Camii Whidborne

Radio uses Facebook as a mean to increase engagement, i.e. conversation between stations and between their personalities and listeners. However, Facebook isn’t all sunshine and unicorns for radio, it is stealing your advertisers at a pace that can only be increasing.

Facebook pulls in a lot of money; from 2015 to 2016, Facebook advertisers grew by 50% (Forbes). In 2016, $66 billion was devoted to digital advertising in the U.S. and 15% of this went to Facebook.

Facebook provides targeted advertising tools to businesses and can generate strong growth in the key metrics. Now, Facebook are only making their platform better for advertisers with top new features.

1. Audio Auto-Play

   Audio is critical to driving an emotional reaction to an advertisement. With Facebook making videos autoplay audio as soon as a user scrolls past a video, adverts will be more tempting to watch. Audio auto-play should increase engagement, driving more advertising revenue and also attracting more advertisers.

2. MMM (Marketing Mix Modelling) Tool

   Facebook has launched a new method for marketers to compare how their ads perform across digital, TV, and print. MMM will let measurement partners gather information directly from Facebook, Instagram and Facebook’s audience network on behalf of their clients for cross-channel measurement and planning.

3. Vertical video viewing 

   According to Facebook, vertical video ads drive an incremental increase in brand lift, including a three to nine point increase in ad recall.

These features will do nothing but attract more and more advertising budgets to be spent on Facebook. According to media analyst Gordon Borrell, money from weaker media, will slide over to the social media platform. Who will be losing out? Most likely print and radio. With Facebook taking on board the impact of radio and acting upon it (Facebook Live Audio!) advertisers will be drift more towards Facebook, who can not only deliver audio messages but also images, videos and texts, not to mention how easy it is to share and engage with campaigns on Facebook.

So what can radio do to compete with Facebook? Radio’s strength is that it is local and usually knows its audience very well. But location, on its own, is no longer a sufficient advantage. Facebook offers targeting by location as well.

Radio should play up to its other strength; its ability to emotionally connect with its audience. Convert that emotional connection to online engagement and complement the on-air reach with online reach (learn more).

Armed with better online reach to listeners, Radio can enable its advertisers to not only advertise on air but also include visuals when advertising to online listeners. Furthermore, brands should be able to advertise on radio station websites as well as target their ads depending on the likes/dislikes, location, gender etc of their audience.

Emotional radio advertising strategically influences the audience’s feelings to influence their decision making. According to Psychology Today, people rely on emotions over information when making brand decisions.

A lot of emotional ads reach a resolution or a Call-To-Action to get the listener to help fix the problem.

The most effective radio ads typically evokes emotion. If you can make your listener happy, sad, angry or afraid, then you are doing something right.

Anger

Evoking anger in listeners is a way to wake people up and encourage them to take action. Hearing another person getting treated unjustly sparks anger in most of us. This anger can cause us, as listeners, to reconsider our perspective and try to do something to solve this injustice, or at least help solve it.

Four years ago, ISPCC, the Irish Society of Prevention of Cruelty to Children launched the ‘Children believe what they are told campaign’ to raise awareness of the damaging effects of emotional abuse.

This campaign speaks from the perspective of a young girl who encompasses what many children go through. The words spoken reflect the words that are used towards them and instantly angers the audience; who hate whoever is abusing this little girl.

The advert starts in a very unexpected way to grab the listener’s attention. Children are portrayed as very innocent and the words “I’m a stupid little bitch” coming out from a child instantly shocks the audience.

Happiness

Brands that want to be associated with happy customers usually take the positivity approach in advertising. A study found that people shares positive posts more than negative ones. Brands might use upbeat music, comedy or stories of people connecting to portray this feeling.

The Hiscox ‘Perseverance’ ad, which won September 2015’s Aerial Award, parodies Major-General’s Song. The lyrics are about the value of not giving up when owning your own business and are accompanied by the piano playing the tune of the Major-General’s Song from Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates Of Penzance.

The humourous, upbeat song instantly evokes happiness and makes the listener relate the Hiscox brand to happy, smiling customers.

Fear/Surprise

Fear is a natural instinct which helps us to react appropriately to threats; increasing our chance of survival. It creates urgency and prompts us to take action.

A lot of radio ads that aim to prevent things like drunk driving, global warming and smoking aim to evoke fear.

This approach can be risky as people can find ads like these disturbing and depressing.

A perfect example of a scare-vertisement Fire Kills’ campaign “When you change your clock, test your smoke alarm”. The advert aims to prevent accidental fires in the home.

The shocking element in this ad is the change of direction that the message goes in. When I first heard this ad, I assumed it was a reminder to change my clocks until the voice-over says “All except for 246 people, they won’t be doing it this year because time has stopped for them.”

The advert aims to make the listener think that they could be a part of next year’s 246 people who die in a house fire, prompting them to take action.

Sadness

Lately, more and more brands are recognising the effectiveness and popularity of moving ads.

DriveSafe’s December 2016 radio advert shows the potential consequences of drink driving. Mother Elaine Gordon, whose son died in a car crash after accepting a lift from a drunk driver, described the events surrounding James’ death.

To hear a mother talking about a personal experience in losing a child makes it very real. The sadness makes the advert all that memorable so that listeners will remember this message when they consider going behind the wheel when they are over the drink drive limit.

