Author: Annette Malave, SVP/Insights, RAB
After a tumultuous year, consumer confidence and optimism are slowly on the rise. According to the Consumer Confidence Index®, these improved in February after an increase in January. While confidence is increasing, what about the issue of trust?
Author: Annette Malave, SVP/Insights, RAB
If you are reading this, chances are either you, or someone you know, learned a new skill or used a new tool in 2020. According to a CRAFTSMAN Built@Home Survey, 78% of adults sharpened their home improvement skills. They also learned how to use various power tools, like drills, sanders and even table saws. Meet the new DIYer.
Author: Tammy Greenberg, SVP/Business Development, RAB
IAB published survey results at the end of 2020 indicating that 64% of media buyers said they will focus on digital performance marketing in 2021 with the ability to evaluate plans and results more frequently.
With significant advancements in the attribution space, radio has been able to prove unequivocally that it is one of the most effective media in driving online behavior among all target audience groups.
Author: Annette Malave, SVP/Insights, RAB
Like many other tasks, events and obligations impacted by the pandemic, many consumers delayed their healthcare visits throughout 2020. According to the NRC Health 2021 Healthcare Consumer Trends Report, people delaying their healthcare was approaching a five-year low. In Q1 2020, 22.4% of healthcare patients had deferred. That figure increased significantly to 40.4% by Q2 2020. Forty percent of patients who delayed their care, state COVID-19 as the reason.
Contributor: Jimshade Chaudhari, SVP Product, Marketron
Every year, the RAB-Borrell Digital Benchmark report catalogues the health of digital marketing in the U.S. radio industry. Every year, the results are interesting ̶ but none, I would venture, can compete with 2020.
Author: Annette Malave, SVP/Insights, RAB
At the onset of the pandemic in 2020, nonessential workers limited their vehicle use – other than for trips to the supermarket or leisurely drives. As lockdowns lifted, drivers hit the road again as businesses reopened and companies developed hybrid work-from-home and office schedules. In a report issued by INRIX, a location-based data and analytics firm that tracks traffic and parking, the vehicle-miles traveled may have had dropped initially but speeds increased. Based on this same report, collision rates began to climb back up to pre-COVID-19 levels between August and October.
Recognizing the shift in consumer behavior, the insurance industry responded by offering their customers discounts or rebates. However, those consumers who had once not owned or leased a vehicle, were now beginning to view vehicle ownership as a form of personal protective equipment. All these shifts created another behavior – search for auto insurance.
While radio reaches 88% adults who use any auto insurance provider, radio’s reach is even higher among adults, Blacks/African Americans and Hispanics who are planning to switch their auto insurance provider – 90%, 94% and 93%, respectively.*
Author: Annette Malave, SVP/Insights, RAB
Next week we will celebrate Black History Month – an event that celebrates and recognizes the impact that Blacks/African Americans have had on our history. According to ASALH, the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, the theme for 2021 is The Black Family: Representation, Identity, and Diversity.
Author: Annette Malave, SVP/Insights, RAB
In just a little over a month, people will be celebrating Valentine’s Day. While it is often thought of as a day only for couples, that is not the case. Valentine’s Day is also thought of as a day when people share and display their affection with gifts.
Author: Tammy Greenberg, SVP/Business Development, RAB
It has been well-documented that consumers, now more than ever, care deeply about how brands are addressing social and environmental issues. According to the 2020 Porter Novelli Executive Purpose Study, 89% of business leaders believe companies that lead with purpose have a competitive advantage in today’s marketplace. In fact, 85% agree being a purpose-driven company drives profit. The bottom line is that in increasingly competitive markets, in just about every category of business, a brand’s contribution to society becomes the decisive point of difference for consumers.
Continue reading “Purpose in Action with Radio Drives Business and Positive Change”
Author: Annette Malave, SVP/Insights, RAB
The Radio Advertising Bureau (RAB) fields questions daily regarding research, best practices, promotional ideas, and more. One of the most frequently asked questions is, “How many ads should I run per week?” The answer always starts with, “That depends. What is your goal?”
