Q The Credits - Who Really Created WKQX's "Q101-Now on iPod Shuffle" Campaign?

Chicago is America's 3rd largest radio market. Q101 is the Alternative Rock station that features Fox News' nationally syndicated Mancow Muller. When searching for an edge over their competitors, what was the real genesis behind their new ad campain, "Q101-Now on Shuffle"? More importantly, why don't they give credit where credit is due?

(PRWEB) April 30, 2005 -- For over a decade, Chicago's Q101 tightrope walked that line between commercial and groundbreaking artists. In the earlier years, Q101 would play, while alleging to break, Alternative rock artists. They did this, ironically, usually only after they went platinum, (i.e. The Beastie Boys or Nine Inch Nails). Generally speaking, there’s often a backlash from self proclaimed “true fans” of “real” alternative rock citing that this corporate entity is just another poser.

Fast forward to today and you have to appreciate the new format that has undeniably expanded their playlist to feature ground breaking artists from the past 25 years. Prior to this new format, the station had a hard time acknowledging predecessors of the genre like the Talking Heads or The Ramones, for example.

One time general manager of Q101, Bill Gamble, explained to me back in 1992 that there was already a station for those bands down the dial, 93.1 WXRT. “We’re the New Rock Alternative” Gamble continued, “XRT plays [Alternative Rock.” Confused by his response, I pressed Gamble at the time. Why not expand the format just slightly? Play a rap song other than the Pet Shop Boys, “West End Girls,” perhaps Public Enemy. Go down to the record store in the Merchandise Mart and get the soundtrack from the movie, "Singles" that embraces the Seattle grundge scene. It seemed to fall upon deaf ears but when Rap became more mainstream a la Cypress Hill or House of Pain, Q101 was there. When artists on the “Singles” soundtrack like Alice in Chains were huge enough to have their own MTV Unplugged show, Q101 was there.

All of the above won’t surprise anyone who has any sense about the state of commercial radio but by the late 90s, Q101 had clearly plateaued and they were hearing it from their audience.

On one such morning, the misfit toy morning hosts, Bill Leff and Wendy Snyder, were in rare form. One might even say, "Too rare". Intending to ambush a critic of theirs, they actually gave the caller his moment to vent his frustrations with, not only Bill and Wendy’s rant on local bike messengers, but on the station as a whole. ”The fact is Rock 103.5 takes more risks than your [Alternative station.” Leff and Snyder scoffed when the caller threatened to get the duo off the air but 10 weeks later (when their contract expired) they were gone, and in came Mancow. The first of over a half-dozen Rock 103.5 personalities WKQX opted to recruit.

Its getting harder to dispute that the suits at Q101 don’t listen. The latest evidence of this is the entire “Q101-Now on Shuffle” campaign. Call it a psuedo-intellectual sport, but many people love to take shots at radio personalities and the program directors hiding behind the curtain. None more than Kyle Wiberg. Owner and operator of Chicago’s Velocity courier. His latest victims...Q101's Afternoon hosts: Woody, Tony and Ravey. This Y generation trio were actually good sports, though, when it came to their detractors, featuring a page on the station’s web site entitled, Woody’s Hate Mail. Suffice to say, Wiberg shot right up the dubious top-10 with a bullet for his classic suggestion:

“The Woody show sucks, you should replace them with an iPod on shuffle.”

Think that's funny? Here's the real punch line: A couple months after he made that charge, look what Q101 has done:

They gave out $20,000.00 in iPods to the stations top media buyers and advertisers for starters. Sun-Times columnist, Robert Feder, reported that according to VP and GM, Marv Nyren, this was the first step to reinforce how proactive they are in understanding that the kids really dig these iPods.

Then they invested in Viacom and Clear Channel billboards: Q101 Now on Shuffle. What a concept! Before they did that though, they quietly removed Kyle's "hate mail" from their web site. Thus, the admission of their guilt.

After Q101 launched “their” brilliant campaign they asked listeners to call a special hotline where they could call in and let the station know what they thought of the new format. They certainly garnered enough applause from the faithful to put together a tapestry of “Totally awesome, dude!” responses as well as apparently trying to taunt Kyle Wiberg with his own call, “Who ever came up with this idea should be promoted to the program director’s job.”

Yes, Q101 ultimately listens to the listener but I doubt their middle management or upper management will ever admit to the genesis of some of their finest ideas.

There’s an analogy to the rise of popularity an artist or a trend has: Its the ripple effect. Unfortunately, the “Rock” that caused the ripple is far too often undetected, somewhere at the bottom the pop culture ocean.

“You Rock, Kyle.”
    
CEO Rod Richardson
http://moviesandmusic.org

# # #