Good News for Radio One Stock
Another sign that the economy must be back on track
A year after receiving a deficiency notice from Nasdaq for a stock price below the minimum listing requirements, Radio One is back in compliance. Radio One received the notice on its class D stock on October 20, 2008, but Nasdaq soon after that suspended delistings until August of this year due to the economic environment.
Radio One has now received notice from Nasdaq that, with its class D shares (ROIAK) closing above $1 for 10 consecutive trading days as of October 15, the company is back in compliance and the matter is closed. The letter also confirmed that Radio One’s Class A shares (ROIA) are in compliance with continued listing rules.
In mid-afternoon trading Monday, Radio One’s class A shares were down 8 cents, at $1.77, and the class D shares were up 4 cents, at $1.70.
Is Cathy Hughes saying we’re number one or we’re up above a dollar?
VOLKSWAGEN APPOINTS DEUTSCH LA AS ADVERTISING AGENCY OF RECORD IN U.S.
Posted 23rd October, 2009 in Volkswagen | Leave a comment
HERNDON, Va., Oct. 23 /PRNewswire/ — Volkswagen of America, Inc. announced today that it has selected Deutsch LA as its new advertising agency of record for the U.S. In this capacity, Deutsch LA will have full advertising responsibility for the Volkswagen brand and its family of products. Effective November 1, 2009, Deutsch LA replaces Crispin Porter + Bogusky of Miami, which has served as agency of record since 2005.
“Deutsch LA proved they have a firm grasp on how to manage the complex challenges we face in achieving our significant growth objectives,” said Tim Ellis, Vice President of Marketing, Volkswagen of America, Inc. “Of equal importance, they inspired us with a big, compelling, creative idea that will energize and motivate our passionate base as well as attract a broader group of people who have thus far not considered Volkswagen as a relevant choice.”
“Volkswagen probably has the best fifty-year portfolio of advertising that exists. And as far as the other agencies in the review, we felt like we were up against Mount Rushmore,” said Eric Hirshberg, Co-CEO/Chief Creative Officer of Deutsch LA. “The fact that they chose us to carry on this legacy is simply humbling.”
“We haven’t gotten a lot of sleep in the last two months,” said Mike Sheldon, Co-CEO of Deutsch LA. “Everyone here stepped up because we all knew that opportunities like this come around once in a career–if you’re lucky.”
Deutsch LA demonstrates world-class expertise in both strategy and creative and will be Volkswagen of America’s partner in helping achieve its goal of becoming a volume brand in the U.S. As agency of record, Deutsch will be responsible for all national and retail advertising, including digital and experiential marketing.
For more about Volkswagen, please visit www.media.vw.com.
About Volkswagen of America, Inc.
Founded in 1955, Volkswagen of America, Inc. is headquartered in Herndon, Virginia. It is a subsidiary of Volkswagen AG, headquartered in Wolfsburg, Germany. Volkswagen is one of the world’s largest producers of passenger cars and Europe’s largest automaker. Volkswagen sells the Golf, GTI, New Beetle, New Beetle convertible, Jetta, Jetta SportWagen, Eos, Passat, Passat Wagon, CC, Tiguan, Touareg and Routan through approximately 600 independent U.S. dealers. All 2010 Volkswagens come standard-equipped with Electronic Stabilization Program. This is important because the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has called ESC the most effective new vehicle safety technology since the safety belt. Visit Volkswagen of America online at www.vw.com or www.media.vw.com to learn more.
About Deutsch LA
Deutsch LA (www.deutschinc.com) is a multi-disciplinary marketing communications agency known for its ability to drive business results for clients. Deutsch crafts a best-in-class array of marketing programs, including advertising, direct marketing, interactive, media planning and buying, design, public relations, promotions, events and branded entertainment. Deutsch LA clients include Directv, PlayStation, Dr Pepper and Snapple among others.
[Source: Volkswagen of America, Inc]
Hadji Williams Offers Six Popular Excuses
Posted by Hadji Williams on 10.13.09 @ 04:20 PM
Since the 1930s there’s been one major yet unspoken requirement for U.S.-based agencies to become an agency of record for a general-market client: Your agency must be a majority White-staffed and -owned shop.
With a couple of exceptions, a Fortune 1,000 company will almost never retain an ethnic-owned shop as its AOR for general market pieces of business. Furthermore, few ethnic shops have ever even been allowed to compete for the chance.
Now this wouldn’t be so bad except for the fact that general-market spend nearly 95% of their budgets with White-owned agencies, which relegates Black-, Hispanic- and Asian-owned shops to beg/fight over the remaining 5% slice of the pie.
So why the disparities? Well, the excuses have been numerous. Here’s a look at the Top 6:
Excuse No. 1: Black Ad Agencies are too small to be AORs.
Quick: What do you call five White ad pros starting an agency? A boutique. What do you call five Black ad pros starting an agency? The boutique’s Black subcontractor.
