Reach Everyone

Those of us that grew up in the 70's and 80's, grew up listening to Casey Kasem's weekly American Top 40 Countdown on radio.

The 'kids' will never believe this but before computers and ipods and music videos on tv, this was how we received our music...on the radio.

Ahh, the good old days.

It seems antiquated now, but other people, disc jockeys, determined our playlist. If we wanted to hear "Come On Eileen", we had to buy the cassette or album or call in a request.

No Pandora in those days.

So Casey Kasem let us know which songs were on the top 40 list for the week. If you were really desperate to be able to hear "Mr. Roboto" again later and couldn't buy the album, you could record the song, through the speakers, onto a cassette tape. The quality sucked, but at least you could play your favorite song over and over again on your Walkman.

Every week, Casey Kasem would sign off from the American Top 40 with his signature phrase:

"Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars."

Reach.

It's such an aspirational word.

To reach for the stars...reaching for a goal.

From a media buying perspective, reach is the number of people exposed to an ad during a certain time frame.

Seems simple enough. Reach everyone. Buy enough tv and newspaper and radio to reach everyone and then your product will be a huge success. Phones ringing off the hook and people lined up outside of the door to get the opportunity to buy.

Unfortunately, for you and for me, it just doesn't work that way. I'm not sure if it really ever did, but it definitely doesn't work that way anymore.

Reaching 100% of the consumers and convincing them 25% of the way that you are great, won't accomplish anything - except wasting your money.

It is far better to reach 25% of your consumers and convince them 100% of the way.

How are you going to convince them? What can you share about your point of differentiation? How can you relate in an emotional way?

How will you change the conversation?

Jaci Russo

Sr. Partner/Brand Strategist

The Russo Group

photo by MikeMurko