According to researchers from the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at The Johns Hopkins University – where a healthy slice of the world’s brain research is conducted – Pig Vomit, Howard Stern’s unaffectionate nickname for his program director in the movie Private Parts, was right! He (or Bob Pittman) asserted that listeners would more easily recall that they had listened to WNBC instead of WABC if personalities overemphasized the “N” by saying WNNNBC.
Advertisers have long known that using a gimmick to help someone remember their name or product works. However, while gimmicks may induce trial and/or temporarily increase usage, research has proven that strong perceptual images in just a couple areas most important to a station’s format (or a client’s product) are the real catalyst to continued usage i.e., strong ratings.
To achieve this perceptual superiority, programmers and advertisers develop positioning statements to describe, demonstrate and differentiate their products. Like a professor, we lecture and review information we want listeners and customers to understand. “We play all the hits,” “15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance,” “all natural synthetics,” etc.
However, creating and maintaining meaningful perceptions has become more complicated. We can blame this on competition: other marketing messages, smart phones, Facebook updates, etc. They all compete for our mind’s attention.
WHAT’S THE GIST, SCIENTIST?
To find out what science has to offer those of us who craft the perceptions of radio stations and work with clients in formulating marketing messages, I went to an expert, Dr. Michael Yassa, from the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at The Johns Hopkins University. He’s one of world’s foremost experts in brain science.
Yassa says that the capacity of our brain is almost infinite; it never “fills then spills” information. However we do not store most of our information with great detail. “We can encode as much information as you can throw at us but we do have abstraction logic. We compress things. It’s like a JPEG version of pictures,” says Yassa. “That means we can support a large amount of information without a problem.”
There are two basic types of memory, long-term and working memory. The two can be likened to your computer that has a hard drive used for storing information for long periods of time, and RAM memory which is used temporarily to process information. Yassa explains, “The problem becomes when things are competing for attention in our working memory, there we have limited resources. We can only encode a certain number of things at the same time. The capacity used to be thought of as seven, plus or minus two, then that number went down to four and many now believe the magic number is two.”
LEARNING – THE FIRST STEP TO FORGETTING
To fully understand the latest science related to learning, it helps to understand what we already know. Learning theory first hit the big time in 1885 when Hermann Ebbinghaus conducted studies on the learning, retention and then the forgetting of information. Ebbinghaus was able to establish that a message repeated with relatively short spacing between exposures led to increased recall. He also documented what is known as “The Curve of Forgetfulness.” The curve demonstrates the rate at which recall diminishes over time after exposure to a message ceases.
His work showed that about 40% of what we learn is forgotten within 20 minutes of being learned and that we retain only 30% after six days of exposure and after 6 weeks only retain 15% of the information to which we are exposed. The remaining information is deeply encoded into our minds. This explains why Grandma can remember listening to Larry Lujack’s Animal Stories that summer at band camp.
BRAIN UNDERGOES PHYSICAL CHANGE AS IT LEARNS
Since the work of Ebbinghauss in the late 1800s, much has been learned about the processes that take place within the brain during learning and ways to enhance it. While we have intuitively known some of this information for years, it is only recently that we have learned specifics regarding how the brain “encodes” or stores information.
For example, we have known for some time that information is transported from one neuron to another by chemical impulses. However, it is now commonly suspected that the efficiency of the connection is the information; not the chemical impulses themselves.
Also surprising is the recent discovery that the “efficiency” of the connection between neurons manifests itself physically. Yassa elaborates, “Neurons Communicate through a connection called a synapse, a chemical signal that goes from one to the other. When Neurons in the brain – left, information not deeply encoded. Right – efficient connection of deeply encoded information. In other words, the picture on the right demonstrates a poor perception, the one on the left shows a perception deeply encoded into the brain.
The two communicate. One sends a signal to another. Normally that signal may or may not influence the behavior of the other neuron. That’s because the connection may start off interpreting information as might occur during the first exposure(s) to a message (like the positioning statement “80s 90s and Now”).”
