Care And Training Your Teens

I was talking with the General Manager of a Top 40 station several months ago. I brought up the topic of high school graduations and how it was going to be his station's last opportunity for a few months to go out and court the teens before they scatter to the wind for the summer.

"We're an 18-34 station. We don't target Teens," he said with the kind of implied sneer a frustrated matron in 1870 would use when referring to her ne'er-do-well nephew, the whiteslaver.

First, no station "targets" Teens. (My attorney has specifically requested that I declare that I don't target teens, either. With the pending "Beu Sisters vs. Nienaber, P." case still held up in appellate court, I can't possibly emphasize that enough.)

Granted, when you launch a new Top 40 against a heritage Top 40 or Rhythm station, absolutely, that's the first thing you do -- steal the kids. Then grow it from there. Teens dictate trends and when they all abandon ship and go over to the new station, you're suddenly the old, unhip station that is one Matchbox 20 song away from reporting Hot AC.

I asked the GM in-question, "Who's going to be listening to you in six or seven years?" He looked at me, perplexed. I finished my thought with "Because it's going to be REALLY interesting when the teens get into that demo ...having not listened to radio in a decade. Good luck getting them back."

Tomorrow's Top 40 audience doesn't use radio. So if you're an 18-34 or 25-34 station, you need to teach them about the medium. Start at the beginning. "This thing on the dashboard with the knobby things? That's a radio. Try it. It plays music and the magical voices that live inside it will tell us whether it's going to snow tomorrow."

It used to be as simple as "throwing them a frickin' bone..." basic and occasional acknowledgement of the demo and their existence. But it's going to take more than just having the cheerleaders from Forest Lake High School join your trying-really-hard-to-be-cool night guy who you named after some character on MTV, on the air on a Thursday night.

Maybe that's one area to work on; we're not cool anymore. When a personality-less personally programmed music library that clips on your belt is more entertaining and cool then we are, THAT is a problem.

We need to court and educate the kids. Get them to look at us as more then just the Hot 8 at 8.

It's going to take work. It's going to take more then sending e-mails to a database. They need to be met, have their hands shook (shaked?) (shaken?) (stirred?) and given a tutorial on what we're about.

First thing you should do? Show them that we're more then just a tight, overly-researched playlist.

I'd recruit Spodcasters. Find a couple of students from each school. Make them the official Friday Night Football sportscasters for your station. They prepare a 3-5 minute podcast of audio and highlights from that night's game. Submit it to someone from the station to review for content and then post, along with 'casts from every other school in town, on Saturday.

Granted, none of us want more web traffic, but bite the bullet. First place to retrain the kids how to use us is with the Internet. Get them into the habit, the routine, of using our online content. Could it be as simple as "High School Survivor?" Sure. It's the best and easiest "school spirit" promotion I know. You have a list of every high school in the rated area on your website. But as opposed to all the other methodologies that have students voting (with cards or texts or gum wrappers) for their school, this has the kids voting off the rival schools.

I go to Edina High School? Me and my buddies go to the website and click like mad on Burnsville or Bloomington Jefferson. Every night another school (the one with the most votes) is eliminated, until only one remains. Done at Wild 94.9 in San Francisco a few years ago ... they got 1.8 million hits in a three-week period JUST on that feature.

Or do The Can Jam. Food shelves are getting hammered right now. Have the high school that collects the most canned food win a concert. It's all just a thinly-veiled excuse to be out politicking yourself, meeting them, shaking hands and getting them back in the habit of using radio.

I love high school cheerleaders. (On the advice of my attorney I again need to clarify that -- I mean in the context of their role in the social fabric of high school life. With the pending jury selection in the case of "Forest Lake Rangerettes vs. Nienaber, P.", he felt it was important to point out the distinction)

Cheerleaders are the Prize Pigs of that demo. They're the actives ... but smell way, way better than the Pigs. If they embrace you (clarification implied), then that's a big step towards being accepted into that society. Having them on the air? Sure. Absolutely. Because if you do your job correctly and prep the student body through morning announcements on the PA and through e-mail and text blasts, they'll all be glued to their radios to hear Cinnamon, Angel, Chastity, Mercedes, Alexis, Destiny, Diamond and Desire on your station. (My local school has a lot of strippers on the squad.)

Better then having them IN the studio? Go and do the show from one of their homes. That takes it to the next level in terms of sound. It'll be the difference between a car dealer remote and a remote from a club.

School papers are untapped resources of networking to the teens. First, they should, whenever possible, get a pair of tickets to every movie you do. Because they will be thrilled to get the opportunity to do some actual entertainment reporting and will bestow massive kudos (and cred) when they print the review.

Or, do a High School Press Conference. The next time you have a B-List person being dragged through, do this bit. One of the clients did this with a member of a big boy band who was promoting his solo project. Having him on the afternoon show? No one would care. But the school papers don't know the difference between A List or B List. What they know is that 1/3 of the student body has a CD with him on it, at home or in the car.

So the station took my suggestion and sent an invitation to every high school paper in the market. (If you're a Top 40 and don't have a database of this info, you're making a huge, huge mistake). The first 40 schools that responded were given a phone number that would ring "a payphone at a mini-mart where an intern would be waiting at a specific time." They would be given a place to be in 90 minutes. A reporter and photog from each school then dashed to the location (a hotel ballroom) where they got an hour with the artist.

For a reporter from a high school paper, this was beyond large. And the station got all the love and credit.

And don't forget yearbooks. Because after the kids are all grown up -- and you actually WILL want them listening to you -- these books will be on their shelves and brought out occasionally as they rehash old memories. However could you be a part of a high school yearbook?

Wild in San Francisco had every artist and celebrity who strolled through between September and April sign a template with some sort of congratulatory note, wishing a generic accolade to that year's graduating class. The master template was then reprinted with a muted station logo as the watermark and then distributed to thousands of Bay Area students as an insert for their yearbook.

Bingo. A reminder of their favorite radio station for years and years to come.

Finally, what about the college students? Granted, transient out-of-state students who live in dorms don't get diaries. But should this be an excuse to not be on campus, working-the-room? Well, most stations spend the majority of their time creating excuses to not do stuff. It's just easier that way.

But when I look at a nesting group of 18-22 year-olds, thousands or even tens of thousands of them, that's like shooting fish in a barrel. Almost too easy.

The University of Minnesota is a great example: 60,000 students a DAY partaking in various levels and facets of the educational process. Something like 5% are in campus housing. Which means that a literal suburb of people in the younger side of your demo are riding mass transit and either living near campus or at home, leeching off mom and pop. So any excuse to be down there, in their face and relevant, is valuable.

Like "move-in day." In a couple of weeks, students from all over the country, with parents in tow, will arrive to move into their dorms. Why wouldn't you want to be down there to meet them and lend a hand?

Little Susie from Bismarck? The first person she meets when she arrives to start college is your morning guy who graciously helps her carry boxes up to her room. An e-mail to the database can never, ever create that kind of loyalty. If anything, you now may have a new consumer for your events and appearances and maybe, just maybe, Susie will graduate and stick around.

If you have any interest in having listeners in their 20s and 30s in the future, now would be the time to start laying that groundwork and getting them re-connected to radio.

Next Month: bathing your teens.