How To Advertise: An Analysis of Contemporary Advertising (part 38)

Radio is also adaptable to moods. In the morning, people may want to hear the news, upbeat music, or interesting chatter, in the afternoon, they may want to unwind with classical or easy-listening music.

Who Uses Radio?

More national advertisers are discovering radio's reach and frequency potential. Certainly it has worked well for brands like Snapple. Snapple profited greatly from radio. Back when it was still a little company in Queens, New York, and strapped for money, Snapple Natural Beverages decided to use radio. It put its entire ad budget into a year-long schedule with a young, relatively unknown radio show host named Howard Stern. Snapple liked the way he delivered its spots as a live reader.

A few years later, Snapple began receiving letters and phone calls from people in the Midwest and West, where it did not even have distribution. It seems that nationally syndicated talk show host Rush Limbaugh, on a restricted-calorie diet, had been giving enthusiastic on-air endorsements for Snapple Diet Iced Tea. The firm moved quickly to sign him as a paid endorser. What it learned was the power of radio, especially when combined with a popular radio personality. This combination doubled Snapple's sales every year for five years, propelled it into national distribution, and turned it into a major national advertiser.

The Use of Radio in Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC)

While television tends to be a passive medium that people simply watch, radio actively involves people. They listen intently to their favorite personalities; they call in to make requests, participate in a contest, or contribute to a discussion; they use their ears and imaginations to fill in what they cannot see. Most people listen faithfully to two or three radio stations with different types of programming. This means that smart advertisers can use the medium to establish an immediate, intimate relationship with consumers and other stakeholders. That makes radio an ideal medium for integrated marketing communications.

With radio, national companies can tie in to a local market and target the specific demographic group they want to reach. Most important, radio enables advertisers to maintain strategic consistency and stretch their media dollars through imagery transfer. Research shows that when advertisers run a schedule on TV and then convert the audio portion to radio commercials, fully 75 percent of consumers replay the video in their minds when they hear the radio spot (2005). That extends the life and builds the impact of a TV campaign at greatly reduced cost. In an IMC campaign, where message consistency is a primary objective, this is a very important feature of radio.

Local retailers like the medium for the same reasons. Also, they can tailor it to their needs. It offers defined audiences; its recall characteristics are similar to TV's; and retailers can create an identity to do their own ads. Finally, since radio is so mobile, retailers can reach prospects just before they purchase. Hence, recent years have seen majoR spending increases by local grocery stores, car dealers, banks, and home-improvement, furniture, and apparel stores.

Radio Programming and Audiences

Radio stations plan their programming carefully to reach specific markets and to capture as many listeners as possible. The larger the audience, the more a station can charge for commercial time. Therefore, extensive planning and research go into radio programming and program changes.

Stations can use tried-and-true formats, subscribe to network or syndicated programming, or devise unique approaches. Programming choices are greatly influenced by whether a station is on the AM or FM band. FM has much better sound fidelity, fewer commercial interruptions, and more varied programming.

To counteract FM's inroads, many AM stations switched to programs that do not rely on sound quality, such as news, talk, and sports. Some stations are experimenting with all comedy, midday game shows with audience participation, or formats geared to specific regions. AM stations are also trying to win back music listeners by improving their sound quality and offering stereo broadcasting.

When buying radio time, advertisers usually buy the station's format, not its programs. Most stations adopt one of the dozen or so standard programming formats: contemporary hit radio (CHR-TOP 40), adult contemporary, country, rock, easy listening, news/talk, adult standards, classical, religious, and so on. Each format tends to appeal to specific demographic groups. The most popular format is country music, which is programmed, and appeals to a broad cross section of Americans from 25 to 54 years old.

Contemporary hit radio (CHR), always found on FM stations, appeals to teenagers and women under 30. It provides a constant flow of top 40 hits, usually with minimal intrusion by disc jockeys. Another popular format, adult contemporary (or "easy oldies"), is often advertised as "light rock, less talk." This format aims at the desirable target group of working women between 25 and 54. The news/talk, easy listening, and nostalgia formats tend to have high listenership among men and women over 35.

A major trend in radio today is the resurgence of radio networks, whixch offer services and programs that complement a station's local programming. Networks include the multiple "mini-networks" of ABC, CBS, Westwood One, and Unistar, and numerous syndicators offer programs from live rock concerts to public affairs discussions. As more stations carry these programs and more listeners tune in, national advertisers find them increasingly attractive.

*SOURCE: CONTEMPORARY ADVERTISING 11TH ED., 2008, WILLIAM F. ARENS, MICHAEL F. WEIGOLD, CHRISTIAN ARENS,PGS. 528-530*

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