My dog, Martha, understands the fundamental advertising principles of brand consistency and product familiarity. Who’s a good dog??!?

I realized this one day as I returned to the house from a long walk and was at the door to come in. My normally quiet and happy black lab mix was on the other side of that door—barking, snarling, and sounding ready to take me down if I dared enter.

This was strange. I come home from work every night through that same door, and she never barks. But here she was, standing in the middle of the kitchen, all the fur standing up on her back, shouting at me. The moment she saw my face, though, she immediately commenced with her usual doggie dance that just means, “I’m glad to see you, will we eat soon?”

What was different about this arrival than when I come home every night?

I realized that the culprit here was familiarity. Or in this case, the lack of it. There is a consistent audio pattern to my normal evening return. Around the appointed time, Martha’s sharp ears hear this: my car rolling into the driveway… my engine turning off… the thump of my car door… my approaching footsteps… my key sliding into the lock and the door opening.

On the day of the barking and the fur Mohawk, I had approached the house in an unfamiliar way, walking onto the property instead of driving. The audio sequence was missing, and so Martha had no frame of reference for the person suddenly at the door. Surprised, she ditched “welcome” and went straight to “fight me”.

We are the same way. We like familiar music, familiar faces, familiar products. To that last point: if we’re familiar with a product, we’re more apt to have a positive feeling about it. Most of the time, we’re more apt to buy it.

In psychology, this is known as the Mere Exposure Effect. This is a phenomenon by which people tend to develop a preference for things merely because they are familiar with them.

The same principal applies to how radio stations select songs. My friend Blake Hayes of the Coast Morning Show here in Portland once explained to me why certain songs get played to death (I remember the summer that some listeners to Coast 93.1 left voicemail messages threatening self-harm if they heard Weezer’s version of “Africa” even one more time). “When a familiar song is played, listenership goes up,” he said. “When we play a song no one has heard before, listenership goes down. It’s that simple.” So how does a new song ever get added in? “We put it in what we call a sandwich. Real research has been done showing that if you ‘sandwich’ a new, unknown song between two already-familiar songs, listeners will stick around and eventually accept the new song.”

In advertising and retail, the Mere Exposure Effect (or Blake’s “Sandwich”) is also known as The Familiarity Principle. Familiarity is bred through consistency of presentation, and consistency of presence. Here is a quick checklist of items that should be the same (or at least close to the same) every time a consumer sees or hears your advertising:

• Fonts. In print or web advertising, always use the same (or at least related) title and body fonts.
• Voice. “Voice” means two things. Literally, it means that your radio and television commercials should use a regular spokesperson to read the commercials. Second, it means you should be consistent in the way your copy is written—don’t be offbeat, hip and young in one instance and then restrained, formal, and upscale in another.
• Colors. Larger companies (McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, LL Bean, Sunday River, for example) have narrowed their color palettes down to extremely specific hues on the Pantone Matching System (PMS).
• Music. This could be a custom jingle, that instrumental jazz cut, or no music at all.

Finally, you must be consistent in your presence. If your marketing budget won’t allow for a full multi-media assault, pick one or two media (radio, tv, print, online) and stick with them. Doing a quick one month “test” won’t be enough to establish familiarity in any medium—commit yourself to at least three months at a time. Ideally, go for six or even twelve month commitments.

While it is important to be creative and engaging by switching up offers and copy regularly, always do so within the structure of your consistent, established brand. You’re attempting to bring your message “home” to your current and future customers. They won’t let you through the door if they don’t recognize you.

And they’ll never hear what you’re saying if the dog is barking her head off the whole time.

Good dog, Martha!

It was Jim and Kathy’s first — and last — date.

They went out to dinner, and Jim understood the mission: to make sure that Kathy understood his many great qualities. As the appetizers were delivered, Jim gave her a full background of his academic achievements and about the fact that he had been the captain of his high school basketball team.

Before they were through with their salads, Jim had given Kathy a list of his college and graduate school accomplishments. He told her he could totally have continued playing basketball at the college level, but he was pretty popular and just busy all the time.

Knowing that the more he said about himself, the more attractive he would appear, Jim began giving Kathy his work history as dinner arrived. At this point Kathy had said nothing in nearly 45 minutes beyond a few perfunctory interjections such as “you don’t say…” and “sure,” and “wow, really?”

At the end of the night, Jim drove Kathy back to her apartment. He had not had the chance to tell her about his hobbies, interests, and favorite movies. So he wrapped things up with the tantalizing words, “And there’s so much more that you’d be interested in knowing about me, but we’re out of time.”

Before she left the car, Jim thought it would be a good idea to create a little bit of urgency in order to secure a second date. His parting words were, “My schedule fills up quickly, and I only have limited space available on my calendar. Don’t wait too long to call me back!”

