I was listening to the rather wonderful XFM today when I was suddenly arrested by the aural equivalent of a wet haddock in the face.
The Radio Advertising Bureau do a lot of advertising on XFM for some reason. They have a series of adverts which are amusing the first time you hear them and then rapidly become irritating, but they have a new one that really stands out. In it, the Clueless Interviewer, a character who features in every ad, talks to Some Bloke about why radio advertising is good.
Now, there are several things I can believe about radio advertising. It's cheaper than tv. Maybe it's more effective than tv. Yeah, I'm not going to argue on that. Fair dos.
So I'm sitting here listening to the radio when I hear Some Bloke say something along the lines of 'Radio is a good medium for advertising because it's all about brand conversations'. What?
Radio.
Brand.
Conversations.
Er…
Ok, so where, precisely, is the conversational part of radio? Last time I checked, radio was all about broadcast, which is not quite the same as conversation. As I understand it, conversation requires at least two people and if we say that a radio ad is the equivalent to one person speaking, I still find myself not quite sure where the second person comes into it.
I couldn't quite believe my ears, so I popped along to the RAB website, (which really suckily requires registration to enter) to check it out and sure enough, there is it, a whole section under the title “Understanding radio, the brand conversation medium”.
Have they quite lost their marbles?
I have a feeling that maybe someone's been reading the Cluetrain Manifesto a few years too late, or maybe they have a gapingvoid acolyte on work experience who's heard a few choice phrases and decided that it'd be great to shoehorn this new 'marketing's a conversation' thing into the ads somehow. Obviously they haven't read McLuhan.
Here's the section Introduction for you, spelling, grammar and punctuation replicated as per the original:
Introduction by Derek Morris
Chief Strategic Officer, Publicis and Non-Executive Chairman of the RAB
“All right, let’s admit it – “brand conversation” is marketing speak. Even so, it’s a phrase that seems to be helpful, because there isn’t really anything else that expresses the same thought.
It’s about the way brands really interact with consumers. Advertising isn’t about one-way broadcasting any more. When brands speak (be it on TV, on radio or anywhere) there is a consumer response – sometimes enthusiasm, sometimes half-interest, sometimes cynicism. Sometimes the response is physical (texting, email etc) sometimes it’s just in the heads of the consumers. But these interactions go on and on, hopefully in a way that is positive for the brand.
The challenge for brands is to make sure they manage this positively.
Radio isn’t the only medium that offers the opportunity for brand conversations. But it does seem to be a rich territory: it’s under-used, and when it is used, it’s often in a non-conversational”hurry hurry hurry” manner whichbelies the real strengths of the medium.
The playing field seems to be wide open. This book seems a good place to start.”
(Book? What book? Did they lift this directly from somewhere else and not credit it?)
And a particularly juicy snippet from their Executive Summary page:
Social and cultural changes are forcing brand marketing to change and many writers, like John Grant, are characterising the new brand-customer processes as “dialogue” or “conversations”.
In these ongoing transactions, each time a brand communicates something, a consumer has an opportunity to respond, physically or mentally. This kind of “brand conversation” helps to reinforce brand ideas and develop stronger relationships with consumers.
At the same time, “conversation” neatly encapsulates what we have learned from research about the way radio communicates. Radio appears to be an intrinsically “conversational” medium.
Ok… so they think radio is an 'intrinsically “conversational” medium'? What planet are these people on? Sorry to break it to you, but radio is a broadcast medium. Blogs are a conversational medium. And you, my dear RAB, are toast if you keep spouting bollocks like this.
(PS I would deconstruct this in more detail, but I'm far too tired. Besides, you don't really need me to, do you?)
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