Wish #1: Embrace brand-building. 

There has always been tension between brand-building and tactical strategy, and we talk about this at Coleman Insights a lot. Our president Warren Kurtzman addressed it in “Stop Chasing Meters, Build a Brand”. I wrote about it almost exactly seven years ago in “Direct Marketing is Easy. Brand Marketing is Hard.” 

In the latter, I quote marketing guru Seth Godin’s line that I’ve repeated nearly as many times as I’ve watched Back To The Future (read: a ridiculous number of times): 

“If you want to do brand marketing, you have to refuse to measure”.

It may seem counterintuitive in 2026, and the inclination to lean on tactical marketing like contesting is understandable. That’s not to say that tactical marketing is unimportant – quite the contrary, it can work and serves an important purpose. The problem is, when budgets are stressed, tactical often replaces brand marketing (or both get cut) and that’s a serious problem. If your brand is not top-of-mind, if listeners (or potential listeners) don’t see the brand outside of when they hear the station, they will listen less or not at all. 

When you see examples of stations or personalities that were brought back with great success after format changes and departures, it is because those stations and personalities built emotional brand connections with the audience. It is not because you gave away concert tickets at 3:15 to caller 9.

Wish #2: Lean into what makes you different.

I’m stealing from myself. As I wrote in “Three Big Branding Lessons From A Small-Town Mayor,” a tagline like “Live and Local” means nothing if you don’t put in the work. Today’s consumers are overwhelmed with choice and new options of “dehumanization”. We can view this as a threat to radio or an opportunity.  

Community is likely not be the reason a listener chooses your station, but it can absolutely be a differentiator and halo for your brand. Social media provides a remarkable (and free!) opportunity for stations to connect with local businesses, non-profits, schools, and other layers of community “connective tissue”. 

When music went digital, vinyl zigged into tactical, ritualistic listening experiences. Local record stores are thriving. Did you know vinyl sales have grown for 18 consecutive years? I thought vinyl was “dead”.

If everyone is playing video games, why has the board game industry exploded?  Face-to-face social interaction became more valuable as screens dominated. Both can grow and do.

Loneliness is at an all-time high and one of radio’s greatest strengths is community.

Curation vs. infinite choice.

Local DJs vs. algorithms.

Live events vs. on-demand.

Shared experiences vs. personalized.

When the world goes algorithmic and robotic, radio should do exactly the opposite. 

Wish #3: Fight back with attribution.

I’ve sat in all the sales meetings, slinging promotional ideas left and right for clients focused on short-term tactics that they judge success by via a two-hour remote broadcast (maybe read Wish #1).

Radio sales in 2026 isn’t just a battle for dollars, it’s a battle for perception. There’s always been clients that left because you couldn’t prove that their campaign worked.  Now you must deal with buyers that will never buy your station because “radio is dead”. There is a solution to confront both.

Coleman Insights’ Validate Audio Attribution offers sales teams a real-time dashboard that allows them to demonstrate listener-driven client website interactions for up to 90 days after the campaign airs. Validate is transforming the way companies like Cox Media Group and Connoisseur Media are selling. 

There are implications beyond traditional ads, like the ability of non-commercial stations to track the effectiveness of sponsorships or the direct impact of promos on fundraising efforts.

Wish #4: Join the creator economy. 

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) estimates that ad spend on creators in the United States will top out at $37 billion in 2025, a year-over-year increase of 26%. There are influencer marketing conferences and a burgeoning, maturing industry dedicated to matching brands with creators that understand how to sell them. It’s not just 22-year-olds making YouTube videos in their basement anymore.

If this sounds an awful lot like radio talent doing live reads/endorsements (which you already know work), it should, because it basically is in a more sophisticated way.

You should be deploying your key radio talent as local influencers because they do, in fact, influence brand affinity and consumption. 

Wish #5: Strategically join the podcast party.

My friend and occasional collaborator Steve Goldstein of Amplifi Media has been rightfully chirping about the local podcast opportunity for years.

