I am in agreement with these points and I’ll add my observations. While some younger hams see the ARRL brand as ancient and not in touch with them, we should be careful not to de-brand our product. In some cases though this works well - eg Venmo (a PayPal company) or Instagram (a Facebook company) who acknowledge their parent company but don’t prominently display the brand. I think that smart placement of the brand without over-doing it is good. I also agree that web -or social- links are more appropriate for contacting ARRL representatives. In fact I would like to see us evolve to where the website has a contact form which will route email or another communication method to a particular ARRL representative based on member profile or geographic location. Fishing through a phone directory is so 1980s and not how I would expect business to be conducted today. 73 Ria N2RJ On Tue, Nov 10, 2020 at 9:33 AM Minster, David NA2AA (CEO) < dminster@arrl.org> wrote:
Your first point was my very first comment about the publication. To me it is ‘off brand’ because anything – everything – we do should be recognizable as an ARRL effort. I was ‘assured’ this was intentional, by design, and approved.
For your second point, as this is targeted at younger, starting out radio amateurs (although many veterans seem to like it too) rather than publishing the field organization list as in QST, perhaps we could have a feature box in the front with simple links to pages on our website where we not only have the contacts, but preface each category with a brief description so they understand WHO these people are – and why they matter.
I am happy to review a rebranding of On The Air, and to bring these changes and potentially others if we can build some consensus surrounding the effort.
David
*From:* arrl-odv <arrl-odv-bounces@reflector.arrl.org> * On Behalf Of *Michael Ritz *Sent:* Monday, November 9, 2020 10:51 PM *To:* arrl-odv <arrl-odv@reflector.arrl.org> *Subject:* [arrl-odv:31303] "On the Air" questions for David M.
A couple of questions for David M., and copied to ODV in case others have had the same questions.....
David;
I received the latest issue of *On the Air* today, and have a couple of questions that have been festering in my mind since the very first issue of the magazine came out in January. Please note that these are not complaints or criticisms, they are simply queries to help me understand the reasoning.
As you are well aware, the ARRL brand is one of the most valuable assets the company owns. The iconic symbol of our brand is the familiar ARRL logo. I have noticed that *On the Air* does not display the ARRL logo anywhere, other than the very bottom of an ad on Page 3. Except for very tiny " ARRL.ORG/OTA" URL text on the front cover there is absolutely no indication that this is even an ARRL publication. It's not until you read the very fine print at the bottom of page four that you even know who publishes the magazine. (In fact, I'm surprised every month how very little content is on the magazine's cover page, considering what a powerful marketing tool the cover page of a magazine is.)
Now, all this might be intentional given the target market, but is the intent that we are deliberately trying to minimize the stigma associated with the "old ARRL ways" by limiting our own ARRL brand promotion within *On the Air*?
Also, there is also no reference anywhere in the magazine as to the ARRL Field Organization, or a listing of who their League representatives are. That would be fine if this was an accessory magazine provided in addition to QST that members received. Instead, it's an "in lieu of" scenario. Without that information provided within *On the Air* ARRL members that opt for this magazine will not have quick access to who their League representatives are, unless they go digging on the ARRL website, or dig into digital QST on-line. It's as if we are minimizing or ignoring the "organization" side of the ARRL within *On the Air. * Again, is this based on the thought that the younger target market for *On the Air* doesn't really care about which ARRL Division or Section they reside in, or who represents them? If so, that's fine too, I'm just curious.
Now that you've been here a couple of months I'd just like to know your thoughts on these two issues.
Thanks!
73;
Mike
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