Student Radio Awards 2013: Best Marketing & Station Sound Entry

STUDENT RADIO AWARDS 2013 BEST MARKETING & STATION SOUND ENTRY on air. online. on campus.

Xpression FM has been building momentum for a number of years, always achieving more and aiming higher.

Once the 2012/2013 committee got their hands on the station, it was time for a complete branding overhaul to reflect the dynamism and energy of the new year. The biggest shake-up in a decade, Xpression FM underwent a comprehensive visual and audio transformation, showcasing the production skill of our members, the focus and leadership of our committee, and the vibrant personality of our university radio station.

On air, online, and on campus, Xpression made its voice louder and more recognisable than ever through a new logo, a new station sound, and a new marketing strategy to draw the threads of the station together into a unified, attractive brand.

THE LOGO: Everyone knows a picture says a thousand words and a good logo does all the talking for you. Our Marketing team took it upon themselves to design a new logo that reinvented the station’s conception of itself and provided a new angle through which to market ourselves. Hugely eye-catching, cutting edge, and a favourite amongst all aspects of the station, our logo is something to be proud of and really sets us apart from other student media. Armed with such a stylish logo, we set about updating the rest of the station in order to create brand continuity and a strong, loyal listenership base.

ON AIR: We took our station sound in-house for the first time in years, mobilising the diverse voices and talents of our membership base and providing a platform for members to explore their creativity and production skills. Not only was it a fantastic opportunity, but it allowed Xpression to reflect the new and diversified aspects of the station, as well as convey up to the minute news and events, in a cohesive, accessible audio package. Our enthusiasm for student radio can now be heard in every aspect of our output.

ONLINE: In line with our audio revamp, we took drastic action to redefine our digital presence, embracing social media in a professional and directional way and redesigning the website to reflect our production values. The website became a slick, stylish format through which to promote and display all our shows, with a “Rewind”, catch-up section that showcases presenters’ Mixclouds, and a clear, attractive schedule that provides pop-up links to presenters social media pages. All widgets were fully incorporated into the

website making it the place to go for all Xpression related social and audio content. The website is also compatible with mobile devices to really reflect the ways students interact online.

In terms of social media, we had dedicated tweeters, facebookers, and photographers for all our big events, debates, and shows, really rallying online support and interaction. Furthermore, we collaborated with our student TV station to create viral videos to promote events such as a Harlem Shake for our soundclash and Skill Skool video for our charity football match, not to mention the Xpression Sports Crossbar Challenge!

ON CAMPUS: With the opening of the University’s £50 million new development, Xpression had fantastic opportunities to OB right from the heart of Exeter campus, visible to all and really stoking the atmosphere (not to mention it was dry!). From a swanky new banner, to tailored OB jingles, from roaming mics, to smart business cards, we made sure no student walked past and didn’t know who we were. Furthermore, we made the most of every event, debate, or special show our ambitious team masterminded by engaging in comprehensive postering campaigns, utilising our new image to make edgy designs that at times provoked controversy but certainly caught people’s attention.

Finally our Marketing team fought tooth and nail with the University and eventually succeeded in increasing the number of speakers that play Xpression on campus, almost doubling the existing platforms in one year and setting in place policy and promises of more.

And in case that wasn’t enough, we always have cake.

New Year, New Xpression Xpression FM has changed vastly from previous years. We created an in-house jingle package, rather than outsourcing, to give ourselves a more flexible and relevant station sound. We completely redesigned the logo to be more exciting and visually striking, in tandem with a completely redesigned website with a new professional outlook, easily navigable both on the computer and on mobile phones.

New Logo This year Xpression FM launched an overhaul of its image. The changing of the station’s logo and overall look was an attempt to re-vamp the appearance of the station. While the old logo looked professional, it didn’t appeal to our primary audience – the students of the university. The new logo thus needed to be bolder and stronger, hence the use of only two contrasting colours.

An image that could be used as advertising on its own, that would become a recognisable icon around campus when it also became the centre point of branded clothing.

The original idea behind the new logo mirrors the objective behind the changing of the station sound. The logo was meant to reflect the originality and vibrancy of ideas that makes up student radio. The old microphone represents the bygone ages when radio, and especially the music it played, could be a form of rebellion, while the graffiti scrawled upon it ties that in with this century’s younger generation. The combination of a more ‘official’ symbol of media broadcast, and an ‘illegal’ individual imprint, demonstrates the freedom of style and opinion that student radio can broadcast.

The station’s logo now fits with its output. It can now rightly advertise new and exciting events that the station held such as the Soundclash, as well as drawing students to more serious shows dedicated to issues facing them and their university life.

