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Not by strength but by guile. Migratory product and corporate syndication have changed the rules. Radio finds itself divided into two camps: corporate "syndication" with centralized blueprints for programming against independent or autonomous groups competing in a balkanized state. It's understandable why on a given day operations people facing the national oligopolies might become discouraged. If you're among them consider the Latin headline and associate your thinking with history's long list of underdogs who prevailed against big odds.
The Rule of the Mind: Most marketing battles are fought in the mind, not on the trading floor. This includes Arbitron warfare. If perception and awareness of your brand and its lineup doesn't exist in the market's mind, it doesn't exist. PPM or diary, you must occupy a slot of memory.
The Rule of Leadership: In most product categories including radio the first station in a format usually wins. Thus, as a challenger, if you base your strategy on "being better" you will fail. Listeners can't identify "better" but they can always recognize different. That's a compelling reason for research including focus groups.
The Rule of the Category: If you can't be first in a format, create a new format with a perceivable difference. Whether music or spoken-word, be sure there's a large enough body of unique product to support the format. And if it's a music strategy, radio cannot survive by music alone. George Johns points out Sirius and XM already do that and there's nothing "radio" about it; its audio-for-rent and you can't win a radio war without relevance between the songs.
The Rule of Focus: You can only occupy one place in the listeners' minds. Too many programmers are trying to be too many things. Instead, sacrifice to gain, narrow to get wider. For today's ADD drive-by listener, less is more. Tie your unique brand to a relevant and easily understood brand phrase.
The Rule of Duality: The third and fourth stations in any format usually fail. Ultimately every format will become a two horse race. When a "format lane" becomes too crowded formats will divide. No amount of shareholder or board member flag-waving can change this axiom.
The Rule of Resource: In head-to-head format battles, without adequate resources you will fail. Resources without a plan to use them will also fail. If you suffer inadequate resources find a way to create them in an unconventional manner, or bug-out for a guerilla position where resources are less critical. The greatest cause of radio brand failure occurs because companies don't appropriate enough resources, stay the course, or, they squander them on a flawed plan.
If you can't line up head-to-head with a well-resourced competitor, flank them with a gunslinger's mentality; smarter, faster, and above all, different. Not by strength, but by guile.
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