Radiocentre Ireland's webinar focussed on the sonic boom radio is enjoying and how it can be leveraged to deliver business growth.

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Andrea Gilligan, presenter of Lunchtime Live on Newstalk talked with Pat McDonagh, Founder and CEO of Supermac's and asked him why he continues to invest in marketing and advertising, even when the economic environment is challenging. Pat explained that marketing and advertising is critical to the success of Supermac's. He added that he divides his advertising spend into maintenance and activation - maintenance is about having a consistent presence and keeping the Supermac's brand top of mind for consumers. Activation spend drives consumer action around specific news such as new store location and openings, new menu additions, events and promotions. Andrea asked Pat how does he measure the effectiveness of his advertising spend and he responded by saying the strength of his advertising is measured through footfall in store.

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Ciarán Cunningham, CEO Radiocentre Ireland presented on the strength of audio and how it can play a critical part in businesses success. His presentation focussed on 4 key areas:

There is a wealth of evidence that shows if brands continue to invest during a challenging economic environment, they will gain market share on their competitors.

Brands grow through increasing their physical availability and their mental availability. Physical availability is about how easy it is for potential customers to find and buy your brand. Mental availability is the propensity for a potential buyer to notice, recognise and think of your brand in a buying situation. A lot of digital activity is focussed on physical availability (search isn't advertising at all, it is about physical availability) while radio is hugely important at delivering mental availability for a brand while also reminding consumers of a brand's physical availability through communicating store locations, store openings, website name etc,

Audio is continuing to grow as the increase in smartphone and smart speaker penetration means consumers can consume audio content anytime, anywhere. Also, audio serves 7 need states for consumers and live radio, streaming and podcasts play complimentary roles.

Advertisers should leverage the innate power of audio. Advertisers have an overreliance on visual elements and often neglect the aural senses. While the eye might be the input that people rely on most, it may not be the most potent one to kick start memories, provide salience or generate distinctiveness. Hearing is the first sense humans develop; we experience sounds right from our time in the womb which makes it hugely powerful.

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Simon Forster, Creative Director, Global Entertainment and Media spoke about how effective creative is always about what the listener wants to hear, not what the advertiser wants to say. Effective audio creative needs to stop interrupting what people are interested in and instead, become what people are interested in. Audio creative is visual, it paints a picture in the mind and less is always more. Simon also mentioned that it is critical for brands to have audio brand guidelines as well as visual  guidelines. Brands should always use a consistent brand sound across all channels and that a voice over is your brand personified, He also spoke about the unique nature of audio advertising in that it can be heard as intended while people are doing other things and ads that are creatively tailored to the context in which the ad is heard are highly effective eg a cooking brand head when people are cooking.

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