The Art Of Recognizing Challenges

Increasing competition often leads us to re-position a format that may have done well under less stressful competition, but is straining under attack today. An even more serious question of "recognition" looms large whereby some operators are literally in denial over the severity of a format challenge. These ominous pitfalls can include:

1. Overlooking the truth. The most strategically obvious place to position a brand is always at its most obvious niche. Think back to Volkswagen's American invasion; wildly successful under the USP "Think Small." Just as the Japanese were invading the auto market, Volkswagen forgot their position-point and added big cars! Remember the Phaeton? Designed to rival Mercedes and BMW, however attractive, it failed miserably and worse, Volkswagen's annual American sales fell from 500,000 to 50,000 as the Japanese were stealing their position.

2. Incessant focus on the future. A lot of radio owners and programming executives dwell on positioning their formats to beat their competitors three years from now. But think about it; this is like rolling a snowball over a hot grill. Media's market forces are so fluid and erratic it's extremely tough to project the next three years. Settle on the strategies that will impact your sales trajectory overlaid with your market's format map, all the while being alert to adjusting when a change signal occurs.

3. Worshiping numbers. If upper management cooks up programming strategy with numerical goals to reposition a format brand, only to find that format adjustment fell short (even with a 10 to 15% increase) the same upper management will collapse the strategy costing more time and money. More often than not this ready-fire-aim exercise will kill a viable new attack losing time, resources, and esprit de corps. What upper management may not see comes with the fact that in one market 15% growth is foreseeable, and in another 1 percent would be a great victory.

4. Excessive tweaking and over-tuning. We stress this caution with our programming clients: the urge to tinker is irresistible in radio. Consider that by the late '90s, General Motors had lost about 15% of its market share because it couldn't stop messing with its brands, burying Oldsmobile and crippling Buick; even Saturn failed. Incessant tinkering makes you vulnerable; easy prey for sharper competitors; never mind the potential for cume-shock and loss of fan conversion on your most successful formats.

5. Misuse of research or worse, misunderstanding research. For a long time, some would say, "I don't listen to my stations, I listen to my research." Our firm highly values research; we recommend it. But there are pitfalls: Nt understanding, misunderstanding, or failing to accurately address what the research really finds and advocates. Some programming people come away with bleeding hunks of meat instead of seeing their research as an MRI; to be clinically consumed and implemented. And sometimes, a company will research until they find the outcome they desired in the first place ... talk about checking your gas tank with a lighter.

When sales are riding high, your cluster has momentum, and everyone is high-fiving in the break-room, it may be the perfect time to commission research, be it music testing or a format perceptual study. A brand is a delicate thing. Beware the traps.