-
Targeting the PPM People: How Are They Different? (Part 4: Family Type)
April 30, 2012
Have an opinion? Add your comment below. -
To succeed today, stations must maximize their appeal to those who control that success: those who wear a PPM. NuVoodoo’s national study of 1000 adults 18-49 shows that there are several key differences between radio users who will agree to take the PPM and those who will not. This is the fourth article in our series discussing those differences and how they can help stations win and change the future.
First, please bear in mind that 100% of our sample are research-receptive people: people who at least agreed to answer a few questions. Experience tells us that only about 30% of the population will participate in any research. Therefore, any information we share about “Arbitron-friendlies” should be considered in this context. We also know respondents are always quicker to agree to a theoretical question than to commit to the actual behavior. So the percentages who say they will are always greater than the percentages who will in fact do so.Â
Parents Are More Willing than Non-parents to Take a PPM
Having kids living in your household seems to make a difference in accepting a PPM. Among those who don’t have children under 18 in their household, (within the minority of the population who will respond to any research), for every two people who say “no” when asked about taking a PPM, fewer than five say “yes.” Meanwhile, among those who do have children under 18 at home, for every two who say “no,” seven say “yes”! This holds true across the demo cells, and regardless of whether the parent is single or married. Almost certainly, this is linked to a parent’s greater strain on budgets and his/her greater need for Arbitron’s incentive payments. Nothing makes us more willing to do things we may not otherwise like so much as the need to feed our family. And, as we have previously documented, nothing drives PPM response like the need for money.
While Arbitron balances its samples by age and sex, they do not take parent/non-parent balancing into account. Thus, what we have uncovered is a dramatically significant finding: People with kids at home have a disproportionate impact on Arbitron numbers, compared to people in the same demo (and marital status) who don’t have kids at home.Â
What this means to you
We strongly suggest that you consider about the “family types” in your audience coalition in the same way as you might dissect your 18-24’s or your 35-44’s, as we discussed two weeks ago, or about “Middle American Types,” as we discussed last week.  Every station, of course, appeals to people who like its music or spoken-word content. But beyond that one commonality, its audience is in fact diverse. Some of your listeners have kids at home, and some do not. Obviously, the percentages will vary from station to station, but one fact will be consistent: Your listeners who have kids at home will make up a bigger part of your PPM audience than they do of your “actual” audience.
We are certainly not suggesting that a station with overwhelmingly childless listeners should ignore those folks and contort itself to focus on a minority who are parents. But for most stations, if you give greater consideration than you have until now to your parent-listeners, in all your targeting choices, you may significantly increase your chances of PPM penetration among your audience. And consequently, your improve ratings and revenue success. Make sure you bear this in mind, in everything you do: in your research, your advertising content, your media selection, your playlist and rotations, your talent content, your contests, events and other promotions, and in fact your overall stationality.Â
-
-