Radio stations have the facilities, talent, and connections to categorically build locally sponsored podcasts around key podcast categories. What local businesses would sponsor an Arts & Entertainment podcast? Or Government, Education, Food, Fashion, Health & Fitness, News, or Sports?

The Bottom Line

Radio’s future isn’t about competing with Spotify’s algorithm or replicating what national podcasts do. It’s about doubling down on what only radio can offer: local connection, trusted voices, and community impact.

These five wishes aren’t revolutionary—they’re clarifying. They ask us to remember why we fell in love with this medium in the first place, while acknowledging that the tools and tactics must evolve.

Brand-building takes patience. Community connection takes intention. Attribution takes investment. Creator strategies take commitment. Podcasting takes planning.

But here’s what I know after decades in this business: radio stations that lean into their local advantage, that refuse to become “just another audio option,” that build genuine emotional connections with their communities—those stations don’t just survive, they thrive.

The question isn’t whether radio has a future. It’s whether or not we build it.

What’s on your 2026 wishlist? I’d love to hear it.

The post My 2026 Radio Wishlist first appeared on CMB.

The post My 2026 Radio Wishlist appeared first on CMB.

Recently, I was served a Facebook ad from a city government. The hook was “We want to hear from you! We are polling the community to learn about priorities for next year’s city budget.”

A city government posted a survey via Facebook to solicit opinions from the community on budget priorities

I was a little concerned that the city was using a Facebook poll for budget priorities, but I respected the community reach out and was game. Sure, why not.

Question 1 asked how important it is that the city “provide each of the following services.”

There were 33 choices. Providing a safe reliable bus system, Quality downtown parking, Reducing traffic accidents and congestion, Providing parking enforcement, Quality sidewalks, Maintaining city streets, Adequate EV charging stations, Providing bike lanes, High quality spaces where people live, work, and relax, Well maintained infrastructure (water, sewer, electric/gas), Affordable housing options, Preventing fires through public education and safety inspections, Maintaining a clean downtown, Responding to community needs (fire, police, 911), Preparing for disasters (earthquakes, hurricanes, pandemics), Quality community centers, Environment that promotes diversity and inclusion, Quality city entertainment venues, Opportunities to celebrate, connect, and contribute to creative and cultural ecosystem, Preserving local history, Providing job opportunities, Supporting small business, Supporting equity and minority and women-owned businesses, Youth skill development opportunities, Protecting natural resources, Engaging with and reaching out to the community, Making it easy to report issues and make service requests, Making it easy to pay bills and fees, Supporting actions that may reduce energy bills, Reducing energy consumption and supporting renewable energy use throughout the community, Giving residents a chance to express their views before making budget decisions, Using emerging technology and data to improve city services, Offering quality garbage and recycling collection, and Giving residents the information they need about recycling in your neighborhood.

Did you really read all 33 choices? Don’t feel guilty if you didn’t. Most of the survey respondents didn’t read them either.

The next question asked about my satisfaction with each of these 33 services, followed by a verbatim question: “Anything else you’d like included in the budget?”

Oh, my goodness.

The first question didn’t ask me to rank which services were most important, just which ones I felt were important and unimportant. But as I read them, I couldn’t help but compare and contrast. What does “quality” mean to them? It could mean something different to me. And are they really asking if I think pandemic preparation and the fire department are important?

Call me crazy, but I rated disaster preparation as “Extremely Important.”

I chuckled when I got to the verbatim question, because I had to scroll and scroll and scroll to see what was covered already.

There are several ways the survey could have accomplished what the city was going after. It may have included wording the questions differently, reducing the number of answers, grouping the answers into categories, and actually ranking priorities – while that seems to be the intention of the study, unfortunately the survey design may not provide the clarity the city seeks.

When designing a questionnaire, always consider it from the vantage point of the one taking the survey. Is every question clear? Is every potential answer necessary? Will the design lead to answering the main questions/issues that inspired the survey in the first place?

If not, go back to the drawing board. The results are always only as good as the design.

Link to Original Source

The post A Research Study Is Only as Good as Its Design first appeared on CMB.

The post A Research Study Is Only as Good as Its Design appeared first on CMB.