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Radio Is A Core Feature In Our Cars For The Foreseeable Future
October 29, 2013
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That headline was delivered by Wayne Powell, General Manager and Senior Executive Engineer at Toyota (and echoed by other auto execs) at the first-ever DASH Conference last week in the Motor City.
It was one of many incredible statements heard at DASH - a first of its kind forum that brought together two storied industries – radio and automotive. Jacobs Media President (and lifelong Detroiter), Fred Jacobs was one of many who helped organize the event and finally got to say something he's only dreamed of:
The essence of the event was to talk about how radio and automotive can work together to better understand the in-vehicle consumer. As Roger Lanctot, Associate Director at Strategy Analytics put it, "The car radio experience is evolving. The faster we understand that, the sooner we can capitalize on it."
At the start of the event, it was clear this was going to big. The conversation on Twitter at hashtag "#DashAudio" was happening fast so I decided to start collecting tweets in order to show you a bit of what was going down.
A designated hashtag is one of Twitter's strengths. It gives everyone the power – without barriers - to share ideas and information instantly in an organized way.
And while you'll never take away the full impact of events at a conference that you don't attend, Twitter gives you a peek inside some of the buzzworthy moments.
It started with a fact based keynote from Entercom CEO David Field:
And following Field, was a variety of panels and roundtable discussions.
The soundbites that came from DASH attendees were full of insight:
And perhaps Jeremy Tracey of WCIC Radio put it best:
As I track most industry conferences, it's clear this looks to be the "most tweeted" radio gathering we've seen.
Below are the stats:
Overall, 116 unique people tweeted 702 posts that gave DASH Conference an impressive reach and amount of impressions:
These are big numbers, as I've never seen more than 100 individuals tweeting to share their thoughts and reactions at a radio centric conference.
But the real surprise from DASH (in the social space) was also a first for a radio get-together event.
During Day 2 of DASH, a few big auto brands realized they could glom onto the event socially with Twitter's feature, "Promoted Tweets." They did this by targeting paid ads to appear in the designated hashtag, "#DashAudio."
The tactic is called real-time marketing.
Toyota and Ford were among the brands attending this event whose ads started to appear in the #DashAudio stream:
Nissan was not at DASH and soon, attendees started commenting about their ads:
For many in the auto world to show up at DASH – a radio-centric event, and to spend money to promote their brands via tweets to get in front of the attendees, speaks volumes about the importance of this conference.
A lot of firsts happened at DASH.
But then again, Valerie Shuman (Shuman Counsulting Group and DASH co-partner) said early on into the event, "Interesting things happen at intersections when people who don't know each other come together."
The connected car conversation will continue at The Worldwide Radio Summit April 2nd – 4th in Los Angeles, CA. On behalf of Jacobs Media, I hope to see you there.
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