Why Should a Business Advertise on Radio?

The Radio Industry’s Outline of the Benefits of Radio Advertising

© Dan Mccurdy

May 26, 2009

Radio is just another media, and although this is a phrase the various marketing bodies of radio worldwide will seldom use, listeners consume radio exactly the same way they consume all the other media available to them; when they want to, when it suits them, and the minute they want to do something else, that’s exactly what they do.

Radio as a Media of Choice

Radio is just one of many available ways a business can get in touch with its current and potential customers in today’s modern mass communication world. The competing advertising media a company can consider using to advertise its product or service today include:

• Television
• Newspapers and Magazines
• Direct Mail
• Outdoor and Signage
• Cinema
• The Internet

So where is the place of radio in the above list and which combination of these competing means of mass communication should a company choose to both attract new customers and help retain existing customers? How can the successful business decide which medium or combination of media to choose, and what briefly is radio industry’s case for including radio in this decision?

Radio as an Advertising Media

The UK’s radio industry marketing body, the Radio Advertising Bureau (the RAB) cites a number of reasons to use their member’s medium for some of the following reasons, and states radio advertising is:

1. Efficient: by effective targeting of listeners demographically and / or geographically.
2. Relevant: it reaches listeners when and where the message is relevant to them.
3. Unavoidable: with low ad avoidance because the RAB suggests you can’t close your ears.
4. On-line responsive: by joint promotion linking to a company’s website.
5. A Friend: listeners listen habitually and use radio emotionally at certain times when they need it.

Radio listeners become attached to the presence of their radio output, in their car, at work and now through their mobile phones or on the internet increasing the person’s dependency. Radio the industry also suggests may be the closest medium to word of mouth. They also quote research from Initiative Media on ad-avoidance demonstrating that radio is ranked second lowest of all media after cinema.

Radio in Modern Life

Similarly, Canada’s Radio Marketing Bureau (the RMB) suggests a number of answers to the question Why Radio? and outlines a number of reasons why a business should advertise on radio, among them:

1. Radio’s place (a perfect fit it suggests) in the modern world.
2. Listeners’ habits make it a daily presence in their life
3. A unique environment that makes ad avoidance almost impossible
4. Sound and the spoken word alone can be more engaging and powerful
5. Targeting efficiently both the right consumer groups, at the right time.

There is a great deal of information available on the strengths (and some on the weaknesses) of the medium of radio worldwide, and a cursory look should reveal the basic essential facts from the industry a potential user of the media should consider. Over the years many companies have listened to the arguments and gone on to build and continue to build their brand by advertising on radio. The radio industry will no doubt continue to put its case to such companies.

Radio Tuning Dial

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