New Website Our web presence was eroded last year when we lost our domain name (xpressionfm.com) and when Xmedia Online, the media society that managed our website, became defunct. This year, we sought to rectify that by rebuilding our web presence on xpression.fm.

Again, we thought of our listeners and made sure our new website was compatible with mobile devices, by using HTML 5 Audio and a ‘responsive’ layout.

New Station Sound Given that it has been 6 years since the core jingle package had an overhaul, the new committee came in knowing that it was time for an update. Over the summer of 2012, the Heads of Production started work on developing the new station sound.

With the new sound, the committee agreed to move away from professionally-done jingles and use in-house voiceovers and production. The new station sound will feature 100% student voices, and they will be put together by our own production team for our student demographic - in short, it’s for students, by students.

In the development of the new sound, we considered the changes that Xpression FM had experienced in the last six years: •

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Schedule: We realised that Xpression’s core output is no longer just ‘new music’ - we now offer scripted programmes, news, sports, entertainment and specialist shows - this diversified offering means we have to simplify our jingles to suit the variety of programmes on our schedule.

Listeners: The way we interact with our listeners have changed. Twitter and Facebook have surpassed email and phones to become our listeners’ preferred way of getting in touch.

University: The landscape of the Exeter Campus has changed - we now have the Forum Building at the heart of our Streatham campus, and we also have a satellite campus in Tremough, Cornwall (which everyone on Streatham always forgets about). We used these facts in our jingles to give them an Exeter flavour.

Unlike most other radio stations, we felt that Xpression could retain its identity even with multiple voices in our jingle package. Furthermore, this makes it easier to expand our station sound, as we will not have to worry about getting the same few voiceover artists each time we wish to expand our station sound.

On Air Show Promos & Jingles With the station sound now taken in-house, our Production Team worked flat out at the beginning of the year to create a variety of general idents, news idents and adverts for use with any Xpression FM show. With this firm foundation the team set to work making jingles which are tailor-made for each show on our schedule. The team also made promos for some of the shows on our schedule, as well as the one-off specials and events that we organised throughout the year.

Xpression Record of the Week To give our presenters a chance to plug their show across the station, we gave different presenters the opportunity to pick the Record of the Week each week. So far, we have used this as a way to promote our specialist shows during our Daytime slots, and it has helped to raise the profile of some of our specialist shows.

Exe List This is where we showcase bands and artists that are local to Exeter and relevant to students. We made it a requirement for daytime shows to play at least one song from the Exe List and some of the artists came into the studio during a show for a chat before their track was played. The Exe List also maintains the strong links that Xpression has had with Campus Bands and other music societies.

Collaborations One aim at the beginning of the year was to increase the amount of collaboration with the other three media societies and other groups in the Students’ Guild. The Xmedia Music Show could be considered the flagbearer in this regard - with the music teams of Exeposé Print & Online (the student run newspaper) combining with Xpression FM to present a fortnightly review of national and local music. Other big events were the Harlem Shake Video which was produced with the assistance of XTV and subsequently went viral! The station worked closely with Exeter RAG too, presenting coverage of their Comic Relief events and releasing the line-up for the 2012 Safer Sex Ball live on air.

New way to get in touch Text service A key innovation that has improved every one of our shows is the text service. This was introduced in October 2012 and listeners can text the studio at their normal rate. Listener interaction increased dramatically over the subsequent months and gave presenters a new string to their bow when deciding on content. Competitions and giveaways became a lot more feasible, and the News and Sport shows benefited from a greater availability of listeners’ opinions.

Online Social Media & New Website This year, at Xpression FM we made a greater push with our online presence. We did this primarily through our new website and integrating our Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud, Audioboo and Mixcloud with this website. Our website has also been redesigned to make it compatible on mobile. With mobile users in mind it uses HTML5 and a responsive layout to make it compatible with mobile users.

Our new online initiative meant that we could have greater interactivity with our listeners. We linked individual show pages to our website through the schedule and promoted these pages on our Station Facebook & Twitter. Further efforts including the use of polls, and by uploading photos and videos also added to listener involvement. In particular this also improved visualisation for listeners. The Xpression Big Broadcast featured videos for listeners to watch afterwards and in Guild Election Week we uploaded new photos from our OB, Debates and of candidates every day so listeners could further visualise the vibe on campus.

Xpression Rewind New to Xpression this year is our catch-up service, Rewind. Presenters are encouraged to set up their own Mixcloud account and upload their shows. Once they have done so, they can inform our web admin to add their show onto our the Rewind section of our website.

Although we wanted to make full use of Mixcloud and our website, unlike some other radio stations, we gave our presenters the option of whether they wished to upload their shows online or not. After all, it is student radio, and some of us are still experimenting and trying things out.