“However, as a result of learning (encoding) – the process of acquiring and storing information for later use – that connection is [firmly] established, it’s that physical increase of efficiency, the conductivity of the synaptic connection between two neurons that results in deep encoding or the learning of information,” says Yassa. “Then the information can be propagated. Ultimately that is where we think these memories (information) are being stored, in the efficiency with which one neuron communicates with the other.”
In programmer speak; a station better known for playing a certain style of music than a competing station in the same genre has a physical advantage of sorts. This can be likened to the size of bars in a graph that demonstrate the difference for an image between stations.
BRAIN MODE AFFECTS THE ENCODING OF MARKETING MESSAGES
There are many factors that determine how the brain attends to a message. The first of which is the mode a brain is in when a message is heard. The mind toggles in and out of two basic modes when awake; Alpha and Beta. While in Alpha mode the brain is relaxed and pays less attention. In Beta mode the brain is engaged and is more likely to attend to, and encode new information.
The question becomes this: How can we as radio programmers and marketing executives apply psychological and cognitive brain science to our art of crafting messages?
Yassa provides theoretical advice on how to effectively communicate information to listeners so messages will be deeply encoded into memory. We will also put real-life radio scenarios under the microscope in an effort to provide straightforward advice. These techniques should be viewed collectively rather than individually as most are related to one another.
1. KEEP LENGTH OF MESSAGE SHORT.
K.I.S.S. This concept needs little explanation. The shorter and simpler the message, the easier it is to remember. As Yassa points out, “working memory” is restricted to some degree and even when deep encoding occurs the mind will often compress information, removing some details.
2. FOCUS ON MESSAGE CAN BE BOTH BENEFICIAL AND DETRIMENTAL
We are able to teach listeners about multiple station characteristics almost simultaneously. “If you have four messages that are rotating but playing at different times and not back-to-back within the same spot, that is completely [effective] because the messages are not going to overlap with one another, they are not competing for the same resources at the same time and therefore are not going to inhibit each other,” says Yassa.
While you might believe this is good news for stations that want to simultaneously develop impressive images for its music, morning show and contests, keep reading.
The hidden danger in our ability to equally encode or teach listeners about multiple station attributes is that the resulting perceptions would be equal in magnitude. In other words, a station could be perceived as a “jack-of-all-trades” and fail to become most known for any one particular attribute. Yassa clarifies, “If you have a [singular] consistent message that a station plays great music, that is going to be the bottom line. That is a message that I have. If you keep repeating this information as a concept, over time it becomes fact.”
There are also hidden dangers in becoming known for just one thing. For example, say you sign on a brand new station that wants to be predominately known for its music, but at some point also wants to have an entertaining morning show. For the sake of this article let us assume this is a “we play anything or everything we want” format. So you flip the switch and play nothing but music and run frequent promos touting the attributes of your music, perhaps even differentiating your music product from competitors. After six months to eight months, ratings begin to level off and pressure builds to take sales and ratings “to the next level.”
Confident that you have firmly and strategically established the station’s music position, you move to construct the next layer of your image profile by adding the world’s best morning show. In the manner you established music images, you introduce the show and copious promos demonstrating its greatness. However you are then surprised when listeners reject what you know to be a much better show than the one across the street.
Yassa explains that this scenario creates a clash between the encoded information and what the brain is now hearing “…different messages can sometimes conflict one another. So I have this fact ingrained in my brain that this station is all about its great music. Now you are now telling me that this station has a great morning show. [While the messages are] not competing, they present conflicting information. I thought of this station for its music, that’s what I listen for. However, you are now telling me about the morning show.” Having not programmed a radio station, Yassa says this example is theoretical. However some reading this article have lived Yassa’s theoretical nightmare.
Mike Anthony, who served as Vice-president of the Research Group for 8 years and who now operates Mike Anthony Media, a radio research and consultancy company says “The first Adult-Hits format, BOB, was about personalities, promotion and musical surprise! When it debuted in the US, called JACK, it was without personalities and created the expectation of little talk and no listener interaction with a position of we play what we want. Some people tried to go from a JACK model to the BOB model. However, adding high profile talent went against listener expectations. Most stations who did this became marginal performers in the market in both rating and revenue.”
