FMCG Brands Drive Growth In Commercial Radio Revenue

This sixth consecutive quarter of growth has been driven by FMCG brands, which have increased their spend on radio by over 9% year on year. Procter & Gamble, led the way in the twelve months to June, with an extra 72% investment in radio commercials promoting brands such as Oil of Olay, Max Factor and Pampers.

Rival household goods manufacturer, Lever Faberge, which owns the Domestos and Persil brands, also significantly increased its spend on radio advertising, as did Kimberly Clark, which produces Andrex and Huggies.

According to the RAB, this extra investment helped commercial radio to see revenue top £574 million in the twelve month period to June 2003, an increase of 3.4% on the same period the previous year.

Oliver Cleaver, European media director for Kimberly Clark, said: “Radio is a Swiss army knife kind of medium – there are quite a few jobs it can do. For example, we use it for one brand simply to have a conversation with our users; for another brand we have a more aggressive and short-term radio strategy to communicate offers linked to retailers; for a third brand we have a year-round radio sponsorship. I think this indicates the versatility of the medium across a range of very different communication tasks.”

Michael O’Brien, the RAB’s director of marketing operations, added: “Commercial radio continues its steady growth during challenging times for the advertising industry. The influx into radio by FMCG advertisers, who are traditionally big TV spenders, is a great endorsement of radio’s ability to drive sales.”

The latest RAJAR listening figures for the three months to June brought good news to national commercial radio, which saw its weekly reach 6.2% year on year to 11.6 million, up from just under 11 million in the same period the previous year.