Branding for sale

Fybush tipped us off to what might be a horrific new trend in radio branding. The idea is revolting, truly heinous even by the standards of the biz. In addition to selling product placement, endorsements, sporsorships, ads, mentions, flickers, blips, spots, live reads and placements we can now sell the brand itself. Somone please stop us.


Clear Channel like many obese radio chains has been in hot pursuit of Non-traditional revenue sources. As a matter of fact, Google that Phrase and see how many radio services pop up. It's a sign of the epidemic.


So CC's Rochester cluster has been trying some very new non-traditional revenue sources on 107.3 WCRR a tiny class A in South Bristol Township. the station is to the distant south of Rochester, almost audible in Corning, NY. It's spent most of this summer as "Labatt Blue Country 107.3," having co-opted it's own branding in the name of a beer sponsor. I cant decide if this is a money maker or just sad. I 'm leaning toward sad. http://www.mycountryfm.com/


Their low standards became evident last year when they stunted with the "Wheel Of Formats." Durring the stunt they used the brand "Huge 107.3" co-branding with a local automobile dealership. After six days of thsi horror the wheel stopped on CHR/Pop. Gag.

Way back in the 1950s WCRR (as WVBT) they were a part of the Rural Radio Network. It was the first all radio, no wireline radio network in the world. It was meant to serve the agricultural areas of upstate New York. It was broken up and sold off in the early 1980s. More on that tomorrow.

For the record, WCRR-FM has relation to college radio 1600 WCRR-AM http://wcrr.fit.edu/

The HD Radio Brand

I read just this week at Bridge ratings that HD radio awareness has actually decreased this year. I know I'm a nattering nabob of negativity but read it here. It reminded me that HD radio is a meaningless term. Like the fake syndromes that marketing companies come up with to sell drugs that people dont actually need. Restless Leg Syndrome (RLS) meet HD-2 Digital Radio!

The HD radio Brand came from HD television. Now HD television is actually high defintion. HD radio in many cases will be low def. Multicasting can lower audio quality. In radio the codec is IBOC, and owned by Ibiquity exclusively. So they have some control over branding you could say. But they seem to suck at it.

Here are some radio spots they did. You can actually hear listeners get more confused. Stations between the stations? Huh? Why would that require a special radio? A mascott named "Anne Tenna? Oy vey. The branding is just unfocused in general and with the highly technical nature of the product it's difficult to explain no matter what the metaphor.
Number 1
Number 2
Number 3
Number 4
Number 5
Number 6
Number7

It's somthing they need to straighten out soon. IBOC debuts on the AM band at night which is creating a furor among sober engineers. Mexico is concerned enough to write the FCC, going so far as to suggest the interference will be so bad as to violate international treaty.

Bad Branding, Part Three

They do not sell radios. In fact they have nothing to do with radio at all. Somewhere in the twisted logic of Concourse F of the Lindbergh Terminal of MSP airport this made sense to someone.

This is a retail store at the Minneapolis St. Paul International Airport carrying a selection of moderately priced "travel-friendly" clothes for women. It was founded by a flight attendant who thought consessions at the airports ignored women.

Radio Brands Part II

I see radio brands used and misused all sorts of ways. I will post more about thsi in the future for certain but let me focus the microscope on this bit of minutea. Today's lesson is about call letters being used to carry a brand name.

There was a classic case in the 1980s right here in Philadelphia. When WDVR was flirting with the beautiful music format decided the station should beknown as Easy-101. They changed calls to WEAZ but the air staff only refered to the station as EAZY101. At the top of the hour, they would sneak in the legal ID .. but it was typically burried in programming tags. The four letters W-E-A-Z were never used on air in a correct legal ID. They were using the calls in conjunction with the brand.
more here: http://www.nrcdxas.org/articles/hmr0796.txt

WDVR was certainly not the first. I have only anecdotal evidence on the following so please add salt. if you know something I don't, please fill me in!

The story goes that the first call flip ever was in Boston. I have assumed this excludes all call flips required by early name regulations. In the Korean war this station took an anti-war position. As the war drew out it killed its ratings. Over the years even after the war ended the reputation stuck to the call letters regardless of format or ownership change. They filed with the FCC for special permission to change their calls... and got it.

My only problem with this is that I am fairly sure that call flips preceded the Korean war. but... It's probably got some truth in it.

Below are some nice and obvious examples of a call sign serving the brand
K-Love
KLOV, KLUV, KLVE
Jack-FM
KJJK, KJCK, KJJK, KJKK

K-Rock

KROQ, KROK, KROC
Progressive Talk
KTLK-AM, WLIB-AM,
Conservative Talk
WGOP-AM (fact: Republican Party nickname GOP stands for Grand Old Party)

Nice history of some Philly call flips here:
http://phillymemories.tripod.com/id15.htm