12th… mine’s a large Scotch and coke!

"Going... going... gone"; Global buys GCap

Congratulations to Global Radio. The ongoing speculation and deadline extensions led to the least anticipated announcement this evening that GCap Media is to be purchased by Global Radio for £375 Million. Not a bad price all things considered!

Now the questions will begin…

• What does this mean for DAB in the UK?


• Will Global reverse the decision to close stations like The Jazz and Planet Rock?


• What about the sale of the Xfm’s outside London?


• Will the new enlarged Global have to sell some stations to keep the regulators less worried about lack of competition in some markets?


• How will Heart and Capital approach targeting the London market so they don’t cannibalise each other too much and maximise share?


• Will all the stations be housed in one big super sized broadcast centre in Leicester Square… which isn’t really brimming with room as it is!


• What implications will this have on staff and how many potential job losses will there be? (We can expect a radical restructure… in order to realise all those much talked about synergies!)


• And the most important question of all… How will Fru Hazlitt be spending her reported £1 Million settlement for her several months work.

You’ve got to hand it to her. “Here’s my vision” she says. “Er…. No thanks” say the board. “That’ll be £1 Million quid then please” says Fru! Nice work if you can get it!!

No doubt there will be many column inches devoted to this during the next few weeks and months. As the stories come and go, I’ll try and pick out some of the more interesting programming implications of this commercial radio mega-deal and what the shape of things to come may look like.

Whilst Charles Allen may have a halo around him tonight and be heralded as the ‘saviour of UK commercial radio’ by putting its biggest group into private hands, let’s not forget this is the man who took ITV to one of it’s 'all time low' periods in terms of ratings, revenue and creativity. So, whilst Global is tonight living up to it’s bullish name… let’s see what things look like in 3, 6 and 12 months time.

But good luck Charles! We’re counting on you!

"Call in to Win... or not!"

Picture the scene. I’m just stepping on to a plane and my phone rings. It’s my old colleague Bam Bam, who asked innocently enough “What are you doing tomorrow?” As it happened, I was free. “Great” he said, “You can join me on BBC London. I’m standing in for Danny Baker and you can join me on air!”

Before I’d had a chance to stow my bag (wheels first of course) in the overhead locker, I’d apparently agreed to get back on the radio again.

So 24 hours later, there I was on the other side of the desk from Bam in the lovely BBC London 94.9 studios about to do a 2 hour, predominantly talk show!! As it happened it was great fun and getting back on the air reminded me of why I love radio so much… but the reason why I’m telling you this is to highlight an incident that went on during the show.

A caller phoned in with a couple of tickets to a BBC London live show that Danny Baker was hosting at the Hackney Empire. He had a couple of spares and suggested we give them to the first caller. There then ensued a rather comedic on-air conversation as to whether this constituted a competition or not. (All competitions had been banned across the BBC after the ‘fakery’ rows that affected the media so badly in the last 12 months.)

The lovely producer came through on talk back and said it was fine. We discussed it for a few more moments… and then a more senior Editor appeared to have hot-footed from the programming offices and glided in majestically into the production studio, and had an animated conversation with the show producer. Presumably they were discussing whether giving away a couple of spare tickets TO A BBC LONDON EVENT (!!) was a competition or not and therefore, the most heinous of crimes possible to commit!

The answer was ‘Yes – it is a competition... Don’t you dare do it!”

I have now officially witnessed first hand the paranoia that still exists to do with contesting on the BBC, and layers of bureaucracy that have been developed to ensure they are run according to the letter…. or not at all, as was the case!

If you’re really bored, go to The BBC’s Editorial Guidelines subsection about Interactivity and Competitions and have a read. Wow. They really mean business. Which is why if you heard Jonathan Ross’s show this weekend, it makes it even funnier! Please Listen again on the BBC Radio Player to the link that is about 30 minutes in, where Jonathan and producer Andy discuss the fact that they are now officially the 4th programme allowed to do a contest again! Match of the Day, Ken Bruce and one other as yet unidentified show all piped them to the post. But the rigmarole they had to go through was comedy gold!! It included the fact they had to solicit for callers 1 hour in advance of the contest!! Blimey!

Jonathan provides, as usual, a degree of common sense over the whole thing and it’s a shame that he doesn’t dictate Editorial Policy. It would be far more entertaining and practical. It’s funny how a few bad decisions in the past, by a few individuals, have impacted on the whole of the BBC in such a big way.