He spent the next several weeks waiting for Kathy to call. Remarkably, she never did.

Months later, a friend asked him, “Are you seeing anybody these days?”

“I tried dating,” responded Jim, bitterly. “It didn’t work.”

Jim is the classic bad date. He talks only about himself, believing that the more positive data he can provide to establish what he’s done and who he is, the more appealing he will seem to the person that he is trying to impress. Here’s the thing: if Kathy wanted Jim’s resume, she could have looked him up on LinkedIn before they met for dinner. The information she wanted that night was very different: “Are you a nice guy? Do you have the same sense of humor as me? Would we be a good team? Do you find me interesting? Do you like dogs?” None of these questions were answered.

More often than not, this is exactly how we advertise. We are convinced that if we can load up our ads with enough positive facts and figures about our business, we’ll win the customer’s business. But as the advertiser, you weren’t asked about how many years you’ve been a local, family-owned company. You weren’t asked if you’re the number one volume ______ dealer in New England, four years running. You weren’t even asked whether you will or will not be undersold.

Here’s what the consumer ALWAYS asks: “Can you help me with my problem? Can you fulfill my need? Can you improve my life?” Anything else is just data. Data has its place, but it should never be used to drive the ad copy. When that happens, the buyer’s response is to stop listening. You had their attention, but then you lost it. And more often than not, the final analysis is, “I tried advertising. It doesn’t work.”

Author Kaitlin Wernet summed it up nicely: “Most marketers are simply trying to force their customers to make a decision that will end in a sale. What they should be doing instead is making the buyer feel understood and working to gain their trust.”

Listen to what your customers are saying, and find out what they need. Show them that your product or service can help them cross their particular finish line. If you communicate that point effectively, the sale will happen. Not because you ordered them to “hurry, buy now”, but because you explained clearly that you have the solution.

Your relationship with your customer could turn into a long-term thing.

In order to get to that level of commitment, however… you gotta get a second date.

Both times in my career that I responded to a help wanted ad, I wasn’t actually looking for a job. I was just listening to the radio. Here’s what happened.

I went to music school, graduating with a BA in Musical Composition in 1991. This eminently useful degree allowed me to quickly scoop up a part time job at a supermarket bakery back in the town where I grew up. One morning as I was raising dough, baking muffins, and placing loaves of garlic bread into foil bags, the station to which we were listening in the back went to a commercial break. What I heard next was true music to my ears: “Are you a creative person? Comfortable behind a microphone? WLKZ is now hiring on-air personalities and production staff!” I applied. I got a part-time DJ shift that quickly became a full time sales and production position. The muffins were in the rear view mirror.

In 1994, with two years of selling now under my belt, the radio once again reached out to me. The job being offered was at a larger station in the Portland, Maine market. The sales manager reading the copy sounded cool. The job sounded exciting. I drove to Portland the next day to apply in person, and two weeks later, they hired me. I’ve been in the market ever since.

Nearly everyone is looking for help. For companies looking for skilled and professional employees, the “unemployed” pool really doesn’t exist anymore. Employed candidates must be enticed, with the promise of a better future somewhere else. To do this, employers need to effectively tell their story.

Radio tells stories. Having been personally ambushed and bagged by not one but two radio recruitment campaigns in my life, I can attest to the medium’s effectiveness. In both instances, 1.) I was qualified for the job being offered, 2.) I was not looking for that job, and 3.) I was already employed.

That second time I was recruited, I was employed full time, had benefits, liked my co-workers and enjoyed the job. It was a good little company. My reason for making the jump was that I saw an opportunity to grow in a bigger market. I would be in the minority today, however– a recent survey showed that 53% of employees are dissatisfied with their current work environment. Over half. These people are ripe for the recruitment picking and particularly receptive to a better opportunity somewhere else. They just need to hear about it.

Consider all of this:

• Radio reaches more people monthly than any other medium. According to Pew Research,  82% of people age 18 and up listened to the radio at some point this week.
• Radio reaches people while they’re on the move—driving, working on a project in the garage, shopping, working out at the gym or eating at a restaurant.
• Radio reaches both active job seekers as well as candidates who don’t currently consider themselves to be job seekers. This second group often contains some of the most qualified people of all.
• Radio reaches people who are not candidates… but who may know someone that is.
• Radio allows you an opportunity to both recruit and brand your business to the audience.
• Radio enhances an existing digital campaign. Research has shown an increase in online views, clicks, and conversions when the candidate has also heard about a company on the radio.

At the end of 2023, the unemployment rate in Maine stood at 3.0%. In other words, 97% of Mainers don’t need a job. They’ve got one already. If someone better understood who your company was and what you have to offer, though… they might discover they’re closer to jumping into the next adventure than they thought.

Tell them your story and watch what happens.

