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Should Country Cut More Collaborations?
- 04/24/2012
- Posted by: Mike O'Malley
- Category: country music, country radio
No CommentsAlbright & OMalleys just-released second quarter gold sort included four collaborations among the top 25 testers (the Zac Brown Band/Jimmy Buffet Knee Deep was the top tester this quarter). Others in the top 25 were Zac Brown Band/Alan Jackson, Walking Away, Blake Shelton/Trace Adkins, Hillbilly Bone, and Brad Paisley/Carrie Underwood, Remind Me. Jason Aldean/Kelly Clarkson,
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New Job Survey: Radio Personality Ranks Worse than Trash Collector, Better than Lumberjack
- 04/14/2012
- Posted by: Mike O'Malley
- Category: DJs, radio programming
Collecting trash is a better career than being a DJ. So says CareerCast.com which just released its ranking of 200 jobs based on physical demands, work environment, income, stress, and hiring outlook primarily using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and other government agencies. Being a Garbage Collector ranked 159 while being a DJ
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Increasing Listener Engagement One Can of Coke at a Time
- 03/31/2012
- Posted by: Mike O'Malley
- Category: imaging, radio programming
Want some topical inspiration? Have a Coke. Coke’s special ‘Carpe Diem’ cans can promote causes (like Coke’s World Wildlife Fund or Diet Coke’s heart health awareness cans) or capture the spirit of the moment (Santa and snowflake cans). Often the packaging is part of an integrated marketing effort (this one for the Final Four is
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Twelve Tips from the World’s Most Innovative Companies
- 03/25/2012
- Posted by: Mike O'Malley
- Category: Uncategorized
If you could ask Googles Johanna Wright for some business advice, she might suggest, Constantly seek new ways to delight your users. According to Ms. Wright, Google adds about 100 quality upgrades to the search engine each quarter and notes that any time the company could be running between 50 and 200 experiments. Here are
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Airline Safety Briefings and Imaging: The Challenge to Capture Attention
- 03/07/2012
- Posted by: Mike O'Malley
- Category: imaging
Fly the same airline enough and you can pretty much recite the pre-flight safety briefing from memory. It’s easy to tune out because it rarely changes. Recently though, the new United has given their safety briefings a lot of creative attention. Now, when the screen drops down, you could see any number of different versions
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Quick Marketing and Promotional Checklist
- 02/28/2012
- Posted by: Mike O'Malley
- Category: branding
As you finish putting together your spring marketing and promotional plans, try running your ideas through these eight filters: You know exactly who are you trying to reach (you may have multiple targets) and what the desired outcome from your efforts is for each target. All aspects of your plan have a positive (or
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We Need New Lyrics & A New Melody For This “Same Old Song”
- 02/23/2012
- Posted by: B Brenner Believes...
- Category: Uncategorized
Today was the day to dissect the newly commissioned CRS Research Study and I have to say that I felt like I was hearing the same song I have heard over and over again. So I got to thinking, how can we apply David Houle’s futurist mentality and attempt to write some new lyrics and
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Are You A Futurist
- 02/23/2012
- Posted by: B Brenner Believes...
- Category: Uncategorized
If you are a leader of a company or a brand manager with employees and you don’t know what a futurist is, you need to learn and become one quickly. That was just one of many profound takeaways from futurist David Houle’s presentation at the Country Radio Seminar. His favorite definition comes from a colleague
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A Very Worthwhile Way to Spend Four Hours this Tuesday
- 02/19/2012
- Posted by: Mike O'Malley
- Category: Uncategorized
“What is important to a radio station in 2012?” That was the key question we used for building Albright& O’Malley’s annual pre-CRS seminar which happens Tuesday, February 21 from 12:30-4:30 at the Country Radio Hall of Fame’s Ford Theater in Nashville (get a last minute invitation below). This year’s conference is called “Winning Tactics and
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The “Super Gesture” and Your Station’s Content Filters
- 02/09/2012
- Posted by: Mike O'Malley
- Category: Uncategorized
Yesterday my partner Jaye Albright wrote a timely piece about the M.I.A. “Super Gesture” on Sunday and the number of country songs with PG13 lyrics (20+ according to her Google search). A number of readers weighted in (accurately) on “the way it used to be” in country. But Country’s cume composition is dramatically different than