Do You Celebrate Your Heroes?

One of the things I'm working with clients a lot on nowadays is the topic of last week's Faithbright, Atomic Statements. These are the statements of identity that resonate with your fans and with your brand's mission.

These are not simply positioning lines, they are rallying cries that make your listeners' hearts beat faster. Just as rooting for the local sports team does. It's not just baseball, it's YOUR team.

One of the ways we get the "right" atomic statement is to dive more deeply into the values listeners share with your brand.

One of the main things any consumer wants from the brands they patronize is "status." Now I'm not talking about the kind of status that results in designer logos and fancy watches and upscale luxury cars. "Status" means different things in different communities.

In the communities that our Christian stations serve, I would suggest that "status" is measured in virtue.

Not "virtue signaling," which is projecting a false virtue, but the real thing.

Actual acts of virtue are things like altruism, cooperativeness, helpfulness, ethicality, concern for the public good, feeding the hungry, clothing the needy, etc. And guess what? Research shows these have been important values throughout the history of humankind dating back to our hunter-gatherer roots.

The virtuous become our heroes and being virtuous makes us heroes in our own story world.

For example, did you know that only about 1% of charity donations are made anonymously?

When we give and do so in public, we show ourselves to be good people, and we are rewarded by others thinking better of us, effectively elevating our status. We act more virtuously and feel more virtuous in part because others can see our virtue on display. This, after all, is why so many public radio stations to this day provide station-embossed license plate frames to their donors, and darn it if those donors don't install those plates. It takes their private gift and makes it public, and that makes them virtuous.

If you find this at all unsavory, I encourage you to get over it. We are all human, for better or worse, and subject to all the limitations thereof.

Goodness is social. And it creates social currency for us. And that social currency polishes up the hero of our life story - ourselves.

A study among two groups of phone workers asked one group to write about a recent time that someone did something for them that made them feel grateful. The second group was asked to write about themselves being heroic by helping others at work. After this exercise, the second group was 30% more productive than the first. Virtue motivates. Feeling like a better person makes people better people.

So what does this mean for you?

It means that we need to get out of the notion that our radio stations are one-to-many broadcast platforms where we make content and listeners receive it.

Instead, imagine your platforms as communities where the audience participates with your brand in the good works you do. And their good works are inspired by your brand.

When listeners nominate a family in need for a Christmas Wish campaign, that's your brand making heroes. When they stick post-it's with encouraging messages all over town for Valentine's Day, that's your brand making heroes. When they support a child in need across town or on the other side of the planet, that's your brand making heroes. When they post about your message on social media because enough posts will trigger your brand doing something good in your community because of listener posts, that's your brand making heroes (P.S. I've never heard of anybody doing that last part, and there's no good reason why).

Ask yourself: How can I make my fan the hero of her own life story?

Doing so will elevate her virtue, make her a better person, and bind her ever more tightly to the brand that makes it all possible.

Mark Ramsey Media does audience research for Christian Media - Perceptual research, digital studies, donor studies, music studies, etc. Learn more here. Call Mark at 858-414-4191 or email markramsey@mac.com.

And if you want a strategy to solicit major donors to pay for your research, look here and download this Listener Impact Study solicitation for donors from WAKW-FM.

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