I’ve worked on over 60 new-biz pitches over my career. New business is about getting laid — and everyone lies on the first date. For most White agencies, touting global capabilities is like Paris Hilton saying she owns hotels — her daddy owns hotels, she’s just the name. Secondly, some of the creative work that helps land accounts is often done by hired guns (like me). As for their “core competencies,” you can thank their holding company’s roster or so-called strategic alliances for the extra muscle.
Every big shop is just a small shop that won a couple AOR gigs. Unless you’re a Black small shop, in which case you don’t get that chance.
Excuse No. 2: Black agencies aren’t good enough to be AORs.
Black agency creative sucks. There, I said it. Most won’t, fearing being labeled “racist,” but it’s true (and I’m Black, so I can say it and you can’t. Deal with it.). But seriously, a lot of work that comes out of Black agencies just isn’t very good. (God knows I’ve done some crap. But I’ve done great work, too. So have a lot of Black creatives. And Latinos and Asians…)
A big reason most Black creative work is so bad so often is that Black agencies are forced to translate and adapt general-market executions and strategies to their audiences whether the strategies are relevant or the work’s any good or not. (Nothing creates crappy creative like having to boilerplate someone else’s idea with a fraction of the budget in a fraction of the time.)
But despite all those handicaps, the crap coming out of ethnic shops doesn’t hold a candle to the sheer volume of garbage cranked out by general-market shops.
But truth be told, general-market shops have turned brand-killing, clutter-creating and off-base strategies into sweet sciences — out of sheer trial and error, if nothing else. Yet general-market shops will continue getting the chance to jump every shark and miss the broadside of as many barns as they want mainly because they’re not Black.
Excuse No. 3: Black agencies lack the mainstream insights/connections needed to be AORs.
No minority survives without being able to understand and adapt to the majority’s cultures, standards and values. That’s true of every aspect of any society — and the advertising industry is no different. People of color have survived and thrived in America since Day One because we’ve had no choice but to understand and adapt to White America’s ideas, ideals, values, mores, etc. But somehow once we hit the doors of an ad agency, that skill set goes away?
Also, lemme get this straight: General-market shops and clients can jack everything including the kitchen sink from Black culture for profit and cool points, then claim Black shops filled with the same folks who create the culture they ripped off can’t do the same?
In 2009, clients and general-market shops alike still rationalize making Black agencies translate often-irrelevant general-market campaigns for Black audiences and call the process “integrated.”
Conversely, recent industry studies have shown that more and more work created by Black agencies targeting Black audiences actually resonates equally well with White consumers.
Excuse No. 4: Black Agencies are too “unprofessional” to be AORs.
Heard it. Seen hints of it, too. Funny thing is, when White shops dress in non-business attire, rock faux-hawks, goatees and pepper their pitches with mood boards and silly buzzwords, they’re labeled as “hip.” When Black shops rock trendy clothes, use insider-ish lingo and nontraditional work approaches, they’re labeled “unprofessional.” When general-market shops fail it’s “the consumer didn’t get it” or “but the research said…” When ethnic shops fail it’s because we were off-strategy or our work was wrong.
If Black Agencies were afforded half the excuses general-market shops are allowed to make, they’d enjoy twice the billings they have now.
Excuse No. 5: Black Agencies are too “race obsessed” to be AORs.
Working at general-market shops and dealing with general-market clients always reminds me of one thing: Most White people still think the world revolves (or should revolve) around their view of it. For example:
When a general-market shops say “18- to 34-year-olds,” unless ethnicity is specified, they mean White 18- to 34-year-olds and whoever else follows suit. It’s why we use handles like Soccer moms, Gen-Xers, X-Gamers, Tweeners, Baby Boomers, Nascar Dads, etc., and claim we’re targeting everyone. But when you note that ethnic consumers of color might be overlooked by these efforts, out comes the hand-wringing, backtracking and occasional crocodile tears and confused stares.
Why?
General-market shops are still largely filled with and run by White liberals who, like the Democratic Party, take Black folks for granted (beyond talking about how rotten their alternatives are), while general-market clients seem content to treat Black agencies as tax write-offs. The process creates ad efforts that are more remix-the-GM shop’s work and pseudo-kumbya PR ploy than legit partnership. And with 40-plus-million Hispanics to court, this biased indifference now has a lucrative backdoor to snake out through.
Excuse No. 6: The economy/changing landscape is tough …
I know, I know, money’s tight and budgets are being cut across the board. Plus the internet is killing everyone, too. Cuts have to be made.
So why not start with the companies and communities you don’t respect as equals and take for granted? After all, if you can keep the consumers and cut the agencies, vendors, media outlets out of the equation, that’s “good business,” right?
In the end, Black Agencies and marketing/PR firms (the good ones, at least) don’t want (or need) to be handed their crowns in the manner Donny Deutsch and other Whites got theirs. All they need and deserve is to have their insights and talents respected enough to be taken seriously — first as human beings; second as professionals, and thirdly, as assets to the brand-building process.
