Adlandia, hosted by Laura Correnti and Alexa Christon, is a podcast for marketers and advertisers to get down to the brass tacks of marketing in a rapidly evolving world, keeping up not only with new products and innovations but changing technologies and ever-shifting trends. And no one knows more about that than iHeartMedia’s very own CEO Bob Pittman, who has skipped from radio to television to theme parks back to radio, leaving huge successes in his wake. He says that he called himself a sociologist when he was younger, pointing out that the job of marketing is really a job of connection, of reaching out and solving a problem for the consumer. So it doesn’t matter what the product is, really: when you understand human behavior, you can craft a message to reach anyone.
They talk about how much data analysis has taken over marketing departments, with Bob relating a story about a company who invested nearly all their budget in targeting ads on digital platforms, pulling all their money from radio and outdoor advertising. They experienced very little growth, which surprised them: Surely all this targeting was ensuring they were reaching their most motivated buyers? It actually just gave them tunnel vision: They sacrificed their growth potential, hitting their targets but leaving everyone else out of the conversation. Bob stresses the “math and magic” (the name of his own podcast) of marketing, where hard numbers eventually have to meet creative storytelling and ideation: He recalls that all the great promotions with Van Halen and John Cougar Mellencamp at MTV were born from jokes during brainstorming sessions.
And he gets into the future of radio and podcasting, calling podcasts radio’s Netflix and touting radio’s ability to change on a dime and focus their programming where the consumer need is greatest. Radio is a service based on companionship more than anything, Bob says, pointing out that 25% of their stations don’t play any music. And despite the tempting monthly revenue it can bring in, he’s not interested in changing to a subscription-based model, because it wouldn't be a service to the consumer. Subscriptions should be something that is cheaper and more efficient for them, something they will thank you for. In any industry, you have to follow the consumer, Bob says. "I never thought I was doing anything big...I thought I was simply following a need, following the consumer." But this just scratches the surface; hear all of Bob’s great insights (and be prepared to take notes, like Alexa!), on this episode of Adlandia.
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