How to double your campaign’s effectiveness? Ritson says radio is the way
Professor Mark Ritson has revealed the results of a groundbreaking new study that shows that allocating just over a tenth of your total advertising campaign budget to radio will double its effectiveness.
Ritson presented the study’s findings during a lively, expletive-riddled keynote this afternoon at HEARD 2024, Commercial Radio & Audio’s annual audio conference, comparing radio’s understated role to that of a super hero sidekick.
“Radio has been underrated in maximising the overall impact of your marketing,” Ritson told a packed room.
“For the best bang-for-buck, marketers should consider radio as an integral part of the channel mix – and an 11% investment can double your campaign’s impact.”
Ritson says he had this hunch about radio’s outsized impact for some time, and only agreed to do the keynote if CRA would fund a study to better understand how a radio element can influence an ad campaign’s effectiveness.
The study analysed the Advertising Council of Australia’s Effectiveness Database, to discover how changes in the allocation of advertising budget in radio impacted a campaign’s commercial success.
He noted that, given the study was of all Effie Award entries since 2018, and therefore a representation of an agency’s finest efforts, the sample was skewed towards successful campaigns.
But, as Ritson noted, these should be seen as leading examples.
“Radio doesn’t need to be the hero, or the lead media, but it does drive a disproportionately large impact for a relatively modest investment of just 11%, he said.
“It’s the ultimate sidekick.”
Earlier in the day, consumer psychologist and founder of Thinkerbell, Adam Ferrier explored the impact of audio on emotion.
He argued advertisers should be “trying to capture the feeling of radio … using that in a really powerful sense – because it is arguably the most emotional and powerful medium”.
Ritson spoke to Mumbrella after his keynote; look for that interview early next week.
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Nathan Jolly is the Deputy Editor of Mumbrella. He joined the team in July, 2023.
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sorry, but didn’t Ritson say almost the same thing for YouTube less than 12 months ago?
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I see his ‘long and short of it’ contract finished!
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So Ritson was basically like “let me do this speech but only if you let me do a study that says radio is really amazing and effective, endorsed by a name that is used by marketers as shorthand for rationalising their decisions.
Great deal for radio!! Wonder if the study would have been released if it didn’t say radio created all these effectiveness outcomes.
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Who is in the audience at this event? Are media planners there? Clients?
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Lots of critical comments here which I think points to a big issue with marketing more broadly. A
Authority or credibility is usually awarded to the loudest voice in the room, with the most stubborn opinions and disregard for anything else. Glad to see some people are starting to wake up to the fact that most are compromised false prophets or purely shameless self promoters.
Also, what is the quantifiable effectiveness he refers to within his comments? I see nothing more than Aldi and Uber Eats use radio and I think they’re smart.
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Radio funded waffle
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No doubt the payment to a high volume influencer is a good investment for radio. Challenge for ritson is the larger one; he isn’t in academia and hasn’t been for a while and is definitely available for a fee as evidenced. He’s taken cheques from most major media companies and channels so the spruik even if authentic seems commercially led.
Ehrenberg Bass will feel the same issues as it now begins to sell its name association to agencies seeking to legitimise their own products and principal buying.
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No, I said that YouTube was an excellent investment for many marketers and we looked at a bunch of case studies to expand why and when YouTube works well.
I also think radio is an excellent investment that is often overlooked by marketers despite its potential. So my talk last month covered why I think that with some data.
In both cases I said this without being paid to say this.
There really isn’t a conflict in promoting the (different) respective benefits of two very good communications media to marketers. I mean there is if you don’t understand basic communications planning and synergies. But then again what should I expect from someone posting as “carlos the jackal”.
mark ritson
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As I pointed out at the radio talk you obviously weren’t at – I did my talk for zero money. I also do the YouTube work for zero money. I do not think its right to promote a medium and be paid for it.
I don’t have a contract with Google. And in fact will do some more case studies with them next month. Also for no money.
Not everyone is as venal and low brow as you. Keep that in mind.
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No, as I explained at the talk you weren’t at last month: I had a prevailing theory that radio does seem to work best by making the overall campaign work better. And this was something I saw in the UK five years ago from earlier data. So I worked with Rob Brittain to see if that theory held up when it was tested against the ACA database. It was, with limitiations. So I presented the data. I doubt very much that the radio team would have asked me to present the data if it did not show this effect. But that’s a question for them. But it was a great deal for radio and I think the study is very interesting.
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Again another low ball, stupid comment. I used a qualitiative case study to illustrate broader data from a larger sample that we analysed from the ACA database. That database was small as it is only 5 years old but I was open about this and other limitations at the talk. The effectiveness measure was based on the broad business effects from a sample of Australian brands investing in radio.
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sigh
and again a wrong, cheap, stupid shot.
I am not “available for a fee”. I do not take money for these things. Repeat: I do not take money to promote media to marketers.I think it was the first thing mentioned in my intro. I have been working with Youtube for no fee too. For 4 years now. Imagine!
I despair at all this anonymous cowardly bullsh*t that only exists within the Australian marketing community. “Black Thunder”. [edited]
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