The role of advertising is to increase the chance that people will choose your brand by making the brand easy to think of and easy to buy. Yet determining the amount of activity needed to reach consumers is anything but easy.
CUMULUS MEDIA | Westwood One and the Radio Advertising Bureau partnered to determine and set guidelines based on four campaign goals that range from 34% reach to a 78% reach of a station’s audience.
Author: Annette Malave, SVP/Insights, RAB
As holiday shopping goes into full swing, electronics will be one of the top items purchased this year. As many households continue to work from their remote locations, smart speakers are sure to be on many holiday shopping lists. As of this past June, NPD Group stated that nearly 30% of U.S. households were using smart speakers.
Author: Annette Malave, SVP/Insights, RAB
Without a doubt, 2020 has been a most unusual year, and the need for good tidings and holiday cheer have never been apparent than now. Shopping this season will be a way that consumers will turn their focus from current events and concerns to celebrating the holidays and a hopeful return to the routines that they all miss.
According to the National Retail Federation’s Annual 2020 Holiday Survey, this year, consumers will spend $650 in gifts, $230 in nonholiday items, such as decorations, and $117 in other nongift purchases – each nearly flat to 2019 amounts.
Continue reading “Listeners Will Make Registers Ring This Holiday Season”
Contributor: Rick Kestenbaum, General Manager, AnalyticOwl
As the old saying goes, “If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.” This is especially true in radio selling and buying, where a reliance on expensive ratings data and audience demos leads to buys made on the description of an audience rather than the actions of an audience. Contrast this with digital selling, where plans are made based on historical response and ROI. It’s clear which gets an advertiser off to a better start and which leads to greater satisfaction. Now, thanks to the rise of response data, radio can be sold and bought on the same game-changing premise.
Continue reading “Response Data is Rewriting the Way Radio is Sold and Bought”
Contributor: Todd Kalman, Senior Vice President of Sales, Marketron
In the past, we’ve written about the merits of digital vs. traditional radio advertising tactics and how they can complement each other to accelerate revenues. But let’s be honest: it really doesn’t matter how the message gets into the marketplace. What matters is that the target consumer – the people with the power to make the cash register ring – will hear or see the message and act.
Advertising is a complex business, but it really boils down to two key objectives: getting people to do something or getting people to believe something. Engendering belief gets into the realm of pure branding campaigns, which can be cost-prohibitive and might not be practical for many local businesses. Therefore, our focus here is on ads with a specific call to action.
(Side note: Enough call-to-action advertising, done right and yielding solid results, might reinforce a brand by solidifying consumers’ beliefs about the company.)
It’s all about the key marketing objective.
Fleshing out the ultimate objective of the campaign is the critical starting point, and it’s a joint effort that leverages both the expertise of the radio sales rep and the first-hand business understanding of the marketer or business owner.
Take the example of a store that specializes in baby and children’s products. The shop is looking to boost sales and earn manufacturer’s incentives for its line of youth beds and mattresses. Working together, the sales rep and the store owner create a key marketing objective: How might we get a minimum of 30 high income ($75K+/yr) single parents/couples (A25-35), with children who are outgrowing their cribs, to purchase a youth bed during the month of October? An important element here is a key performance indicator (KPI); in other words, the target sales metric. The KPI is the magic number that will make everyone throw the proverbial party in honor of a successful campaign. In this example, the KPI for this shop is to sell 30 additional mattresses in October.
The Right Mix of Tactics
With the key marketing objective in place, the next step is to identify the mix of tactics that will hit that KPI. As we’ve said, the goal is to get consumers to act. You can walk down Main Street wearing a sandwich board, and if that’s what it takes to sell 30 additional mattresses, the campaign is a success. But a sandwich board probably won’t work for a business that caters to a narrower group of customers, such as an upscale baby products store.
