Insight
How do you transform radio – a passive listening activity – into a truly social, audience-led experience? Widely considered as a latecomer in the established Hindi radio market, and with the smallest audience reach of all rival stations, Suno FM ambitiously aimed to change the way people listened to radio.
Starcom Mediavest Group wanted to design a unique listening experience that would not only entice new listeners but also engage and retain existing station fans. With the ever-increasing ubiquity of mobile devices across the region, the agency needed to utilise a platform that was mobile accessible and truly integrated.
It needed to deliver music that millennial audiences wanted to hear and needed to rival the online streaming services they already used – i.e. the instant gratification of Spotify and Beats Music. This new concept had to be simultaneously surprising, functional and good fun allowing audiences a level control over the music selection and an unrivalled social, personalised experience. It also wanted listeners to interact, sharing their music preferences in a publically safe way whether from their laptop seated comfortably at home, on their mobile phone as they commute to work, or when out with friends discussing their favourite new artist.
Harnessing the power of social media giant, Twitter, Suno FM’s Twitter Radio concept was conceived. SMG honed in on the currency of a single tweet and used this as the primary mechanism of the concept. But how does one tweet equate to anything relevant in the world of radio and music, you may ask?
Strategy
Imagine a radio station that plays music you request, in real time when you simply send a tweet and employ the use of a specific hashtag. You are envisaging what SUNO FM created.
SMG turned radio into a newly social experience by crafting a fully interactive radio station that played music based on online audience demand. It did so in a way that not only maintained but edged out the local competition from six Hindi radio stations –using Twitter as a point of difference.
Considering the UAE is home to one of the most active groups of Twitter users globally, (360K users sending more than 2.5million tweets per day ), the agency chose the rapidly expanding social media platform and harnessed the power of a tweet to get listeners to request their songs. By using hashtag #songsuno Suno FM was able to track the rate of uptake amongst the audience, and collate the total number of tweets received organically.
SMG targeted existing Suno FM listeners –aged between 15-34 years – and fans of Bollywood music. It directly appealed to various types of fans; i.e. The bored housewife sick of the same routine radio playlist, the eager student streaming online from their phone who wanted to hear a specific track stuck in their head, the commuter trapped in traffic who was tired of channel hopping to get the right music and finally the hard working employee slaving over a presentation and uninspired by the predictable music on the radio. The solution for all of these people was to send a #songsuno tweet and hear their favourite song.
This tight integration of a specific social media platform (Twitter) and an analogue radio station was the first of its kind in the world, creating a unique hybrid of new and old media.
Execution
This creation would not have been nearly as successful were it not for the addition of a clever technology programme that seamlessly linked Twitter directly to the station’s play list – without consumers having to download a new app to get involved. Invisibly, the Twitter-integrated app acted as the conjugate between the platforms and bridged the old and new world media modes.
As a result, the agency was able to craft an evolving virtual juke box of song requests. Listeners would tweet in their desired songs throughout the day using #songsuno, the app would queue their songs in order of tweets received and the playlist would be shaped accordingly. If a multiple listeners requested the same song, the track would automatically be prioritised up the queue of songs, based on a complex algorithm.
To promote this new listening experience, SMG capitalised on all owned media channels, namely via on air advertising, through Suno FM’s existing Facebook community and of course its rapidly expanding Twitter following. The agency created audio advertisements to encourage listeners to use Twitter to craft the music selection and play songs on demand. While online, it used promoted posts to promote the new service. Throughout all communications, SMG employed the strategic use of #songsuno for consistency and repetition of the campaign message.
Results
Suno FM’s Twitter radio concept caught on quickly. In just four months, it received more than 27,000 tweets including #songsuno. This equated to a staggering 1,600+ tweets per week or more than 240 tweets per day.
It was estimated that more than 11,000 local Twitter users were actively involved in the campaign and subsequently became new Suno FM listeners – on their computers, and via their phones.
With all this social media action, it was able to attract the attention of one of the region’s biggest brands. Huawei Mobile soon joined the family as a Suno FM advertising partner and thus added an additional, incremental source of station ad revenue to the profit margin.
Overall, this campaign successfully unified the audience, allowing them to fully control the music. Listeners shared information about their favourite artists and tracks online and then sent in coordinated tweets requesting their collective favourite songs. Suddenly, listening to Suno FM was social!