So, 2 thoughts to come out of this;

1. If you’re planning on entering BBC competition in the near future when they all come back online… be prepared to be bored rigid by about 20 minutes of disclaimers / guidelines they’ll read out on air.

2. Don’t answer the phone and agree to something without much thought as you’re about to get on a plane!

"I'd like to thank my Mum and Dad..."

“If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster, And treat those two impostors just the same…”

...I mumbled to myself as they started reading out the winners of the category that my station was nominated in at The Sony Radio Academy Awards in 2004. Fortunately, that night I had scheduled an appointment with ‘Triumph’ and promptly staggered the stage and accepted the Sony Gold award from Claudia Winkleman (no less!!) and delivered a fairly drunken, but still somewhat comprehensible acceptance speech. Watching yourself projected onto a 30 foot wide screen is enough to keep any speech pretty quick and I departed with a flourish stage left, walking through the crowded auditorium shaking hands with people I’d never met before, to spend enormous amounts of my company’s money on champagne and cigars. Bravo!

This year, my role in proceedings is somewhat different but no less daunting. I’m a judge for the Sony Radio Academy Awards… an honour indeed. So last week the assorted judges for my particular category got together for several hours of heated debate.

Now of course, I cannot divulge who they were, where we met, or what category we were judging was, or even what we had for lunch. I can tell you we had 2 pots of coffee and still mineral water, but it’s all very ‘hush-hush’ you know. Careless talk costs lives and all that…

However, what was so enjoyable about the whole process was the opportunity to listen to some fantastic bits of radio from across the UK, and from across a whole range of stations. Big and small, BBC and commercial, well funded and under resourced… or did I cover that in the last comparison? UK radio may be going through a complex time and the politics and business of it all is taking centre stage, but behind that there continues to be brilliant stations with brilliant broadcasters on them, lest we forget.

Anyhow, back to the judging process… and the “big box” of entries was whittled down to a top 10… which in turn was whittled down to a top 5… which in turn was whittled down to a top 3… which in turn were placed Bronze, Silver and Gold.

The decision will remain a closely guarded secret until Monday 12th May at The Grosvenor House Hotel on Park Lane, where inevitably Paul Gambaccini plus obligatory guest will “...open the envelope please”.

I know we have a worthy winner and I’m sure they will manage a much more coherent speech than I did several years ago. But one more word of advice from Mr Kipling...

“Don’t look too good, nor talk too wise”

Prize Pig

Giving away hot tickets for a big event continues to be an audience winner. Giving away hot tickets for a big event in another country is even better! So, well done to all the guys at client station Radio Expres in Slovakia for pulling off a great bit of radio this week.

Radio Expres is a national, commercial Hot AC station based in Bratislava and is by far the number 1 station in the country, with a 26% share! As you’d expect, they don’t do things by half… and so with The Brit Awards coming they decided not only to send a couple of the DJ’s over to cover the Brits live, backstage at Earls Court, but to do hot ticket giveaway for a couple of their listeners. And I’d like to share the mechanic with you…

The station announced that listeners had the chance to win two VIP tickets for Brits, but the listeners had to offer the station something in exchange. On the first day, the station was flooded with offers for the tickets in exchange for a whole range of things including a plastic surgery operation... a cart full of wood (!)... and even a couples wedding rings!!

The person who was initially chosen, offered to have the Radio Expres logo tattooed on his arm! So he won the tickets – but here’s the twist.... he had to “come good” with his promise of the tattoo within 24 hours or he’d loose the tickets! As it happens, he bottled it, lost the tickets and game started again. So the next morning amongst all the strange and random offers that came in, someone offered... wait for it... two big roasted pigs (!!) and the morning guys (Dodo and Noro) decided that it was a great offer! So this guy got the tickets upon (presumably upon presentation of the pigs!)

The mechanic really gets going at this point though. Every morning, a listener came on the morning show and offered the current holder of the tickets something in exchange for them. It was up to the holder (in this case, the pig dude) to decide if he wanted to keep the tickets or exchange them for whatever was being offered to him to keep.

For the next 7 days, 'Mr Pig Roast' was offered everything from weekend trips & holidays, male and female servants, and Audio A8, some sperm (nice!!!), a cemetery plot... absolutely everything you can imagine! On the final day, the station arranged for one listener to come to the studio with 1,000,000 Slovak Crowns (well, 999,999 as "...only a fool would offer 1,000,000" so he said!) stuffed into a leather bag! Would Mr Pig Roast swap the tickets for a stash of cash??

