Radio delivers significant uplift in effectiveness outcomes
Tara Wilkinson, Radiocentre UK presented a unique meta-analysis of the world’s biggest radio advertising effectiveness dataset, built on a long running database by Radiocentre UK.
The dataset contains more than 1000 campaigns,463 brands,14 sectors with a total of 800.600 datapoints. The objective of the study was to provide an overview of the headline effectiveness outcomes advertisers have achieved from radio over the past 14 years.
The results of the study demonstrates the effectiveness and efficiency with which radio can both create future demand and convert existing demand. The research showed that radio generates significant uplift in advertising awareness (49.5%) for listeners of campaigns compared to a match sample of non-listeners. That means there was a 49.5% uplift in listeners responding “yes” to the question “Have you heard or seen advertising for this brand recently?” for listeners exposed to the radio campaigns compared with listeners who were not exposed (based on 841 campaigns).
Tara explained that there is wide acceptance of the ability of radio to reach a wide audience to drive awareness. But how does radio perform against some of the more challenging emotional metrics? For brand relevance, respondents had to strongly agree with the statement “This brand is for people like me”. There was an uplift of 24% for people exposed to the radio campaigns compared to people who were not exposed to the campaigns (819 campaigns). This reflects how radio listeners often perceive themselves to be part of a wider audience community consisting of other people who are essentially just like them.
uplift in advertising awareness for exposed to radio campaigns v non exposed
uplift in brand trust for exposed v non exposed
uplift in brand consideration for exposed v non exposed
The fact that audiences often feel part of a wider community is one of the reasons listeners place a high level of trust in what they hear. And we can clearly see the benefit of this trusted relationship for advertisers in the data which shows an uplift rate for of 31.6% for people exposed to the campaigns agreeing with the statement “This is a brand I trust” compared to people not exposed to the campaigns.
Tara also looked at what the data said about converting existing demand, driving brand consideration for those in the market to buy now. People exposed to the radio campaigns were 18% more likely than people who were not exposed to highly consider buying the advertised brands. This shows radio’s ability to drive brand awareness, brand relevance and brand trust also translates into an uplift in purchase consideration.
The data did show up differences between individual campaigns and the analysis was able to isolate factors that drove strong positive results, From a creative perspective, the best performing campaigns placed an emphasis on consistency, such as an established creative route, an established sonic brand device and actors and music linked to the television campaign. From a media planning perspective, campaigns that focused on building reach delivered stronger effects.
