More On The Power of Audio

The findings below are from a just released study by the Radio Ad Effectiveness Lab.

With these features advertisements in ad-supported music can be even more effective than ads on radio.

Executive Summary

This report is a follow-up to the Radio Ad Lab’s report, Engagement, Emotions, andthe Power of Radio. After our original evaluation of 16 different real ad campaigns within actual programming, we previously concluded that:

On average, Radio ads have emotional impact on consumers that is equal to that of television ads.

This new analysis allowed us to dig more deeply into the individual ad results, and weexplored why some Radio ads seemed to have more impact than others. This wasn’t a controlled test of all possible creative variables, but we did observe some distinctions between the more engaging ads and those that were less effective:

• Strong beginnings make a difference. Every second in an ad is precious—and perhaps none more so than those at the beginning. An involving point of entry seems to distinguish some of the most successful Radio ads in our study.
• Word selection matters in Radio ads. In particular, words that are sensory laden, emotional, or empowering have a demonstrable impact on the emotional reactions of consumers.
• Words can be more powerful than pictures. The spoken word is powerful, andat least in some circumstances, saying something the right way can be even more emotionally potent than simply showing it on a TV screen.
• Radio ads need effective advertiser branding. Brand mentions alone aren’t enough, of course. But the best Radio ads do remember to mention the advertiser’s brand multiple times, and preferably in emotionally engaging ways.
• Time is valuable. Use it all well. The most impactful ads we examined not only started well, they sustained interest throughout. We do understand that not all commercial content is under creative control (e.g., legal boilerplate). But make the most of every possible second.

This is not a “creative cookbook,” but with the advanced techniques available to us in this study, we could actually observe moment-by-moment what happens when various approaches to Radio creative are played for a good cross-section of consumers.

We hope this exercise will serve as a useful reminder.

This study also suggests that it can be useful to fine-tune Radio ad creative so that it works in tandem with one of Radio’s greatest strengths—touching listeners at an emotional level.

Ads that do all these things are truly powerful. The strongest ads in ourstudy—the most emotionally engaging and the best recalled—did all of these things together.The quality of Radio ad creative matters. It pays to invest time creating good Radio ad content to begin with, and whenever possible, it can pay to test the content in advance to make sure that consumers really are reacting as intended.