Few things are more frustrating than being treated like a retread, when you know you`re the hippest kid in town.
You let the image problem slide for a while. You figure that forcing the truth down people`s throats is an un-cool approach.
But let`s face it. Even though you`re WXRT-FM (93.1)-the most progressive of the commercially competitive stations in Chicago-even though your music is the freshest, your playlist the least repetitive and your station-sponsored concerts are the closest to the cutting edge, far too many young listeners seem to think your deejays spend their days replaying cuts from ”The Big Chill” soundtrack.
So you do what any red-blooded American radio station in your situation would do. You market yourself.
”We decided we needed to straighten people out as to what we were all about,” Christie Nordhielm, the station`s marketing director, recently said of WXRT`s new advertising campaign.
The series of four ads, featuring a redesigned logo and punchy, eye-catching teasers, practically goads Chicago`s listening public to jump on the individuality bandwagon.
Currently playing on billboards and in 15-second television spots, the messages are: ”Move someplace cooler,” ”Think for yourself,” ”If you don`t like the rules, change them” and ”Want to get off?”
The campaign marks a dramatic break with WXRT`s subdued diamond logo and simple slogan, ”Chicago`s Finest Rock.”
”Our core listeners made the correlation between a diamond and fine rock,” said Norm Winer, WXRT`s longtime program director. ”But when younger people saw the diamond, they apparently assumed we were a classic rock station.”
Ironically, in its effort to turn Chicagoans on to perhaps the most innovative, adventuresome programming around, WXRT is imitating the typical late-`80s, I-know-something-you-don`t-know mass marketing style used so successfully by WLUP (FM, 97.9; AM, 1000).
”The only similarity between our ads and the Loop`s is that both are contemporary,” Nordhielm said. ”The Loop is nonstop rock and roll, pounded in. Ours is a more conceptual campaign that says, `Think for yourself and get away from that.` We didn`t decide, `Look, we need to be more Loopish.` We`re not the Loop. That`s the point.”
In years past, the staff at WXRT took a certain pride in shunning hard-sell tactics, preferring its word-of-mouth reputation as a station for the intelligent music fan.
But that was back in the `70s and early `80s, when WXRT commanded a fairly substantial percentage of listeners in the all-important
twentysomething age bracket.
”Now many of our listeners are older, and less and less interested in keeping up with new music, and younger people have grown up thinking WXRT was their older brother`s radio station,” Winer said.
As if that weren`t enough, the number of stations aggressively competing for the attention of the young adult-WLUP, WCKG-FM (105.9), WKQX-FM (101.1), WBBM-FM (93.6), to name a few-has grown considerably since the `70s.
”The point is to get younger listeners to give us a try,” Nordhielm said. ”Once they press the button, we`ll keep a higher percentage of them than most of the other stations.”
