Clear Channel to enhance radio ads with RDS

[Dan Strassberg]

There is also a proposal fielded by Motorola and a partner company whose
name I can't recall to create "truly interactive radio broadcasting" based
on receivers (car radios, at first) built around Moto's DSP-based Symphony
chips. Moto says that its technology is compatible both with RDS AND with
iBiquity's HDRadio.

The idea is that when you hear a commercial that contains a call to action,
you punch a button on the radio and the radio captures in its memory
information about the item that was offered for sale and the method of
contacting the advertiser or its agent. The radio station has transmitted
that information inaudibly either via RDS or over an inaudible digital
channel of the HDRadio system.

Using a wireless BlueTooth connection, the radio then transmits this stored
information to your cell phone, which either automatically dials the
specified phone number and places an order for you using credit-card
information stored either in the radio or the cell phone, or it transmits
the equivalent information--also via Bluetooth--to your PDA.

If you are using the PDA as part of the ordering function, when you alight
from the car and place the PDA in its cradle next to your PC, the
information is uploaded to the PC, which adds the credit-card info (in this
scenario, only the PC--not the radio or the PDA--stores the credit-card
info) and transmits the stored order(s) to the merchants via the PC's
network connection (which can be either high-speed or dialup). After the
orders have been transmitted, the PDA's order memory is flushed to prevent
accidental duplicate orders.

Motorola says that although the process takes a lot of words to explain, it
would be duck soup for listeners to use. Hear a commercial, press a button,
the mechandise arrives by whatever shipping method is appropriate--downloads
included--and your credit card is automatically billed. The claim is that,
currently (that is, without benefit of "interactive radio"), radio produces
the lowest respose rates of any method of advertising. (Maybe the survey
didn't include matchbook covers.)

Interactive Radio's drastically simplified ordering and billing would
completely change that situation. Of course, before the system could have
any significant impact, quite a few of the new receivers would have to be
placed in service and quite a few radio stations would have to participate.
For nationally distributed products, however, the system might be more
efficient when used in conjunction with satellite radio (XM, Sirius) than
with terrestrial radio. Sure sounds like a Brave New World--an Orwellian
Brave New World--to me!

--
Dan Strassberg, dan.strassberg@att.net
eFax 707-215-6367

----- Original Message -----
From: Chris Beckwith <beckwith@ime.net>
To: <bri@bostonradio.org>
Sent: Wednesday, December 31, 2003 11:55 PM
Subject: Re: Clear Channel to enhance radio ads with RDS


> The New York Times has a story about Clear Channel, Infinity and other
radio
> station owners looking into using RDS to add a text message to radio ads
in
> order to increase impact and give the medium a bigger share of the
advertising
> pie. An ad campaign starting in January for a small bank in North Carolina
is to
> use this technology.  Naderites are up in arms, saying motorists will be
dying
> in car crashes en masse as they dial their cellphones to switch banks.
Radio
> gets results!
>
> Take care,
> Chris