Cue a great 'tension moment' that works so well on radio. You can watch action unfold on the video below.

No Deal!!! Mr Pig Roast sooo wanted to go to the Brits... and on Wednesday night this week, he and his partner had a great time watching the show live at Earls Court in London and then partying at the big backstage orgy that always follows! Plus of course the station had their guys there to broadcast all the highlights right from the centre of the action.

It’s a really good example of how to reflect and get involved in a big music event (like the Brits) on your station, and then create a fun, entertaining and talkable contest, getting the audience involved with some naturally entertaining moments.

More roasted pig anyone??

"A great philosopher once wrote..."

OK – ‘Soapbox’ time.

I never make a real point of reading the ‘Radio Review’ columns that most broadsheet papers in the UK run… but I occasionally stumble across one (mainly due to carelessness) when trying to find, in the listings, the broadcast time that a great documentary is on BBC Four! (Honest!)

So yesterday, when I accidentally cast my eyes across Paul Donovan’s column in The Sunday Times, I thought I’d give it a go. After all it had been a tumultuous week in UK radio, with GCap’s DAB announcement still sending ripples of excitement through the broadsheets. So I imagined the Sunday Times radio commentator would be begging the editor for more space than his usual 600 word allowance to wax lyrical about DAB / Jazz music on radio / classic rock / listener choice…. you name it!!

Sure enough, the first 3 lines alluded to the planned closure of Planet Rock and The Jazz and the tweaking of the Classic FM schedule… but then the esteemed Paul Donovan seemed somewhat determined to crowbar in a story he had planned to write anyway about BBC Radio 1 and Judge Jules, and got to it with the awkwardness of a 1st Year GCSE English student.

Not only did he fail to give any musings on the demise of 2 stations enjoyed by almost a million listeners between them, but he then forced on the readers what I can only describe as a pompous, haughty, lecturing, ostentatious, vindictive and out of touch ‘personal viewpoint’.

You really need to read it to believe it, but the thrust of it was that BBC Radio 1’s Judge Jules made an off the cuff remark buried deep within ones of his links that went…

“The last time I heard that, I was chewing my face off in a field in the early Nineties.”

This remark led to our great radio reviewer using his column to launch into a massive ‘anti-ecstasy’ rant quoting all sorts of statistics and basically suggesting that Jules was a drug-fuelled fiend and practically gives away Ecstasy tablets on his show! (OK – He doesn’t suggest that at all, but I think you can tell he’s not a fan of Jules!)

I think what annoyed me most, was the phrase…

“He should know better”

I mean… come on. Please. I wanted to read a review about radio or some sort of comment on the state of the industry this week, not get ‘Victorian Dad’ lecturing me that taking drugs is bad. And as if to illustrate the point further, he suggests that one of the reasons that Jules should know better is… wait for it… that he’s related to the celebrity chef Rick Stein. Oh dear… oh dear!
I thought the Sunday Times was better than this.

Of course, Paul Donovan contacted Radio 1 to ‘grass Jules up’ for being a despicable peddler of filth. (I suspect that no-one else was too bothered about this remark and I can’t see the Duty Log running out of space at that time). Being the BBC, they naturally said that the comment was “inappropriate.” I’m sure the Radio 1 Press Office were stifling their laughter during the phone call!

Our anachronistic columnist was seemingly delighted at this supposed ‘telling off’ and ended his piece with the classic lines…

“Quite right too. Next time, he should get the chop”

It sounded more like The Daily Mail with every word. I think that perhaps the author also has an issue with the licence fee being used for Radio 1 to play dance music.

“What the station needs to do now is consider the acceptability of its 12-hour dance-music marathon, which runs from 7pm on Friday to 7am on Saturday. It offers “piping-hot tunes”, “hot mixes” and “remixes”, the sort of hypnotic music that people listen to when they go clubbing.”

Bizarre. Perhaps dance music doesn’t live up to his Reithein interpretation of “Entertainment”.

I’m a pretty mild-mannered radio consultant and not really prone to outbursts of this nature (most of the time!) but this kind of disconnected attitude means that when people under 65 do actually read Paul Donovan’s column, they’ll be put off for life.

There’s a documentary on BBC Radio 4 tomorrow where Gyles Brandreth celebrates the 100th Birthday of the character ‘Billy Bunter’. Much more up your street I think Mr. Donovan! Look forward to not reading the review next week.