By its very nature, radio casts a very wide net (hence the term “broadcast”). Chances are good that target consumers defined by the key marketing objective — higher-income parents 25 to 35 years old with children who are outgrowing their cribs — will be listening as they commute to and from work. These parents might represent a small fraction of the total drive-time audience, but since you’ve carefully narrowed down the key marketing objective, getting even a subset of very interested listeners to act might be all that’s needed to hit that magic number of 30 additional mattress sales during the month of October.
Integrating some digital advertising can supercharge the broadcast campaign and ensure that that subset will make the trip into the shop or make an online purchase. With digital, likely buyers can be targeted very specifically based on factors such as shopping history, web browsing history, location, age and gender. Maybe those target customers are now at work and sitting at their desks, browsing the internet as they have their first cup of coffee. If they already heard about the sale while driving in their cars, a digital display ad or pop-up video might be all it takes for them to click through to the store’s website and make an online purchase.
An Evolving Strategy
With any ongoing campaign, it’s important to revisit the key marketing objective regularly and recalibrate it as needed to fit season changes and other market factors. A bicycle shop marketing to bike commuters, for instance, could shift to promoting fat-tire bikes as fall turns into winter and the snow starts to fall. Did the initial campaign month deliver the promised results? If not, maybe it’s time to refresh the copy and fine-tune the messaging or revisit the original sales goal.
This ongoing, strategic management of the campaign is why it’s so important for advertisers to be strongly allied with their sales reps. In fact, radio sales professionals are some of the best-trained media consultants out there, and they’re well-versed in campaigns that successfully leverage both traditional and digital tactics. Plus, sales reps have the vantage point of the station’s unique position in the community and long, proven track record of success for their customers.
Contributor: Pierre Bouvard, Chief Insights Officer, CUMULUS MEDIA/Cumulus Radio Station Group/Westwood One
People across the country are ready to go and are already on the road. According to the Dallas Federal Reserve, 69% of U.S. workers commuted to work daily or somedays in September – up from a low of 55% in May.
As the number of people working remotely declines, American’s are resuming their commute to work or to school and radio is joining them on their drive.
Author: Annette Malave, SVP/Insights, RAB
Engagement. Local. Heart. Soul. Creativity. Partnerships. Those were words that resonated across the various sessions and events that took place during Radio Week.
From Oct. 5 – 9, CEOs, managers, sellers, radio personalities and some the brightest creative directors participated in two of radio’s biggest events – Radio Show and the Radio Mercury Awards.
Contributor: Todd Kalman, Senior Vice President of Sales, Marketron
There really is no better medium than radio for connecting advertisers to the target consumers they seek. Across the U.S., you’ll find radio stations that have been fixtures in their communities for many, many decades, with a long and proven track record of highly successful results for their advertisers. The COVID-19 pandemic has only strengthened listeners’ connections to their favorite stations. In fact, studies show that people are tuning in more in their cars and homes and streaming more via their devices. In uncertain times like these, radio is a lifeline to information and a morale booster for people who are cut off from their usual social outlets.
Continue reading “The Power of Integrating Radio and Digital Advertising”
Author: Annette Malave, SVP/Insights, RAB
Radio. According to Merriam-Webster, radio is “the wireless transmission and reception of electric impulses or signals by means of electromagnetic waves.” At the Radio Advertising Bureau, these are just some of the words we use to define and describe radio: mass, personal, engaging, live, local, interactive, informative, entertaining. And yes, there are many more that can be used as we celebrate radio.
Author: Annette Malave, SVP/Insights, RAB
It’s August! Did you know that August is considered National Back-to-School Month? It’s the time when parents of school-aged children are in the deep throes of clothing, shoes and school-supply shopping. This year will be no different from any other.
Author: Rita Landells, Member Response Manager, RAB
If the holidays represent the most wonderful time of the year, it would be no surprise that consumers are already thinking ahead to the holidays and fantasizing about a more optimistic time. According to a recent Voxware study, 51% of consumers expect to begin their holiday shopping earlier than usual this year. Another study done by Radial found that 39% of shoppers plan to begin shopping for the holidays in October.