Market Your Business with Jazz 88.3

Contact our Underwriting Account Manager Ann Bauer. You can reach her by phone at 619-388-3301, or via e-mail at AnnB@Jazz88.org.

Businesses that partner with Jazz 88.3 to sponsor our broadcasts or public service programs reap remarkable rewards. We have developed true community among our audience; listeners often look to us to help decide what shows to attend, where to eat, or what to do on the weekend.   

Ultimately, our listeners prefer to do business with our sponsors.  National research supports this statement. Jacobs Media’s Underwriting Research Review found that 80% of public radio listeners prefer to do business with companies that support public radio. And 88% of public radio listeners say that their opinion of a company is more positive when it supports public radio. It’s called the “Halo Effect.”  A halo of good will surrounds the brand image of businesses that support public media. 

Marketing in the 21^st century has undergone the same revolutionary changes that culture has.  Back in the day, advertising was the tool of choice for marketing mavens. Advertising was expected to create and identity (brand) for a product. Once people asked for a product by name, retail promotions and direct sales closed the deal. So, while advertising itself did not directly “sell” the product, the combination of the brand awareness and the point-of-sale appeal, products flew off the shelves.

But with the advent of technology, that’s all changed.  As Greg Satell wrote for Forbes.com, today, product information leads customers to the Internet, where they research the brand. (Coincidentally, researching any product by name also provides information about that product’s competitors).  In 2009, The Economist.com reported how a company called VideoMining uses in-store security footage to track shoppers’ behaviors. Among their findings was the fact that “the majority” of shoppers buying beer went straight to the brand that they bought.  There was no comparison between brands. “This shows that their minds were already made up,” says VideoMining’s founder, “Brewers should spend their marketing dollars outside [not in point-of-sale marketing].  

Is that true?  Do people go from the TV or the radio and hit the Internet? They might not even wait! The LA Times reported that 68% of television viewers surf the web at the same time they are watching TV.  Clearly, creating a brand identity is not enough to assure sales.  Marketing messages must provide clear, even measurable reasons for a person to choose product A over B.  Taking advantage of the Halo Effect, by supporting the customer’s favorite public radio station is a clear, inarguable reason! 

Gray Smith, a 17-year veteran of public broadcasting, put it this way,

” . . .[Sponsorship of public broadcasting] works because your client’s brand stands for the same values that our listeners do. Public radio works because we provide a return to the fundamentals of effective advertising – a simple, highly credible message delivered to a large, loyal audience in an ultra-low clutter, high integrity environment.”[1]

Finally, the question of “radio” as a medium needs to be addressed. Despite being called “old  fashioned,” “outdated,” and worse, in 2005, Millard Brown and Information Resources, published a report that found the ROI of radio advertising to be 49% higher than that of television. Combine that with the personal relationship between our listeners and our broadcast, the loyalty they have shown over time, and the fact that they prefer doing business with a sponsor, so what are you waiting for?