FM Radio Promotional Disaster... Don't Do This at Home

The other day, one of the top 5 FM radio stations in Tokyo ran a promotion for one of the hottest, most frequented restaurants in one of the most happening places in all of Tokyo. The results were laughably horrendous. Here's the story.

In Japan, we celebrate Golden Week from April 29 - May 5th every year. It's called Golden Week because there's a bunch of holidays all bunched together so that most people just take a vacation for the entire period. The holidays are things like Emperor's Birthday, Spring Equinox, Children's Day, Sushi on Top of Honorable Naked Geisha Day, and a bunch of others that neither I nor 90% of the Japanese population can remember.

It just so happens that Cinco De Mayo (May 5) falls on Children's Day here in Japan. So, in order to celebrate the beginning of sales of a world-famous imported Mexican beer at this posh restaurant, they wanted to run a week long promotion.

The restaurant campaign was announced everyday, at least 4 times a day, on this big Tokyo radio station. If any listeners showed up at the restaurant and mentioned that they heard the campaign on the radio station they got a free beer, some T-shirts, and entered into a contest whereby 10 lucky couples won coupons in a drawing that were worth about  $110 (USD) each that could be used for dinner and drinks. Not bad at all for a restaurant promotion.

So, how did this marvelous campaign go?

The big Tokyo radio station, that broadcasts to over 35 million homes in the Tokyo Metropolitan area, pushes this campaign hard for a week; everyday for 5 days, at least 4 times a day. Winners get thousands of dollars worth of free food and drinks... With a great push and prizes like that, you can imagine that the place was packed everynight! Wow! So, uh,  can you guess how many people showed up at the restaurant and mentioned the radio station's name to get their free beer and to enter the drawing?...

Let me give you a hint; the last of their worries was crowd control.

Only two couples showed up at the restaurant and mentioned that they heard about the promotion on the radio! Two couples! That's it. TWO. T-W-O. 2. Dos. II. One less than three. Two. Two couples!? Are you frickin' kidding me? Jeez-Louise! Two couples! That's worse than lame! As my friend Kris Honeycutt quipped,  "How could anyone fail at giving away free beer?"

I think that if I were the guys running the radio station that I'd be committing Hari-Kiri right now.

Don't forget that there are 35 million households in the Tokyo Metropolitan area and there are only five FM radio stations, so it's not like there's a whole heck of a lot of competition.

Now, after these crap results, you're wondering how much did this campaign cost the restaurant?... Well, this is where I came in and saved their asses... Generally speaking, for a campaign like this, the radio station would have charged the  restaurant and the beer company anywhere from $50,000 ~ $100,000 for the week. Not a small amount of money.... But the restaurant and the beer company paid nothing for this promotion. Why? Because they were at least smart enough to ask for my advice.

Lucky for them. Lucky they paid nothing because nothing is about the value of their return.

I told them before the campaign ever began that doing it the way they planned, and using a radio station as central to the promotion, was doomed to fail; but they had their hearts set on doing it this way. OK, I'm not one to argue with a client (well, not too much, anyway....) So I advised them on how to handle negotiations with the radio station and attended the meetings so that they would not have to pay for the disaster that I warned them was going to, and did, happen.

Their promotion was a failure, but at least they weren't out $100,000 on it.

How not to fall into the antique media trap in Japan.

The current market is a buyer's market. The internet has changed everything. It used to be that you had to beg a Japanese TV or radio station to take your money and promote your product. Not anymore. I had advised the client to tell the station that they wanted to see results before they would discuss money. They took my advice.

I know what I am talking about here. From my past experience, I know what's going on on the inside. So take my advice and don't make this same mistake....

And this goes for TV, radio, and print media.

Regrettably, I wish they had taken my advice on the entire promotion. Next time, they promised that they would.

The smart promotion would involve an entirely different tack on this. We need to think outside the box. Planning is central. Brainstorming essential. Long gone are the days when budgets are set aside for certain individual campaigns. The smart companies will take a longer term, more holistic view to the problem. Proper webpages using the web 2.0 concept of community; bloggers (bloggers should have been invited to this event!); proper SEO; and, crucially important is a web page that is updated daily.

Jeez.... It's so simple and so cheap to do. Just a few ideas and some direction and motivation. The days of throwing huge sums of money away at a promotional problem are long gone.

If you follow my advice you too will be soon saying, "Whee! This marketing and advertising in Japan stuff is easy!"

--------

Keywords:

Internet, InterFM, radio, promotion, marketing, advertising, web 2.0, TV, print media,