Today FM marketing chief upbeat on changing fortunes

Elaine Quinn has helped bring 324,000 people into an Abbey Street "bed" and says confidently that they all "wake up with a smile on their face".

And the marketing manager of 100-102 Today FM, Ireland's second national radio station (based in Dublin's Upper Abbey Street) seems pretty sure that by August the number snuggling up to 100 to 102 on the FM dial will almost double.

Since being head-hunted from eastern Europe, where she was involved in the launch of several Irish-owned radio stations, Ms Quinn has played a lead role in turning around the former Radio Ireland which was relaunched as 100-102 Today FM.

In June 1997, after three months on air, Radio Ireland had achieved only a 2 per cent audience share - a long way short of its target 10 per cent. Mr Michael Bowles of the Media Bureau said at the time the station used "none of the usual tricks for winning audiences".

Just a year after the launch as 100-102 Today FM, the station has 12 per cent of the daily audience, according to the Joint National Listenership Research's October figures. Ms Quinn says Radio Ireland lacked more than the usual tricks for winning audiences.

"Radio Ireland had old-fashioned conotations. A lot of people thought it was Radio Eireann in English. The logo was dark - a black background, a map of Ireland and gold disks coming out. When I saw it first my reaction was `Oooops - bad for radio'.

"There are basic books on logo colours. What is the station about? What is the image it wants to project? If it's an R & B station the image should be mellow; if it's dance the image should project energy.

The darkness was replaced with a bright yellow, a swishly penned `TODAY fm' in purple and a beaming crown of orange rays rising from the `TODAY' `O'.

Some 100,000 more listeners since the last JNLR figures in August - an audience growth of 25 per cent - can be in part credited to it. Further, 70 per cent of 100-102 Today FM listeners are aged in the advertisers' darling 20 to 44 years age group; 44 per cent of its listeners are in the ABC 1 social category and 60 per cent are urban-based. Programming, personnel and scheduling changes were of course behind the success evinced by these figures, but as Ms Quinn puts it, if people do not know the changes have happened, if they are not encouraged to try the changes, all are for nothing.

With her background in hotel management, she fell accidentally into radio promotion. It was while waiting for a Green Card for emigration to the US in 1988 that Ms Quinn was asked by an old school friend to help in the launch of the then embryonic Dublin radio station, 98 FM.

"I just could not understand the number of basic things that weren't in place," she remembers. "Coming from banqueting management, where everything works so much on forward planning, I thought `there are much easier ways of doing this'." Maternity leave for the station's marketing manager saw her take the reigns there, after which she was asked to oversee the launch of KISS FM in Prague. She was also involved in the launch of two other KISS stations in the Czech Republic, before going on to launch Klasitska Hits FM in Stockholm.

"I realised then I wanted to get into a national station" and while back in Ireland on a visit she was approached about taking on the marketing relaunch of Radio Ireland. "I got phone calls from everybody saying `You are not taking that job'," she laughs. "`That place is going down the drains.'

"But they were straight with me at the interview. It wasn't going to be an easy ride but I thought I'd love the challenge and I could see that with all the changes they were making, that it would be possible to turn the product around."

She joined in November 1997, and 100-102 Today FM was launched on January 5th 1998.

"My priorities were to get `trial-to-the-dial', to tell people the station had changed and to get it a national presence.

"We used promotional motivational factors", running competitions where the prizes were the two biggest people pullers - cash and cars. Press adverts were taken out telling people exactly where on the dial the station was; outdoor billboards were used en masse - "we found outdoor ads were the most effective" - as well as some radio and television advertising. The target market is the 20 to 44 age group - hence the poaching of presenters Ian Dempsey E , and Mark Cagney from RTE. "And from our research you can see it worked - it brought in listeners who decided to try and stayed."

Advertisers, she says, showed good will but remained cautious to part with money.

"We did a lot of trade exhibitions. We sent around briefs to the agencies about all our promotions. We did a breakfast with the media," and, she says, the advertising revenue slowly increased.

"We soon saw a 45 to 70 per cent increase every month and within seven months we were making our budget. That's the amazing thing about radio - depending on your business approach you can rectify the product's problem and turn it right around, quickly."

She believes the radio market has "absolutely" changed. "RTE has had a monopoly both on the audience and on the talent. There was nowhere else for people to go.

"We're offering something different and believe the age group we want now treats radio more like television - that they flick around the stations rather than stick habitually to one. Research shows that what particularly the 25 to 35 group wants is music, a bit of humour and to be kept at a station where they'll be cheered up and given something to comment on."

The station is still building its audience. "We have 12 per cent of audience. We would like to achieve 20 per cent by August. In the future we will be trying to build loyalty. But you will never have a perfect radio station. There's always, always, something to fix, to tweak. The audience is in flux, and at the end of the day, no matter how well you sell, they dictate what is on air."