Any company or brand looking to promote a product or service in 2010 is faced with a potentially bewildering array of media to reach their present and potential customers. Just a few of the modern mediums open to advertising messages include:
- Television
- Press
- Posters
- Direct Mail
- Internet
- Cinema
- and Radio.
Each media has its own inherent strengths and weaknesses. Last in the above list but by no means least as a potentially successful and powerful advertising vehicle, is radio.
The Initial Strengths of Radio as an Advertising Medium
The Radio Advertising Bureaus for their industries on both sides of the Atlantic, in the USA and in the UK, and their respective counterparts worldwide, focus on the following list of benefits to an advertiser that includes radio in its marketing mix. Their own marketing push on behalf of the medium and the industry both internally within the industry and externally to the advertising community has grown increasingly sophisticated over the years. Not so long ago, their main message on strengths of the media would concentrate on:
- Immediacy, as a medium it can react quickly.
- Cost effectiveness
- Reaching the right people, clearly targeted
- At the right time, often just before the point of purchase.
- As a portable media it reaches listeners at the right place
- Radio has low ad avoidance, research has shown, joint lowest with cinema
- It’s perceived as a friend
The radio industry worldwide, in common with most media, has spent a considerable amount of money in research to support its case for the advertising dollar, and over the years the emphasis and the marketing of radio has perhaps necessarily changed.
The Case Presented for Radio Advertising in the UK
In addition to many of the reasons cited above and from out with the scope of this article, currently in the UK the Radio Advertising Bureau outlines seven reasons for using radio, under the banner:”7 great reasons for you to make radio your medium of choice.” Similar to those reasons first promoted above in earlier years, these reasons they currently suggest are:
- Radio offers more efficient targeting
- Radio reaches people at relevant times and places
- Radio reaches out in ad avoidance world
- Radio has a multiplier effect on other media
- Radio creates a large share of mind for a brand
- Radio drives response especially on-line
- Radio is a friend.
The two lists may seem similar, but note the industry through its research is able to put cases for suggesting both a “Multiplier Effect,” and also the relatively new strength, of radio’s close link to on-line response, being able to promote easy to remember URL’s, equal to any other medium. This was not the case with addresses and telephone numbers.
The Case Presented for Radio Advertising in the USA
The Radio Advertising Bureau in the US, on the other hand whilst doing the same job on behalf of the industry and to its users, as the RAB in the UK does, takes a slightly different approach. In a guide for advertisers in an article titled:”Radio’s role in today’s media landscape,” the American marketing body suggests for an industry currently broadcasting:” via nearly 11,000 on-air stations, 7,000 streaming stations and more than 1,800 digital stations.” the following strengths of the medium and reasons to advertise:
- Radio remains relevant today, providing the entertainment people need (even) according to “their demography, geography, ethnography etc.”
- Radio is ubiquitous
- Radio’s core strength is the “power of words and sound,”
- Radio is resilient
In amongst case studies, radio facts, a marketing guide for advertisers and a promotional statement titled:”Radio Heard Here,” featured heavily on its website, the US RAB, is keen to outline radio’s place in amongst new technology, and its relevance to new consumers.
Why Use Radio?
There is one overriding factor for every advertiser, whether it’s a local company with one branch and small turnover, or a multinational corporation using several groups of radio stations in various countries, the ultimate test of any media and the reason they will try and continue use that media or not to carry their advertising message, is that it works for them and helps to achieve their marketing aims. How they measure the effectiveness of radio as a medium, and the case for whether it works or not depends on the stated objectives before and after the campaign.
As an advertising vehicle, radio with its long history no doubt works. How good or bad is an altogether separate question.
Dan McCurdy - Dan McCurdy is a freelance writer producer creative and lecturer. Dan is one of the UK's most experienced radio writers and producers. ...
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