If you want to understand why repetition (also known as frequency) is a critical component to a successful advertising campaign, then you will have to first let me talk about my own guilty musical pleasure: the band Styx.

Despite their ascots, platform shoes, and often-cheeseball lyrics, Styx was a multi-platinum force of nature in the late ‘70s/early 80’s. But the fact is, their huge success would never have happened without a radio station and the magic ingredient of frequency.

The radio station was Chicago’s WLS. The year was 1974. And the situation for Styx at that time was dire. They had landed a record contract in 1972 with a small label that was doing a poor job of promotion. After 2-1/2 years of zero radio airplay and feeble album sales, the band was ready to call it quits.

It was at this point in time that a DJ at WLS named Jeff Davis heard the band’s song “Lady” being played on a jukebox at a pizza joint in the North End of Chicago. He loved it. Davis returned to the station with his pizza and a mission: he decided he would play “Lady” every night at 8pm until it was a top 10 hit. For several weeks, WLS’s audience heard the song at that time, night after night (including 38 states who carried WLS’s syndicated programming). It went from an unknown track to the #2 most-requested song on the station. Other stations across the country followed Davis’s lead and began to play it as well. By March of 1975, “Lady” had hit #6 on the Billboard Hot 100, had reached the top 40 on four different continents, and had landed Styx a major deal with A&M Records. They would go on to produce four consecutive albums that each went platinum.

And it all began with repetition, and a radio station.

“Lady” is a fine song. But it had existed for two years before Jeff Davis and his pizza came along. Many of the same listeners who propelled the song into the Top 10 in 1975 had undoubtedly been briefly exposed to it when it was released in 1973. But they hadn’t been exposed ENOUGH, and so nothing had happened.

Frequency/repetition builds familiarity. Familiarity builds affinity. Affinity builds trust. Your radio commercial is an unfamiliar tune to the audience’s ears the first time it’s played. It may not even register much the second or third time. A lot of research has shown, however, that by the third, fourth, and fifth times a listener has been exposed to your message, they’ve begun to absorb and retain the content. If the content is clearly communicated and addresses the listener’s need… that’s when the magic happens. At that point, response begins to compound.

Different marketing goals call for different types of frequency, as well. There are two basic approaches, known as “vertical frequency” and “horizontal frequency”.

Vertical frequency refers to many commercials being played over a short period of time. A weekend-only sale where response must happen in a short period of time calls for a vertical approach. You’ve probably heard, “Doooooooon’t miss it!!”

A long-term branding campaign, however, where the goal is to establish a business’s location, services, and personality, should be approached horizontally—fewer plays throughout the course of a particular week, but consistently aired month after month. Dunkin’ uses this approach to keep top of mind and grow the restaurant’s following over time.

Along with playing the commercial often enough, the content must be consistent over time, as well. I’m often asked by advertisers about how often a commercial should be changed in order to avoid “burning out” the listeners. It takes a TREMENDOUS amount of repetition before anything even approaching overkill starts to become a concern. My recommendation is usually that a single commercial should be refreshed about once a month… and multiple commercials running in rotation with each other (meaning you’re running 4 commercials 25% each, for example) have an even longer shelf life of two or three months.

Repetition and the right audience are a powerful combination. Play your commercial often enough, and it won’t be the Billboard Hot 100 telling you that you’ve succeeded—it will be an increase in the number of customers coming to take advantage of what your business has to offer.

That’s a song worth singing all day long.

Portland Media Group, a division of Saga Communications, is expanding our digital marketing services in New England’s fourth largest media market.  Our advertising partners are requesting we manage more of their overall marketing effort, and that affords a unique opportunity in Radio’s most admired public company.  As a key player in our organization, you will have the chance to shape the future of our digital sales department. We are not just looking for someone who will maintain the status quo, but a future trailblazer who can lead our company into uncharted territories of digital success.

The ideal applicant will be adaptable and quickly able to adjust to new concepts and changing business needs.  The preferred candidate will be detail oriented in every aspect of their work and analytically inclined, using data and insights to craft persuasive pitches.  Most importantly, the digital seller will be relentless and motivated, driven to pursue leads and meet revenue objectives in what is already a high-performance sales environment.

Key components of the job include the following:

• Cold Calling: Mostly over the phone, prospecting potential clients,
• Emailing & Social Media Engagement: Generating prospect leads through email and social media platforms,
• Virtual Presentations: Conducting online presentations using Teams,
• Analyzing Data and Insights: Utilizing data-driven insights to craft compelling strategies and to recap successful marketing campaigns through monthly reports.

Qualified applicants should apply to Director of Sales Barry Gabloff at 420 Western Avenue, South Portland, ME, 04106, or bgabloff@portlandradiogroup.com.  Portland Media Group is a division of Saga Communications and an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Applications for this position close February 29, 2024.