Tuesday, 06 December 2011 19:25

Return of the age of the community

Return of the age of the community
Enjoyed this thoughtful piece penned by veteran broadcast personality Tony Blewitt, and published on MarketingWeb, about the rise of community radio as a compelling marketing platform from a word of mouth perspective. He comments: "in smaller broadcast areas, certain community stations dominate listenership within that footprint. As such, they allow you to speak to a very targeted audience very directly - often making use of a personality the listener can relate to on a personal basis. As such, your advert takes on far more of a personal recommendation and becomes a less explicit endorsement, being comparable to "word of mouth" in terms of the weight it could potentially carry within that community."

Working in the 'soft sell' area of the marketing mix, this more personalised approach makes a lot of sense.

His concluding comments also struck a cord: "In an age where everyone is clamouring for consumers' attention, as a marketer, it's possibly a good idea to start paying more attention yourself. Community radio is proving a stubborn - and growing - exception to the impersonal and detached world that surrounds us. It's rekindling many of the happy associations we all grew up with: memories of playing soccer with friends in the street, riding bicycles around the block, walking the dog and visiting neighbours. This makes listeners far less likely to "tune out" or avoid your advertising breaks. That probably makes it the ideal place to start your advertising campaign for 2012."

Definitely food for thought. Read the full article on MarketingWeb.

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