Brief Explanation

In a market saturated with over 20 established radio channels, the challenge was to create a personality for BFM reflective of their offering with a limited marketing budget. Then to create curiosity, awareness, affinity among discerning listeners, and get them to tune in. Finally to create listener experience by igniting a dialogue with them.

The Brief

To build an identity for a new business radio station called BFM. Unlike other stations that had become formatted, predictable and worse, trivial - BFM was looking to position itself as a station that would engage, educate and enlighten discerning white collar listeners. It would feature matters that would appeal to them like business, finance, marketing, technology and productivity, in addition to sport and a fresh music offering. The challenge was to translate this throughout the campaign, including corporate identity. Our client wanted to make an impact when attending business meetings. What better way than with their name cards.

How the final design was conceived

Our listeners don’t want fluff in their life, they want straightforward news/information and they do appreciate a little wit and candor. They liked to be challenged intellectually. So we took the abbreviation that represented our radio station (B – business, F – frequency, M – modulation) and created acronyms that reflected our brand essence and the type of topics we cover. Each acronym reflected a current news topic, the station modus operandi or the personality of the employee.

Indication of how successful the outcome was in the market

Although the campaign only started in Oct 2008, it has already managed to successfully drive listeners to the station and its website. The creative work is being recognized among our listeners who are also industry leaders, resulting in them being one of the “topics” on the station. Multinational companies in Malaysia have chosen to tie up with BFM for their promotion efforts because they believe the station is targeting the right listenership. Currently, over 55% of our listeners are corporate decision makers or influencers with a household disposable income of more than RM 7,500 per month, more than 70% have funds earmarked for investments and over 40% have an investment portfolio worth over RM100,000. Traffic to the website increased from 1,629 in Oct 2008 to 19,918 in May 2009 (a 1,122% increase). Number of unique visitors to the website rose from 965 in Oct 2008 to 11,015 in May 2009 (a 1,041% increase). Page views on the website increased from 4,699 in Oct 2008 to 45,815 in May 2009 (a 875% increase). In Septempber 2008, run rate of podcasts downloaded/played stood at about 105 a week. Today the run rate of podcasts downloaded/played has dramatically increased to 2,160 per week or over 300 per day. Total podcasts downloaded/played to-date is 45,322. So clear was the campaign and positioning of BFM that listeners contributed their own innovative acronyms for the brand. We received a total of approximately 240 acronyms (80 entries with an average of 3 acronyms submitted per entry) within one week of requesting for submissions.