Australians engaged with radio – CRA release new spots in radio brand campaign via Eardrum

Five new commercials highlighting the power of radio to connect with listeners will air nationally on all commercial radio stations from today.

The spots, created by Eardrum, Sydney, feature a key finding of a study by market research company, Neuro Insight, that Australians are 32 percent more engaged with the content on their favourite radio station when compared to other media content. [1]

Chief executive officer of Commercial Radio Australia, Joan Warner said the new ads emphasise radio’s very strong connection with listeners, based on the Neuro Insight research, which captured information about people’s level of engagement and long term memory when listening to various media: “The research also shows that our brains react in different ways depending on the radio format – so the effectiveness of radio ads will be maximised when the creative execution is aligned with the mood or style of program in which they appear,” Ms Warner said.

“Radio advertising is already very effective at getting the message across, particularly given radio can now be accessed in a variety of ways – on analogue radio, digital radio, via the web, on mobile phones, and via podcasts. The research outcomes and additional information on how to further enhance that effectiveness are very exciting.”

Says creative director of Eardrum, Ralph van Dijk, creator of the campaign: “The style of these ads makes our target audience feel as if they have stepped outside the ad break, to observe the behaviour of other listeners. Before they know it, they’re not only listening to the ‘more engagement, more effectiveness’ message, they’re experiencing it first hand.”

Ms Warner said other recent research by The Hoop Group also reinforces radio’s strength in connecting with listeners, showing that 82 percent of Australians respond to the content they hear on commercial radio.[2]

The Hoop Group research shows the three most frequent responses from people to something they hear on commercial radio are to: talk about it; visit the radio website and/or enter a competition. The Hoop Group research also shows that people pay the highest level of attention to radio while in their cars followed closely by at home.

The ads which are part of the successful, ongoing multi-million dollar commercial radio brand campaign will air until June.

The new campaign follows the most recent campaign launched mid 2010 which featured ads highlighting the fact that commercial radio can reach over 16 million Australians in an average week[3]. Previous ads in the ongoing campaign, first launched in June 2003, have also highlighted the effectiveness of combining radio advertising with television and with online.

[1] Neuro Insight study, 2010, “Engagement of Radio”. Other media content is a global figure devised by Neuro Insight as an average for all advertising and media content. Engagement, according to neuroscience, is a measure of ‘Personal Relevance’.

[3] Cume figs from Nielsen Radio Ratings five metro markets Survey 3, 2010 plus surveys 1, 2010 of Newcastle, Gold Coast, Canberra and survey 1, 2009, Wollongong , all people, age 10+