Radio body courts agencies with discounted airtime for effectiveness research
Commercial Radio Australia, which launched a campaign to encourage advertisers to use radio earlier this month, is courting agencies with an offer to “co-fund” campaigns in the name of effectiveness research.
CRA has invited agencies to access “an industry pool of funds” – said to be worth $50,000 – for joint research projects on the effectiveness of radio. Although the organisation would not specifiy what the nature of the $50,000 pool is, it appears to be mainly in the form of the nominal value of a discount against radio inventory ratecard.
“We want to work closely with agencies on projects they may have identified as requiring extra information to further promote radio to their clients as part of the media mix,” said CRA’s CEO Joan Warner.
CRA has requested that agencies submit ideas for projects by 31 August so that they can be implemented in the second half of 2011.
Previous effectiveness studies conducted by the CRA have included a study on how radio and online can be used in combination, and how young people listen to radio.
“64% of peple take action after listening to radio”. So I’ve just visited the CRA website to see what this means: According to the research “take action” means “Talked about something” (63%),”bBeen to a radio website” (37%) and several other actions relating directly to contacting the radio station itself. Absolutely nowhere does it ask or report on listeners buying a product or visiting an advertiser’s website. So I would say this is a very bogus and misleading piece of advertising , even for a media company!
CRA tell me if I’m wrong.
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Not sure what site you checked Gezza but it says “been to a website” not “been to a radio website”.
So two out of three people reported that (at some time – not every time) they talk about what they heard (and last time I looked WOM was pretty powerful) and one out of three have followed up but going to a website. Not bad to me and helpful to a media planner.
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Hi JG. there is something fishy going on. I’ve just revisted the CRA website and they have taken down the main reserach pres that is available to the public. That is the one that said 63% of people talked about what they heard. I looked elswhere on ther site and in a PPT slide the reserach quotes 42% of people spoke about the ad they hraed on radio. So would be helpful to have clarification.
Can I just say up front I’m not on a mission to bag CRA, but I’m starting to worry about the research. My main point is that the Radio spots clearly and unequivocally imply that 63% RESPOND to the ad. What the average person would understand by “take action”. I know we are all in advertising but I still say it’s pushing it to say – had a conversation about an ad (42% or 63% whichever is true) is a far cry from actually follwoing up a direct lead. I agree these response results are good and there is plenty of persuasive evidence on the effectiveness of radio. Just no need to stretch it this far. Enough said.
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Hi Gezza. There is nothing “fishy” going on. This is a surprising comment – and I could not let it stand. The presentation on the website is quite clear with research results presented from both Phase 1 and Phase 2 of the 2011 Brand Campaign. Phase 1 fact is that people are 32% more engaged with the content on their favourite radio station than the global media average, and, further, that 82% of people respond to that content – the63% is simply detailed as one of the ways they respond
Phase 2 takes it a step further and refers to response to radio advertising. That fact is that 64% take action as a result of a radio ad – that includes visiting a website mentioned in an ad (up to 80%); buying a product; searching for more information on the product or service; taking a note of the information in the ad and/or calling a number mentioned in the ad .
I hope this clears up the confusion and please keep visiting the CRA website for more great information on the effectiveness of radio advertising.
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Hi Joan, thanks for your explanation. I think it would be very helpful if the survey questions that were asked and the responses were clearly presented on the research powerpoint summary. I’m guessing there is a more detailed research document available on the log in site, perhaps that could be share more widely.
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