Perhaps the way to avoid this scenario is not to create false exceptions.
“I send out an e-mail advertising for events or programs that I’m running to the students at Johns Hopkins who have a million other things competing for their attention. I have a limited window to be able to get their attention,” says Yassa. “I will advertise a single event, but include a little thing at the bottom saying we do have other things going on…check out this other page. Then I will promote the next event. I will always have a tiny bit of information about something else. While insignificant to the major message, its inclusion, at that small of a degree, prevents it from being perceived as conflicting.”
In communicating that philosophy to radio, Yassa says – “if you play one morning show promo for every several music promos then flip the rotation, the morning show information won’t be conflicting because the brain will have stored some information about the [morning show].” In other words, Yassa is saying that the limited exposure of the morning show promo, while initially a throwaway of sorts, will ultimately make it
3. PROVIDE AN OPPORTUNITY FOR DEEP ENCODING
The concept of deep encoding involves persuading a listener or customer to actively think about the message they are hearing. The opposite of this is passive response (shallow encoding) which does not require the listener to critically think about the message. In other words, in one ear and out the other.
An example of deep encoding is to give someone three words then ask them to use the last word in the sentence. Asking a subject to use the word in a sentence evokes what psychologists call “elaborative rehearsal” which leads to a deeper encoding of the information.
“Radio is a passive medium, but we have to try hard to make it become an active medium of sorts by making people think. Depth of encoding is about getting the listener to think about the message, that active mode goes a long way to getting a message stored in the brain,” says Yassa.
To test this theory, give someone in the office three words but ask them to use the third word in a sentence. Twenty minutes later ask them to repeat back to you the three words. In most cases your test subject will experience some difficulty remembering the all but the word used in the sentence because it was more deeply encoded into memory.
4. CHANGE THE CONTEXT OF MESSAGE TO KEEP BRAIN ENGAGED
Promos and commercials are examples of what scientists call “information.” In my conversations with Yassa, I was introduced to studies that conclude messages which have already been processed and encoded into the brain do not “burn out” as many programmers believe, but rather are “tuned-out.”
This distinction is important in that it will lead to a new philosophy for writing and scheduling promotional announcements. The brain is not motivated to pay attention to a message it has already processed. Though repeating a strategic message can have benefits in teaching your message listeners, changing the delivery context such as production, demonstration model and comparative means, will increase the likelihood that the message is paid attention. This will deepen the understanding of your station’s position in the minds of listeners.
Yassa also points out that changing context does not always represent a change in presentation. “Context is something that also incorporates the circumstances of the listener like the time of day, how bored or attentive I am, etc.”
5. DISTINCTIVE DELIVERY OF MESSAGE GETS BRAIN’S ATTENTION
Creating a distinctive message delivery can enable a commercial or promo to stand apart from competing messages. “Using a unique character can be more easily distinguished in memory; someone that is very different, that doesn’t look or sound like everybody else. It’s easier to remember ads with a real person, a real character, someone who has their own way of speaking,” says Yassa.
This is where Pig Vomit got it right. WNNNNBC was unique and set it apart from WABC. “Anything that deviates from the norm, which differs from the typical every day experience, that capitalizes on a unique experience is distinctive. This is why shows with distinctive personalities do well” added Yassa.
The use of alliteration or rhyme can also help create a distinctive retrieval cue. “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit,” “set it and forget it,” “Kasem’s Kountdown,” “Ten-in-a-row on the Jack Diamond Morning Show,” “60s at 6,” are all examples of memorable alliterations or rhymes. Using a unique name also helps. Examples: “Bubba, the Love Sponge,” “Wolfman Jack,” a meteorologist called “Dallas Raines,” a traffic reporter named “Tori Signal.”
See Part II tomorrow.
–Greg Dunkin, President, Greg Dunkin Media & Marketing Consultancy
