Radio: High Deception

I was reading Ad Week on line the other day and caught this headline: Promotional Swag More Effective Than Ads, Study Says.

It eluded that promotional items – swag – serve as the best means to reach consumers over radio and TV.

In an ambiguous statement, the researcher claimed the results of their surveys – plural – came from questions asked of 600 participants, mostly businesspeople over the age of 21. They were conducted both on-line and in-person in major cities “such as New York and Los Angeles” to "recall promotional items they received and recalled over the past twelve months.”

Swag, the study said, yield a higher ROI, for a “very low cost-per-impression, compared to other advertising media” and that “items received this year still generated a high recall rate among recipients, leading to greater purchase intent.”

P.T. Barnum lives. Would one expect anything less from a “study” conducted by the Advertising Specialty Institute, whose job it is to promote its members’ promotional items?

Doesn't it remind you of iBiquity, the HD Radio Digital Radio Alliance, and the steady stream of misleading propaganda they attempt to flood the radio industry with?
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That brings us to iLounge, a gossipy news and rumor site that caters to iPod and iPhone users.

Back in January, I mentioned that iLounge had carried a news item on December 28, 2007, which claimed that Apple would be introducing an iTunes-tagging-capable HD Radio boom box at the 2008 Macworld Conference & Expo in San Francisco later that month.

On-line radio trades, like Radio Ink, picked it up as the first news story of 2008.

Just so you can follow the ruse. The 2008 International Consumer Electronics Show was opening in Las Vegas on January 10 followed by MacWorld in San Francisco on January 15.

The HD Digital Radio Alliance capo Peter “Sgt. Bilk-o” Ferrara proclaimed his planted tale to be a sign that Steve Jobs was essentially endorsing HD Radio. In reality, he wanted his latest fabrication to spread to the mainstream press.

It didn’t.

Considering the Alliance’s track record, you have to wonder if everyone associated with the HD Radio scam feels like the Snidely Whiplash cartoon character. Curses, foiled again!

(For the record – and to make it easier to spot the first HD Digital Radio Alliance ploy of this coming new year– the 2009 MacWorld Conference & Expo will run from January 5 to 9 and the 2009 International Consumer Electronics Show from January 8 to 11. )

This past Friday the same iLounge site was pitching for comments in its latest reader’s poll, “Which of the following next-gen add-on features most interests you?”

Harmless enough – until you read the following line: “Currently, HD Radio is leading the poll with 29% of the vote.”

So we are to accept as fact that more iPhone/iPod users want HD Radio than, let’s say, a larger screen? Or, more likely, are we to believe that HD Radio proponents are manipulating the iLounge poll?

How about that press release the HD Radio Alliance rushed out on June 3o, which read: Unprecedented Traffic to HDRadio.com. It read: "In addition to the raw increase in traffic to HDRadio.com, the percentage of new visitors to the site continues to exceed 80%. The site currently sees some 2700 unique visitors per day and those visitors currently spend an aggregate of 5600 hours per month on the site. Since January 1st, 2008, there have been over two million page views, with tens of thousands more coming from widgets embedded in radio-station Web sites, said Jamie Allen, Chief Operating Officer at Texas Creative, the company that built and maintains the site. All of the stats are for organic traffic, not aided by any search-engine optimization."

But Google Trends, which measures site traffic, showed the HD Radio Alliance’s claims to be false. Did the Alliance believe that no one would probe their implausible claims?

The best one comes at the expense of consultant and paid iBiquity HD Radio shill Fred Jacobs.

This isn’t a new story, as such, but it makes one wonder what the ulterior motive was.

Here’s a tale of two research studies, one of which was supposed to vanish into thin air – but didn't.
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Damn, you know that’s the problem with the Internet.
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To paraphrase that classic rock song by the Eagles, you can delete it, but it can never leave.

You see, it started when a new (click here) 41-question survey about HD Radio from Jacobs for iBiquity was mentioned in a Radio-info.com forum on October 31.

Almost immediately, the original survey vanished and was replaced by this sanitized 16-question version. (click here)

We have soooo many questions to ask of this ethical titan.

So who pulled your original HD Radio survey – and why?

Was the original survey a plot to kick Bilk-o replacement Lyin’ Diane Warren to the curb?

One would think that any research expert – even a self-proclaimed one – would never put a survey into into the field unless it was a finished product.

Or was it a finished product that iBiquity CEO Bob “Booble” Struble and the HD Digital Radio Alliance had to unfinish at your expense?

Here’s the facts, Fred. The economy’s so bad even Dollar Stores are being robbed.

Come 2009, fewer radio groups will be able to justify and afford to renew licensing deals with iBiquity and more than a few HD Radio stations could go dark.

The radio industry has to concentrate on the main product – the stations that can be listened to – not the ones that can’t.

Yes, Fred. It's dead.

And here’s some free advice for iBiquity. Do what you know best. The only way you’ll ever make real money is to invent a pay-per-lie service.
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Rockabilly Buzzard