Moneyball: New Vehicle Infotainment Systems
• Knowing my involvement in the radio business, friends recently asked for help with the audio system in their new car. How do they access FM radio stations? Does their car have AM at all? What are the HD stations they talked about at the dealership? There aren’t any buttons, how do presets work? They tried to turn down the volume and ended up changing the temperature in the car — is the toggle on the steering wheel the only volume control?
This Gen X couple were eager to explore all the tech features in their new car. True to their generation, radio is still an important part of their in-vehicle listening. Turning to NuVoodoo National Media & Marketing Study 25 fielded earlier this year, we looked at what our sample of over 2900 respondents ages 14+ reported about listening on the road.
Nearly a quarter of our sample represented this Gen X couple where nearly half regularly use broadcast radio in the car (as shown in the table below, where broadcast radio usage ebbs substantially among the two generations younger than Gen X). The car dealer for these Gen Xers spent plenty of time explaining options to purchase SiriusXM or the commercial-free version of a pureplay streaming service — but gave only a quick mention of the car’s HD radio (and nothing about how to use it). The couple naturally wanted to know how to figure out what’s on the HD channels of stations in the area and how to access those channels.
What’s on the HD channels gets little or no mention on the main channels most of the time. It’s a trial-and-error process for most listeners, with no incentive and only occasional rewards. It was painful responding to their questions about whether the audio quality is better on those channels (as they expected it to be given their experience with HDTV).
One of broadcast radio’s big limitations compared to pureplay streaming services is the lack of a SKIP button. The easiest action to take if you’re not enjoying what’s on is to switch to another station, so it would seem to be in the best interests of broadcasters to make sure listeners know about lots of other stations. SiriusXM doesn’t really care if you switch from one channel to another; they care if you remain reasonably satisfied with the available options.
Broadcast radio needs to do a better job alerting listeners to their wider array of options; to sell the benefits of exploring their HD channels (maybe including webpages dedicated to helping them navigate the technology in their vehicles). If a listener isn’t delighted with what’s on the main channels of their usual consideration set of stations, maybe there are other entertaining options that can keep them listening to broadcast radio … and make it more likely they’ll come back to one of the main channels.
If a last-minute music test would help tune up your station or a tightly targeted digital marketing campaign would support your participation in a collective contest, NuVoodoo would love to help. An email to tellmemore@nuvoodoo.com will get quick attention from the right member of our team. Additionally, NuVoodoo marketing guru Mike O’Connor is publishing important insights from our latest general marketing study every week at nuvoodoo.com/articles. — Leigh Jacobs
