Have you been thinking about advertising on radio?

With ever increasing audiences, now is a good time for testing the radio channel

COVID has had both positive and negative impacts across all media channels. OOHof course has taken a beating. Understandably, as isolating, WFH and cluster breakouts make it difficult for advertisers to benefit from the consistent reach and frequency delivered at scale that OOH would normally drive for a campaign.

Radio on the other hand, has gained listeners across all 5 metro markets. There’s been much debate as to whether the increased listenership seen at the beginning of the pandemic would continue. The most recent gfk pulse survey comparing Survey 2 (Feb 9 – April 9 to May-June) suggests that consumers are indeed maintaining their new listenership patterns. Listening in and around the home has increased across all key age demographics:

4,456,000 listeners under 40 are tuning into commercial radio in the home, up 1,793,000 (+65.1%)
A notable jump has been in the number of 40+ listeners, increasing 34.9% to 4,840,000 listeners. The 25-54 audience increased by 46.4% or 1,318,000 to a total of 4,161,000 listeners.

Of course what’s made listenership at home even more accessible are smart speakers, elevating the experience of listening in the home. And recently there have been new developments in dynamic audio that mean multiple messaging can be produced cost efficiently and delivered in the right place, at the right time, in context driving greater brand relevance.

And relevance is what consumers are actively saying they want from brands. And they want personalisation, not just in their experience of a brand, but also in that brand’s messaging to them.

This week survey 6 released (covering the period July 26-September 19) and results indicate that Time Spent Listening (TSL) has increased again. Australians are listening to an hour more of radio per week. AM listenership has increased, particularly in Sydney and Melbourne across news and talk and skews to older audiences.

Listening in the home continues to remain the primary location, particularly so of course in Melbourne currently. However there are indicators of a return to pre-COVID listening locations as people return to commuting to work.

ARN recently launched Dynamic Audio, which allows for dynamically targeted advertising across AM, FM and DAB+ radio in real time, a world first on broadcast radio.

What is dynamically targeted advertising?

Dynamic targeting delivers messaging in real time. As we are all aware from our own day to day ad exposure, receiving a relevant, and critically, timely message in context can increase our consideration of a product/service and prompt swift action.

Dynamic Audio takes up to 10 data variables (eg: time/day/daypart, weather, location, your advertiser data via API) and creates pre-recorded scripts based on the listener’s unique identifiers. The message is then delivered in real time across AM/FM/DAB+ and Digital streams whilst listeners are engaged in relevant activities. This is tapping into situational relevance.

Research conducted by Neuro-Insight to see what effect situational relevance had on lifting engagement and recall from radio advertising concluded that messaging “that directly relates to task or activities that listeners are participating in builds on these editorial effects and turbocharges them”.

The study showed that engagement with ads relevant to activities rose by 23%, while memory encoding increased by 22%.

Coles Express recently partnered with ARN Dynamic audio in running the first broadcast dynamic audio campaign. 1 script and 1 voice session produced 3,875 30 second variations of a Coles Express commercial at a cost of $5,000 trafficked by one key number – a fraction of the cost and time of manually produced creative.

Radio is a medium which works particularly well for top-of-funnel communications and awareness-building campaigns. Now more than ever radio networks reach mass audiences via music, personalities and local content which garner and hold loyalty. Reaching your target contextually through audio with personalised messaging at scale is an exciting next step for radio.

Link your radio campaigns driving personalised messaging at scale and your social platforms delivering one-on-one interaction and engagement and you have a powerful combination of reach, frequency and engagement.

Get in touch with Paykel’s channel planners to learn more.

Sources: CRA reports growth in radio audiences, Mumbrella, June 23 2020, Nova Home Truths Survey 6 edition, ARN Dynamic Audio, CMO: ARN partners with Coles Express, August 19 2020, Radiocentre, Hear and Now report, May 2019, CRA reports growth in radio audiences, Mumbrella, June 23 2020