We're entering a new age of audio thanks in part to technologies like Alexa. Here's a prime example. Gary Vaynerchuk, GaryVee to his friends, clients, and gazillion followers on social media, is a guy who's built multiple businesses primarily on the strength of creating persuasive and memorable Internet videos. All feature Gary and his electric personality sharing wisdom and insight gathered from first-hand experience with Internet commerce, Internet marketing, and his early and full embrace of social media as a business and brand building tool. I've learned a lot from watching Gary constantly experiment and push boundaries.
Now, with a little inspiration from Amazon's Alexa, Gary has fully embraced the power of audio and come to recognize what makes it so appealing and valuable to consumers. For a lifelong audio guy like me, it's fun to see someone who's relied so heavily on video to build his businesses come to recognize the key attribute audio offers that no other medium can match. An attribute that ensures that audio will never go out of style. Check out Gary's epiphany on audio and his passionate and persuasive recommendation to his clients and friends to "get very serious about investing in audio." Warning: For emphasis, Gary salts all his videos with plenty of adult language :-).
Now, with a little inspiration from Amazon's Alexa, Gary has fully embraced the power of audio and come to recognize what makes it so appealing and valuable to consumers. For a lifelong audio guy like me, it's fun to see someone who's relied so heavily on video to build his businesses come to recognize the key attribute audio offers that no other medium can match. An attribute that ensures that audio will never go out of style. Check out Gary's epiphany on audio and his passionate and persuasive recommendation to his clients and friends to "get very serious about investing in audio." Warning: For emphasis, Gary salts all his videos with plenty of adult language :-).
“You need to get very serious about sound. One of the things that we care about and always have, but now we're at an all-time high, is time. Time is imperative. And everybody, even when they don't have a lot of money, spends a lot of money on convenience. You know the way we roll now is we listen and we do something else. It's hard to watch one of my videos and do something else. It's super easy to listen to what I'm talking about and do something else. Audio saves you time. Every single person when brushing their teeth in four years will be listening to some sort of voice telling them what they’re doing that day. What the weather is. Where they’re going. What’s happening. It's just going to be that. ” – GaryVee
I hope Gary's Alexa-inspired vision of the increasing prominence of audio in people's lives is not
lost on my friends in the radio broadcasting business. There was a time not so
long ago when lots of people brushing their teeth in the morning were "listening
to some sort of 'voice' telling them what the weather is and what's
happening" as Gary predicts will happen again. That "voice" was
coming from a radio in the bathroom. The same "voice" was also the
wake-up alarm and first sound most people heard each morning coming from the
clock radio in the bedroom and later that "voice" was a breakfast
companion coming from a radio in the kitchen. This "voice" is seldom
heard these days because radios have completely disappeared from homes
everywhere. Replaced by technology and devices with screens that deliver more
relevant and entertaining content, on demand, than the "voice" coming
from the radio. Sadly, the "voice" coming from a radio is now heard
mostly just in cars.
1 comment:
Bill's spot-on about this.
If you look at the subscription metrics for Alexa,* the game -- short of "sleep sounds**" -- is wide open.
However, broadcasters need to take this seriously, begin now, and do it with with a commitment like they've never committed to before.
The last thing a radio station needs is another “WTF” moment. Just like recorded music moved from vinyl to 8-tracks to cassettes and CDs and commerce moved from mom & pops to five & dimes to big boxes and, now, Amazon, this is another opportunity that radio can't take as lightly as it did with podcasts, streaming, and various niche formats that circumnavigated broad-based formats and took a bite out of their fattened arses.
Bill throws down a pretty hefty gauntlet in challenging broadcasters to create "Content that matches a listener's wants and needs so well they can't live without it. Content that goes deep and has sharp edges. Content that is distinctive and truly fascinates.” My doubting side is that are few companies who this post’s readers work for that are as bold as E.W. Scripps. Bold enough to move their digital bread to where the butter dish is going as Scripps did they bought Midroll and put themselves firmly in earshot of 46 million podcast listeners.
Remember when you first heard about Spotify and Pandora and really didn’t take them all that seriously? Are you among the many broadcasters who passed off public radio as something that just played classical music at the bottom of the dial? Is your respect for them a lot different now — maybe something you’d like to be part of? Well, there are new, developing content creators whose products we'll all wake up to one day and say, who the heck are they and where did they come from?
It’s a new broadcasting world — one first dotted with little Hulus and Netflix DVD subscriptions, but now firmly entrenched as players alongside the big networks. There’s no shaming if you tried producing a podcast or a blog and, eventually, gave up on the notion. We’ve all raced to shiny, new objects and, then, lost interest. But, this time, take Bill’s challenge and own it.
Yes, you’re going to get pushback. But I’ll put up money that there’s one corporate lieutenant among you who can pull together the permission and money to incubate at least one idea. If you can’t match Bill’s challenge of producing “distinctive and fascinating content,” then start with something to at least get your feet wet, even if it’s an Alexacast of "The five things you need to know this morning” or "The five best things to do in (locale) this week/weekend.”
And find someone like Bill who lives outside the “box” and can help you grow this notion. Scout out listeners who have Alexa or Google Home and bring ‘em in for a little focus group. And, if you don’t have one of these units, buy one and start pushing its limits to see how it works as a new "voice" and where you might be able to fit in.
My challenge to you is to reflect on the reason you first got into radio. Probably because you found it, in some sense, “magical,” right? If you still have that passion but have tucked it away at the behest of the corporate bottom line, do your soul a favor and take a look at this “new age of audio.” Your “shoulda, coulda, woulda” list will be a lot shorter when you turn 70 and, who knows, you might just find yourself being called a “groundbreaker.”
* https://www.amazon.com/alexa.../b/ref=topnav_storetab_a2s...
** This little ambient sound company has found their niche and have more than 100,000 subscribers to hour-long loops of rainstorms and leaves blowing: https://getinvoked.com/
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