Radio listening figures might be in good shape, but it seems radio has its work cut out with proving its long-term effectiveness to brands.
Speaking at a Radiocentre event on Wednesday, the industry body’s planning director Mark Barber said radio is in “catch 22 territory” with advertisers as the industry becomes too focused on short-term metrics.
“We have become too short-termist as an industry,” Barber said.
“Not many advertisers use audio advertising primarily as a brand-building tool…so it’s difficult for us to demonstrate how radio builds brands, which means people aren’t confident about using it in that way.”
According to new research from Radiocentre, radio is 20% more cost effective at building brands than audio visual, while overall campaign ROI is optimised 8% higher, on average, when radio is allocated a 20% share of the total budget.
Barber called on brands to reconsider allocating so much of their budgets to short-term, “activation” media, such as online, and instead think about how to build longer term brand salience.
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“If you’re planning on taking a longer term, brand-led strategy to growth, then perhaps the best approach would be to reallocate budgets from your short-term activation media to allow you to add radio on top of your existing television activity to really boost brand growth,” he said.
Barber’s comments come during the IPA’s Effectiveness Week, which on Monday saw Les Binet and Peter Field unveil the first part of their new study for the IPA, ‘Marketing in the digital age’.
Field described short-termism as “a mother of a problem” – and said it was taking its toll on both marketing effectiveness and budgets.
