Recently, Radio One (FM Radio channel in Bangalore,playing Bollywood music) completed a unique experiment to clean-up their playlist.Business as usual would have been to hire some experts in music and asking themto rate and decide which songs will remain in the playlist and which will beremoved, or conducting a market research to understand the preferences of theircustomers and deciding the final playlist.
Instead, Radio One conducted a series of events andcompetitions to enlist about 600 of their ardent listeners to come together andform a music panel. This panel then decided the new playlist. Then they are nowusing this concept further to ask their listeners toidentify the songs that did not make it to the new playlist and offeringgoodies to customers who call and correctly identify these songs. This also ina way validates the choice of the music panel.
Radio channels are usuallyforced to engage with the customers (listeners) in myriad ways as this is theonly way, they can continue to have a good following and thereby getting a lotof advertisers. Even then, this was the first (to my knowledge) when a radio channelhas gone so far. I have now become a huge fan of the radio station and onlylisten to this station while driving.
All I can say about the new playlist is –it ROCKS!!!
Can other businesses canlearn from such experiments and use it to create a competitive advantage? I amsure there is a lot of learning for businesses here to involve and engagecustomers throughout their product development cycle rather than seek customerfeedback post-delivery of their product or service. I already discussed in my previous post whythis method does not auger well for the businesses.
Great going team Radio One!!!
