Radio Advertising Research

History

The first radio broadcasts aired in the early 1900’s. However, it wasn’t until 1919 that radio stations began to broadcast continuously, similar to what we know today. In the United States, on November 2, 1920, KDKA aired the first commercial broadcast. As more stations began operating on a continuous basis, station owners were increasingly faced with the issue of how to maintain their stations financially, because operating a radio station was a significant expense.

In February 1922, AT&T announced they would begin selling “toll broadcasting” to advertisers, in which businesses would underwrite or finance a broadcast, in exchange for being mentioned on the radio. WEAF of New York is credited with airing the first paid radio commercial, on August 28, 1922, for the Queensboro Corporation, advertising an apartment complex. However, it appears other radio stations may actually have sold advertising before WEAF. As early as May 1920, an amateur radio broadcaster leased out his “station” in exchange for $35 per week for twice-weekly broadcasts. And, in Seattle, Washington, Remick’s Music Store purchased a large ad in the local newspaper advertising radio station KFC, in exchange for sponsorship of a weekly program, in March 1922. Additionally, on April 4, 1922, a car dealer, Alvin T. Fuller, purchased time on WGI of Medford Hillside, Massachusetts, in exchanges for mentions. So, although WEAF is credited with the first advertisement, it appears other radio stations ran advertisements prior to August 1922.

During radio’s Golden Age, advertisers sponsored entire programs, usually with some sort of message like “We thank our sponsors for making this program possible”, airing at the beginning or end of a program. While radio had the obvious limitation of being restricted to sound, as the industry developed, large stations began to experiment with different formats. The “visual” portion of the broadcast was supplied by the listener’s boundless imagination. Comedian and voice actor Stan Freberg demonstrated this point on his radio show in 1957,using sound effects to dramatize the towing of a 10-ton maraschino cherry by the Royal Canadian Air Force, who dropped it onto a 700-ft. mountain of whipped cream floating in hot-chocolate filled Lake Michigan, to the cheering of 25,000 extras. The bit was later used by the USA's Radio Advertising Bureau to promote radio commercials.

The radio industry has changed significantly since that first broadcast in 1920, and radio is big business today. Although other media and new technologies now place more demands on consumer’s time, 95% of people still listen to the radio every week. Internet radio listening is also growing, with 13 percent of the U.S. population listening via this method. Although consumers have more choices today, 92 percent of listeners stay tuned in when commercials break into their programming.

Research & Rates

Radio stations today generally run their advertising in clusters or sets, scattered throughout the broadcasting hour. Studies show that the first or second commercial to air during a commercial break has higher recall than those airing later in the set.

Arbitron is one of the primary providers of ratings data in the United States. Most radio stations and advertising agencies subscribe to this paid service, because ratings are key in the broadcast industry. Ad agencies generally purchase radio based on a target demographic. For example, their client may want to reach men between 18 and 49 years old. The ratings enable advertisers to select a specific segment of the listening audience and purchase airtime accordingly. Ratings are also referred to as “numbers” in the business.

The numbers can show who is listening to a particular station, the most popular times of day for listeners in that group, and the percentage of the total listening audience that can be reached with a particular schedule of advertisements. The numbers also show exactly how many people are listening at each hour of the day. This allows an advertiser to select the strongest stations in the market with specificity and tells them what times of day will be the best times to run their ads.

Besides the basic numbers, most radio stations have access to other data, such as Scarborough[disambiguation needed, that details more about the listening audience than just what age group they fall into. For example, some data will provide the types of activities listeners participate in, their ethnicity, what type of employment they do, their income levels, what kinds of cars they drive, and even whether or not they have been to a particular entertainment or sports venue in the past month or gone to a spa.

Radio stations sell their airtime according to dayparts. Typically, a station’s daypart lineup will look something like the following: 6am-10am, 10am-3pm, 3pm-7pm, and 7pm- midnight. The spots running after midnight, from 12am-6am, are referred to as “overnights”.Though this schedule of dayparts can vary from station to station, most stations run similar daypart lineups and sell their advertisements accordingly. Drive times, or morning and evenings when people are commuting, are usually the most popular times of day and when each station has the most listeners. The “rates”, or what the station charges the advertiser, will reflect that.

Researching a variety of researching a variety of radio advertisements, we were able to establish some idea's in what we could include in our own radio ad for our product. Looking at this Haagan Daz ad, the voice over is predominately a woman (mainly aimed at women), but the woman speaks about men thinking about Hagaan-Daz every 6 seconds. Effectively used to relate the product in a sexual aspect. Product becomes desirable to females. The Budweiser Ad aimed at males, uses a male voice over, with a deep masculine voice. Speaks and relates to men doing everyday 'manly' chores, where this becomes effective as men then relate to this become attracted to the fact Budweiser can be associated in some how with what their doing.