Radio Advertising, How Radio Stacks Up Against Other Media
In today's information age where we are constantly bombarded by adverts from all angles many people have asked me what the best form of advertising currently is.
My reply is simple and always the same.
If you are picking one advertising medium to use for your campaign then Radio is definitely the way to go.
Radio has been around since the early 1900's but it wasn't until around 1920 that stations first started broadcasting continuously like they do today.
The first radio commercial was broadcast by KDKA in 1920 when stations first started facing the task of financing a 24 hour broadcast and soon other stations followed suit.
The first credited paid commercial was broadcast by WEAF of new York on august 28th1922 for Queensboro Corporation but other stations had been advertising for local companies for at least 2 years previous, although often in exchange for goods, services or reciprocal advertising.
Radio has been with us for a long time, it has seen people through wars, economic disasters and natural disasters.
It has reported good and bad into people's lives for almost a century and despite the invention of new media such as TV and the internet recent research shows that 91% of all people still listen to radio.
In fact recent studies by RAJAR (Radio Joint Audience Research) puts UK listening figures at 46.
7 million listeners per week up from 43.
4 million just a decade ago.
Audience reach So apart from massive audience figures why else should radio be used, after all Newspapers have a broad reach don't they? Well actually whilst Radio figures have increased over time, newspaper readerships figures suggest a decline in readers.
16.
8 million people read daily Monday to Friday papers and 19.
9 million read weekend papers.
Less than half the amount of people listening to radio.
TV perhaps? Whilst it's true that more people watch TV than listen to radio, 54.
1 million viewers, 3.
5% extra of the population, it must be said that Commercial Radio stations reach 33.
3 million listeners and commercial TV stations actually reach only 37.
8 million viewers, making the difference much smaller.
That leaves the last and most un-statistically available Internet.
Whilst more and more of us use the internet and more and more adverts creep in (think of Google adverts in Gmail) it is hard to know just what advertising is out there so for the purpose of this article I won't even try and use it as an advertising media.
Ad avoidance It is true of modern times that we are now bombarded with adverts so often that we often avoid them without even realising it.
How many busses do you see daily, can you remember the adverts on them? Posters, TV, Radio, cinema, magazines, newspapers it's all an endless stream of "buy buy buy" that we have become desensitised too.
Years ago adverts were a welcome break in programming, a funny little clip that informed you of new exciting products.
Unfortunately those days are gone.
Ad avoidance is what is says, people actively avoiding adverts and it's big.
TV: 44% avoidance rates Newspapers: 68% avoidance Magazines: 61% avoidance Direct Mail: 52% avoidance Radio: 16% avoidance Cinema: 8% avoidance (Figures from initiative media and www.
rab.
co.
uk ) It's easy to see from these figures why Radio is such a great Medium to advertise in.
Only 16% of people listening to radio actively avoid the adverts whilst 44% of TV viewers change channel or switch off and a whopping 68% of newspaper readers simply turn the page.
It may be an overused saying in Radio advertising but quite simply "you can't close your ears!" Again, the internet is a place difficult to create statistics from but internet advertising has limitations.
The RAB 2005 Ad Avoidance Study showed that people avoid banners and pop-ups even more than they avoid junk mail.
This resistance is made worse by the fact that people don't like clicking on unfamiliar links.
In further articles I intend to discuss the fact that a well rounded marketing campaign will utilise all aspects of media but if budget is a factor, you could do much worse than advertise on radio.
If 10% of a given TV budget is re-deployed onto radio, the efficiency of the campaign in building awareness increases on average by 15% (millward brown sturdy into sales multipliers) making radio the real place to advertise.
My reply is simple and always the same.
If you are picking one advertising medium to use for your campaign then Radio is definitely the way to go.
Radio has been around since the early 1900's but it wasn't until around 1920 that stations first started broadcasting continuously like they do today.
The first radio commercial was broadcast by KDKA in 1920 when stations first started facing the task of financing a 24 hour broadcast and soon other stations followed suit.
The first credited paid commercial was broadcast by WEAF of new York on august 28th1922 for Queensboro Corporation but other stations had been advertising for local companies for at least 2 years previous, although often in exchange for goods, services or reciprocal advertising.
Radio has been with us for a long time, it has seen people through wars, economic disasters and natural disasters.
It has reported good and bad into people's lives for almost a century and despite the invention of new media such as TV and the internet recent research shows that 91% of all people still listen to radio.
In fact recent studies by RAJAR (Radio Joint Audience Research) puts UK listening figures at 46.
7 million listeners per week up from 43.
4 million just a decade ago.
Audience reach So apart from massive audience figures why else should radio be used, after all Newspapers have a broad reach don't they? Well actually whilst Radio figures have increased over time, newspaper readerships figures suggest a decline in readers.
16.
8 million people read daily Monday to Friday papers and 19.
9 million read weekend papers.
Less than half the amount of people listening to radio.
TV perhaps? Whilst it's true that more people watch TV than listen to radio, 54.
1 million viewers, 3.
5% extra of the population, it must be said that Commercial Radio stations reach 33.
3 million listeners and commercial TV stations actually reach only 37.
8 million viewers, making the difference much smaller.
That leaves the last and most un-statistically available Internet.
Whilst more and more of us use the internet and more and more adverts creep in (think of Google adverts in Gmail) it is hard to know just what advertising is out there so for the purpose of this article I won't even try and use it as an advertising media.
Ad avoidance It is true of modern times that we are now bombarded with adverts so often that we often avoid them without even realising it.
How many busses do you see daily, can you remember the adverts on them? Posters, TV, Radio, cinema, magazines, newspapers it's all an endless stream of "buy buy buy" that we have become desensitised too.
Years ago adverts were a welcome break in programming, a funny little clip that informed you of new exciting products.
Unfortunately those days are gone.
Ad avoidance is what is says, people actively avoiding adverts and it's big.
TV: 44% avoidance rates Newspapers: 68% avoidance Magazines: 61% avoidance Direct Mail: 52% avoidance Radio: 16% avoidance Cinema: 8% avoidance (Figures from initiative media and www.
rab.
co.
uk ) It's easy to see from these figures why Radio is such a great Medium to advertise in.
Only 16% of people listening to radio actively avoid the adverts whilst 44% of TV viewers change channel or switch off and a whopping 68% of newspaper readers simply turn the page.
It may be an overused saying in Radio advertising but quite simply "you can't close your ears!" Again, the internet is a place difficult to create statistics from but internet advertising has limitations.
The RAB 2005 Ad Avoidance Study showed that people avoid banners and pop-ups even more than they avoid junk mail.
This resistance is made worse by the fact that people don't like clicking on unfamiliar links.
In further articles I intend to discuss the fact that a well rounded marketing campaign will utilise all aspects of media but if budget is a factor, you could do much worse than advertise on radio.
If 10% of a given TV budget is re-deployed onto radio, the efficiency of the campaign in building awareness increases on average by 15% (millward brown sturdy into sales multipliers) making radio the real place to advertise.
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