Unlocking the audio advantage at Tuning In

Partner content

At this year’s event, the industry will gain insight into how audio advertising delivers the three Rs: resonance, reach and results.

Radiocentre’s annual flagship conference, Tuning In, is just under two weeks away. This year, we return to London’s Picturehouse Central on 17 September to give advertisers and our members an opportunity to immerse themselves for a morning in all things radio and audio.

The audio advantage

This year’s theme is “Unlocking the audio advantage” and, as we approach the date, it feels like a good time to give you a snapshot of the agenda and explain a little about what we mean by “advantage”.

Every medium has its own strong points and, between us all, we offer advertisers many ways to reach consumers. But, actually, over recent years, there is a strong case emerging that shows, in a world where advertisers increasingly face issues relating to audience fragmentation, trust and brand safety, radio and audio deliver distinct advantages over and above other media.

This can be summarised neatly as audio advertising’s ability to deliver resonance, reach and results.

Resonance

Audio fulfils a wide spectrum of important emotional needs, providing a trusted and safe environment for brands to build relevant and resonant emotional connections with listeners.

It accompanies listeners as they go about their daily lives, mainly in private spaces with content or genres they select personally. This intimate and habitual nature of listening, coupled with high levels of curation across most radio and audio editorial (and advertising), means audio content tends to be more trusted than other media.

The unique nature of audio consumption also provides advertisers with opportunities to engage mass audiences on an emotional level at relevant moments and boost advertising performance (alongside radio’s proven capability to target audiences demographically and geographically).

This is why in Re-evaluating Media, Ebiquity analysis placed radio top of the list as the most flexible medium in terms of targeting.

AI and the use of synthetic data can be used to cement digital audio’s targeting advantage, giving brands more precise ways to connect with audiences. Flora Williams, MG OMD’s head of planning, will talk through some of the innovations and opportunities that AI is opening up in the world of audio and radio media planning.

Reach

According to Rajar Midas, commercial audio listening (total hours) has grown by 16% across the last five years and is projected to continue growing into the foreseeable future.

Many people know (although it often amazes me how many don’t) that commercial radio is the dominant form of commercial audio and listening has grown consistently despite the demand on people’s time from other audio sources.

The latest Rajar results revealed that commercial radio has hit new highs, with more than 40m weekly listeners. In fact, 76% of UK adults tune in to some form of commercial audio every week (spring 2024) and that is because not only is radio free and easily accessible across a range of devices, but it also offers a wide variety of choice to listeners that keeps them coming back for more.

From the Capital Breakfast team to Spandau Ballet’s Martin Kemp, a presenter on Greatest Hits Radio to some of our smaller members from around the UK, Tuning In will be a chance for advertisers to get up close to some of the UK’s best radio talent.

Our talent sessions will showcase the very best in audio content, featuring famous names and the brands they work with, demonstrating how advertisers have successfully used commercial radio to reach audiences they may struggle to get cut-through with elsewhere.

Results

Based on publicly available evidence, radio is second only to TV as the most effective medium for building brands (source: Re-evaluating Media — Ebiquity).

Campaigns that use audio (radio) grow market share four times faster than those that don’t (source: Audio Now — Les Binet/IPA), so the conference should be an opportunity to hear advertisers’ perspective on radio and we have some exciting brands taking to the stage.

Fresh from winning the UK’s first Radio Grand Prix at the Cannes Lions, Rob Fox, marketing strategist at Specsavers, will give the inside story of the brand’s campaigns and why (perhaps surprisingly) audio is such an important medium to reach those who may be struggling with their hearing.

As radio offers so much more than beyond the spot, we’ll also hear from Vodafone’s Voxi, which has managed to strengthen its brand among younger audiences with a year-round partnership with Kiss, encompassing radio, live events and social activations.

Tuning In has more in store than I have been able to share here, but prepare for a fast-paced and exciting morning with plenty of opportunities to network.

Join us by signing up here.

Lucy Barrett is client director at Radiocentre