My new column is live at The Drum:
Just because a stock rose 20% last month does not mean that it will rise another 20% next month. It’s a basic principle in finance: Past performance does not guarantee future results. The same is true in marketing.
Two weeks ago, Nielsen reported that erstwhile teenagers are now tuning into more radio than before:
“Back in spring of 2011, consumers 12-17 spent an average of nine hours and 15 minutes with radio each week – not internet radio; not satellite radio; just good old AM/FM radio. Fast forward six years later, and these same consumers (now 18-to-24-year olds) spend an average of 10 hours and 15 minutes with radio each week. In other words, when teens grow up, they spend more time listening to the radio.”
Essentially, Nielsen surmised, when teenagers grow up and get jobs, they listen to the radio at work as well as in the car as they commute. But I am still sure that some marketer somewhere once looked at a bunch of teenagers not listening to the radio, proclaimed the medium to be “dead,” and advocated that marketers move their dollars to digital to reach these children for the rest of their lives.
In my prior analysis of the radio industry, I observed that the medium is alive and well – although the data did lend some credence to the fears of some broadcast marketers that young people are giving up on the radio. However, Nielsen’s new information proves that such assumptions are incorrect. After all, media consumption changes as both people and their lifestyles change.