Also, if Blacks can dedicate nearly 85% of their some $700 billion in annual spending power to general market companies (nearly 85% of every Black dollar goes for non-Black businesses) and endorse general-market products on camera, then why can’t Black professionals get an equitable shot at building those brands behind the scenes?
Lemme leave you all with a challenge:
If general-market shops are really so great, then why not end the White-skin privilege and start developing work that doesn’t co-opt cultures of folks you won’t even hire? Why not open up the pitch process across the board and let the best shop, regardless of color, win?
Otherwise, let’s just re-post the Whites Only signs at the receptionists’ desk. At least then, we’d be putting some truth back into advertising.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Hadji Williams is a 17-year advertising industry vet and author of “Knock the Hustle.” As a copywriter, he’s built brands, helped win and maintain accounts … and has even managed to tell the truth. He can be reached at: hadji@knockthehustle.com
Friday, October 09, 2009
By Adrian McCoy, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
When the Summer 2009 Arbitron ratings come out on Monday, they may paint a different picture of Pittsburgh’s radio listening habits.
This will be the first Pittsburgh radio ratings book using data collected by Arbitron’s Portable People Meter, a new electronic measurement system. The PPM is a device, similar to a pager or cell phone, that is worn by survey respondents. It replaces the written diary, where respondents would record what stations they listened to and when.
The PPM responds to inaudible embedded codes in a station’s broadcast signals. The person wearing the meter and hearing the station will be automatically tallied among the station’s total listeners.
Arbitron says the new system promises more accuracy and stability because it measures precise listening times and exposure to a station, rather than relying on a person’s memory in filling out a diary.
The impact of gaining or losing listeners goes straight to a station’s bottom line. Ratings drive how advertising is purchased and determines a station’s ad rates.
“It’s a very significant change in how radio operates in this market,” says KDKA program director Marshall Adams.
Arbitron introduced the PPM in 2007 and has been gradually deploying it in individual U.S. radio markets. The July through September 2009 survey period is the first one for Pittsburgh.
There are many differences in the new system. Diary listeners took part in the survey for one week. PPM survey respondents can wear the devices for up to two years, with the average time being nine months. New panelists are cycled in on a regular basis.
Ratings are now totaled monthly instead of quarterly. And the surveys include young listeners between the ages of 6 and 11. Before, they reflected a total audience of listeners 12 years and older.
While the sample sizes are smaller than they were in the diary surveys, monitoring listeners over a longer term yields a more accurate picture of their habits, says Jessica Benbow, Arbitron corporate communications manager.
The sample target for the Pittsburgh panel is 1,088 people.
PPM has been the subject of much controversy in some markets since its introduction. It has been widely criticized by minority broadcasters — and has drawn the attention of the FCC and attorneys general in several states — for under-representing minority listeners. Critics charge that it has failed to hit its own minimum sample sizes for measuring African-American and Hispanic audiences in several top markets with high percentages of minority listeners.
In response to the complaints, Arbitron has announced that it would increase its overall sample size by 10 percent by the middle of 2011.
“It’s a work in progress,” says radio industry observer Tom Taylor, news editor of the broadcasting trade journal Radio-Info. “The main complaints are sample size that some radio groups feel is inadequate, and more controversially, that the system disadvantages African-Americans and Hispanics.
“It’s clear that some companies have made format decisions with an eye to the coming of PPM, with rock, oldies and other formats often being the beneficiary [and] not ethnic formats,” Taylor says.
The under-counting of minority listeners prompted many to speculate that the arrival of PPM here was one factor in the demise of urban contemporary WAMO-FM and classic R&B WAMO-AM. Sheridan Broadcasting sold those stations in May.
“In other markets, the trend was that straight-ahead urbans like WAMO were getting hit the hardest,” says former WAMO program director Ron Atkins.
“They’re trying to make it into a racial ethnic issue because those stations that play to those ethnic audiences are the ones that have been hit the worst. I don’t think it’s really that,” Atkins says. “PPM has disadvantages from its basic methodology. [There are] not enough panels out there to get a good read with the ethnic audiences. There weren’t enough respondents out there on the young-ended stations. The urban stations are mostly a younger audience.
“Stations like WAMO that have been in the market for a number of years benefit more from the [diary] recall system simply because their brand has been so strong for so many years.”
But diaries had disadvantages, too. That system was also criticized for under-counting some audiences, such as young male listeners, who often didn’t bother to keep up the diary entries.
How PPM will shape the ratings here remains to be seen. The change hasn’t affected KDKA’s ratings much. Adams said he was struck by the consistency between diary and PPM ratings numbers so far. He believes PPM is giving the station a much quicker feel for what draws listeners. When KDKA reported about the recent LA Fitness shootings and a Ben Roethlisberger news conference, the station was able to see spikes in listenership.
Programmers “have a lot more information to pull from,” says Arbitron’s Benbow. “Now you have the ability to look minute by minute. People using these data to program can go back and see what worked and didn’t work and can make adjustments.”
Adrian McCoy can be reached at 412-263-1865 or ammcoy@post-gazette.com.