Viral videos To gain some extra publicity (and for fun!) we have been using videos to promote some of the stuff we do at Xpression. We jumped on the Harlem Shake bandwagon and our Sports Team also made a number of videos, including The Crossbar Challenge, “Skill Skool�, and a video promoting the Charity Match Team.

On Campus Business cards Our Marketing Team came up with the idea of using business cards as a cheap and easy way to promote the station, show how to listen in and contact us. These are put in various places around campus, as well as our studio entrance, so our members can collect some and distribute them as they please. So far, it’s been an effective and cost-efficient way to promote ourselves, and we will continue this for the foreseeable future.

Posters Throughout the year, we’ve been using posters to get the word out about some of our special broadcasts, including events such as our charity football match, one-off shows such as the “Exeter Lad Culture Show”, Varsity Coverage, Guild Election Debate Shows and the SSB Line-up Announcement.

The posters really attracted the attention of passers by, with the risqué images being used for the Exeter Lad Culture Show causing a real stir on campus. Following the station re-brand and creation of the new logo, we bought a large Xpression FM banner - anyone who sees or hears our OB’s knows straight away who’s doing them now!

Outside Broadcasts (OB’s) Anyone in student radio will tell you that OB’s are one of the most effective ways to advertise a campus station. Taking note, we have increased our OB output through our marquee at Freshers’ Week, Guild Election Week, Open Days and Comic Relief. Our Open Day OB’s have also enticed prospective students to try Student Radio, or more specifically, Xpression FM, if they choose to come to Exeter.

All our OB’s are staffed by a significant number of committee members at any one time to handle any questions that a prospective member may have, and there is usually a crowd around the OB desk of students wanting to get involved or pick a track!

In Print Exeposé Print has a fortnightly circulation of over 5000 copies and serves as an effective method of advertising to the student body.

Joint ventures with Exeposé, such as the Xmedia Music Show, have gained advertising space free of charge, and a variety of articles have been written by Xpression member or feature the station itself - our Big Broadcast commanding a large article on page two of one issue. Over the last term, the News Team have started collaborating with Exeposé Online to provide sound clips of interviews or reports that Xpression have conducted for incorporation into their articles.

Many of these articles have trended widely on Facebook and Twitter, giving Xpression FM greater exposure in the process.

Key Highlights Open Days Exeter’s campuses are always bustling whenever there is an Open Day - the university sees plenty of prospective students (and parents) visiting to see our stunning campus. This year, we saw this as an opportunity to showcase ourselves to future students, just to remind them that they can always get involved with student radio if they choose to come to Exeter. During Open Days, we would set up an OB at the Forum Piazza at the heart of campus.

This was one of our largest static audiences as nearly a hundred prospective students and their parents soaked up the sun on the tiered bench seating opposite our marquee.

Freshers’ Week Freshers’ Week is important for any student society at any University. This year, we had OB’s at various venues throughout the week, including the Mega Media Marquee and the Activities Fair, where we were broadcasting from the stage of the Great Hall. We had various features running at the OB’s, including an Exeter quiz which the Vice-Chancellor appropriately claimed top spot on, narrowly beating the Deputy Vice-Chancellor!

Guild Election Week and Varsity Coverage Social media was used widely throughout these shows, with the hashtags #ExeterVote and #Varsity13 giving the coverage a sense of uniformity from show to show and tying it in to online activity by other societies and the Guild. Posters were used to drive up listener numbers and both events gained a greater sense of authority by being publicised as an official source of information by the Students’ Guild.

Use of marketing for Xpression fundraising projects Xpression FM came second at the inaugural Students’ Guild Awards in June for outstanding contribution to Charity, being placed above dedicated fundraising societies such as RAG. Two events were largely responsible for this award - the Big Broadcast for Children in Need (raised >£1000) and Charity Football Match for the Adam Stansfield Foundation (raised £2000). Both of these attributed their success in raising such large amounts to successful marketing, with posters and flyers being printed in their hundreds before both events. Again, a strong online presence was vital, and many of the members involved were very active on Facebook and Twitter promoting the event.

Coverage and marketing of other charity events Xpression FM has really strengthened its ties with societies such as RAG and has even seconded members to their committee! We presented the Safer Sex Ball Line-up Announcement live on air and the social media buzz meant that our online stream temporarily crashed after record listenership. We were also able to use the online comments to provide listeners’ responses to the announcement. Another RAG event that Xpression covered, this time with an OB, was the University’s events for Comic Relief; with our coverage really aiding RAG’s marketing of the event whilst providing improved output for the station on those days.