The other day, I got a phone call. A client was sure that I was doing it all wrong. I was wasting the ad budget on newspaper and television. I could understand his frustration. The plan was not delivering the results we had expected, but it's a rural market with active competitors and not the best time of year for a launch, but we play with the cards we are dealt. His answer to the problem... satellite radio! We should be spending the media dollars on Sirius/XM because, "Everyone is listening to satellite radio now!"
Everyone. There are a little over 21 million Sirius/XM subscribers in the U.S. as of November 2011. Unless there is an unusually high concentration of subscribers in this doctor's market, everyone is not listening to satellite radio. Even those 21 million listeners are listening to a variety of different programming options offered by Sirius/XM not to mention local content available from local radio stations. But all of this ignores the real issue that Sirius/XM cannot be purchased on the local level. So even if every man, woman and child in his market area was tuned into a particular channel satellite, 99% of the budget would be wasted.
The real point of the exercise is to remember that media habits are individual. When I choose media based on my habits alone (or those of the client), I'm ignoring this fact. Consumers' media habits intersect in various places. On the national level, in programs like the Super Bowl. On the local level, like the Sunday newspaper. So the challenge is how to remind the client that he is not everyone and generalizing his media habits across his market is a recipe for failure.
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