The thing that bothers me the most when it comes to radio commercial is that advertisers seem to want their listeners to know they are listening to a commercial. For some reason, advertisers seem to think that a commercial is only good if it sounds exactly like all the others.

We, as an audience, have learnt over the course of our life to block out advertisements. We tune out as soon as we hear something that remotely sounds like an advert.

The main problem is that most advertisers are afraid to do it wrong. Their adverts can’t be daring or different, so they just settle for invisible.

We have all heard thousands of radio ads. We all know what a typical radio ad sounds like. The key is to avoid sounding like a typical radio advert.

Below are a few (of many) cliches used in radio adverts that should be avoided at all costs.

1. Long addresses, websites or complex phone numbers

Your audience are often listening to the radio whilst doing something else; be it driving, working, cooking or cleaning. Throwing in your complex phone number or lengthy URL in a Call-To-Action will make your listener’s attention wander. Don’t waste any of the valuable time that your advert could use to actually connect with your listener.

If you do have a simple website URL (eg. www.brandname.com) then feel free to mention it. However, if your URL is mega complex and hard to remember (www.your-brand-name-and-where-itz-based.biz) then do not bother mentioning it.

We are in a digital age so all you have to do is tell your audience to Google you. From there, they can find everything they need to know about you; including your phone number and lengthy web address. Of course, that does mean you have to make sure your website is discoverable when people search for you, but that will be worth the effort.

If your advert entices and interests your audience enough they will find the small details on their own.

2. Too much dialogue

Cramming loads of words in a short amount of time will not work. The unnatural pace will distract and put the listener off. Plus, how are they going to remember all that information?

Find one selling point and stick to it. Take the most interesting point about your business and talk about that. If you interest your audience enough, they will then research you and find out everything else.

Repetition is important. It is said that an ad has to be heard seven times before it is acted upon. So, keeping that consistent message is key.

3. List of price point

Nothing screams ‘commercial’ more than an  advert that says “On sale for £25.99 for a limited time only”.

Hammering price points into your listener’s head will not make your campaign work, trust me on this one. One good price point is enough. The more price points you include, the less effective they become.

You want to make a personal connection with your listener so do not waste precious message time by including these. Instead, build a story or tell a joke around a single price point.

4. Any cheesy sound effect

They are annoying and cringey. It’s 2017, leave the whooshes, boings and laser sounds where they belong, in the 1980’s. Enough said.

5. Scripted product reviews

We have all heard cheesy adverts like these and we all know they are fake;

“Hey Joe, how are you doing?”

“Great! Thanks to Zap Detergent, my brand new dishwasher detergent, my dishes are cleaner than ever!”

“Are you talking about the revolutionary Zap Detergent that is powerful enough to remove coffee stains and prevents cloudy film for crystal clear dishes?”

Have you ever had a conversation with a friend that goes like that? I didn’t think so. And you never will. Adverts like these do not sound authentic and will instantly make your listener tune out.

If you do have a conversation in your ad, make sure it sounds like real people having a chat i.e. do not make them deliver information – people don’t do that.

6. Customer Service

No one is going to visit you solely based on the reason your customer service is up to scratch. Your customer service is what you prove when a customer visits your business, not on an advert. Talking about customer service has been done to death and becomes unbelievable and uninteresting.

Furthermore, everyone has “friendly and knowledgeable staff”. It is what employees are there for – it will not make you stand out from any competition. If your staff doesn’t treat your customers with “respect, friendliness and quick service” then you have bigger problems to think about before you start radio advertising.

Give your listeners a real reason to visit you. Be different, be exciting and don’t talk about how much people adore your business. Give your listeners a reason to want to try out your business for themselves so they can find out for themselves how great your service really is.

Your adverts need to be different and original and attention grabbing. Be daring, be bold and don’t be afraid to stand out. Remember, audio is an emotional medium – cater to the heart rather than the mind.

Are there any radio ad cliches that I’ve missed out? Leave a comment below.

Your radio station cannot survive without conducting ongoing efforts to understand your listeners’ needs.

To discover if your radio station is having a positive effect and creating listener loyalty, you must take the time to understand their needs and respond to them. Acquiring listener feedback does not have to be expensive. By just conducting simple questionnaires or asking for your listeners to leave feedback in the comment section on your Facebook status, you can learn a lot about what your listeners want.

 Listen

The most important step that your radio station must take to understand your listeners is by listening to them. Whether you are hosting a competition or have invited a listener to be featured on the radio, take a minute to ask them why they listen to your station and what your radio station could do to improve. You could even write a status or a tweet asking your listeners if they are happy with your station.

Empathise

Remember that when your listener offers your radio station feedback, take time to put yourself in their place and empathise with them. Acknowledge your listeners for putting in the time and effort to comment. Do not treat them with bias just because they may have an issue with your radio station. Always allow your listener to tell their story, then offer ways to meet their needs.

Research

If you want your radio station to gain more listeners and increase current listener loyalty, you must research your competition.

Tune in to other local stations to see what their unique selling point is. Conduct a phone or email survey of your potential listeners to discover the best qualities of other radio stations. Then, replicate some of these qualities in your radio station.

Remember that failure to understand your listener’s needs can result in negative comments or reviews about your radio station. Always go the extra mile to ensure that your listeners have a voice and are being heard.