The Truth About Radio
An Open Letter to Sellers of Radio Advertising in America
My experience with radio account executives is that they will immediately quote the party line: “92% of America listens to AM/FM radio over the airwaves, which is higher than smartphone use (81%) and tablet use (45%) and TV viewership (85%)”
Here’s the problem: no one believes that 92% of America listens to the radio each day. It simply isn’t credible.
RADIO: “But I didn’t say ‘each day.’”
ME: “Oh. So what’s the span of time we’re talking about here?”
RADIO: “92% of America will hear at least 5 minutes of radio each month.”
ME: “Well that doesn’t do me a lot of good, does it? What are the odds that my ad is going to air during those five minutes? Go sell your B.S. somewhere else.”
Did that little piece of imaginary dialogue anger you? I’m sorry. I’m just saying to you privately – because I’m your friend – what everyone else is thinking.
When a client or the friend of a client or the child of a client says, “But no one listens to the radio anymore,” I say, “Have you ever heard of the Nielsen ratings for television?”
“Sure”
“Nielsen measures broadcast radio listenership also. Last year, they charged the radio stations and the advertising agencies of America $422 million to determine exactly who was listening, and when, and to what stations, and for how long. Do you know how they do it?”
“No.”
I pull out my cell phone and hold it up. “They give people an electronic device called a Portable People Meter and those people clip it to their belt like a pager and wear it for a specified number of days. Do you know what a Portable People Meter does?”
“No.”
“It listens to whether or not you’re listening to the radio. And when you are listening, it knows what station you’re listening to. And it knows when you switch stations. You can’t lie to it and it doesn’t ask for your opinion. It just reports back to Nielsen exactly what you did. Have you ever heard of the Gallup Poll?”
“Sure, they’re famous for measuring the opinions of the nation.”
“Do you know the final, in-tabulation sample size that Gallup uses to scientifically measure the opinions of 328 million Americans?”
“No.”
“It’s never more than 1,510 people. Fifteen hundred and ten. Do you know how many people Nielsen will poll in Detroit for a radio listenership report?”
“No.”
“1,584. In Dallas or Atlanta, it’s 1,600. In San Francisco, it’s 2,366. So when you look at their samples sizes and their methodology, Nielsen numbers are pretty bulletproof. The bottom line is that you were half right. Only about half the population of America spends enough time listening to the radio each week to make it feasible to efficiently and affordably reach them using radio. When my 56 partners and I look at the market-by-market, Reach-and-Frequency analyses for our clients across the US and Canada and Australia, we consistently find that we can reach about 46% to 48% of any city three times within seven nights sleep. The other half of the population doesn’t spend enough time listening to make it feasible to reach them three times each week.”
“What do you mean, ‘three times within seven nights sleep?’”
Radio is mass media and they call it mass media for a reason: It reaches the masses. The highest and best use of radio is to use it to charm and seduce decisionmakers and influencers so that you become the provider they think of first – and feel best about – when they finally need what you sell. And to accomplish this level of retention, you need to reach the average listener at least three times within seven nights sleep, and you need to do that 52 weeks a year.”
“That sounds expensive.”
“Are you doing any online marketing?”
“Sure.”
“So you’re familiar with cost-per-click and cost-per-impression, right?”
“Of course.”
“When you have the kind of radio campaign I’m talking about, your online conversion skyrockets and your cost-per-sale plummets because when people see your name online, they say, ‘Oh, yeah, I love those guys,’ so you get the click, the lead, and the sale, thanks to radio.”
“You never did mention the cost.”
“We buy big, 52-week schedules and we often buy all the stations in a broadcast group, so our cost for a person to hear an interesting and entertaining 60-second radio ad is less than a penny per repetition.”
“Did you say “less than a penny?”
“Yep. We’re reaching the average person 3 times a week, 52 weeks a year, for a total of 156 times, for significantly less than a dollar per person/per year. In some cities it’s a little less than a dollar. In other cities, it’s a LOT less than a dollar.”
“Based on what?”
“Usually, it’s time-spent-listening.”
“What do you mean?”
“The more time a person spends listening to the radio, the fewer the number of ads you need to run for them to hear that ad 3 times. And the thing that most affects time-spent-listening is the amount of time they spend in the car. Some cities have longer average commutes than other cities.”
“But don’t most people change to a different station every time the ads come on?”
This is going to take a minute, but it’s important that you know this: A team of researchers from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science recently published their findings in the Journal of Advertising Research (JAR). According to the study, “Many advertisers have believed as much as one-third of the audience switch stations during radio-advertising breaks.”
Changing stations to avoid ads is known as “mechanical avoidance.”
The researchers decided to use Portable People Meters to determine the truth, once and for all. Their analysis spanned over 2.9 million programming minutes, including 534,071 advertising minutes and 841,003 separate commercials. A pretty good sample size, wouldn’t you say?
“Yeah, those are massive sample sizes.”
Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang, Badda-Boom. What they found was, “Overall, mechanical avoidance generally was low, with an average of 3 percent across the day.”
The assumption was that 33 percent were avoiding the ads.
The truth is that it is 3 percent.
“I think maybe I should look into advertising on the radio.”
“Yeah, you probably should. But I have one last bit of advice.”
“Okay, what is it?”
“Make sure you have a great ad campaign. Radio doesn’t make the ad deliver results. The ad makes radio deliver results.”
“You’re saying that radio is only as good as the ad I run?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
Roy H. Williams