New Study Shows Consumers Don’t Tire Of Radio Ads.

The results of a study conducted by advertising research company ABX Advertising Benchmark Index show how rare it is for AM/FM radio ads to wear out their welcome.

The study, commissioned by the Radio Advertising Bureau, found that only two out of 25,000 radio ads tested by ABX showed a decline in any measure of creative effectiveness after an average of 345 days of exposure in the marketplace, according to an analysis in Westwood One’s weekly blog. Two key creative effectiveness measures, branding and messaging, showed no decline at all.

ABX, which has evaluated hundreds of thousands of ads across all media, measures ad performance based on a summary score of four indicators: a clear consumer awareness of the brand advertised; the ability to express key messaging and benefits, along with being easy to understand; consumer opinion of the brand after exposure to the ad; and consumer likelihood to take any action as a result of the ad.

The study pinpointed 2,452 AM/FM radio ads that had been in the market in the past two years, 43 of which had a significant cumulative national spend of $2 million or more. Of those 43, 12 had been evaluated by ABX.

The 12 AM/FM advertisers studied included laundry detergent, credit card, internet service, supermarket and car deodorant brands. With the exception of two of the 12, ABX found no difference in the performance of these ads, with high or poor performers remaining so. For 10 of the 12, repeat testing revealed no statistically significant erosion.

Just two ads suffered from “wear-out,” which is defined as “the point where creative testing declines from its peak due to message frequency fatigue,” Cumulus Media/Westwood One Audio Active Group Chief Insights Officer Pierre Bouvard says, noting that the research validated the theory of marketing professor Mark Ritson: “Consumers don’t get tired of ads, only marketers do.”

According to ABX, those two ads were at the top end of cumulative spending and time in market. “Two years in market and $8 million-plus of spend is where creativeness effectiveness might start to wane,” Bouvard says.

Additional research backs up ABX’s results. Marketing effectiveness firm Analytic Partners found that just 14 out of more than 50,000 ads examined had run their course when replaced, while the rest were pulled off air even though they showed no sign of wear-out. Creative testing company System1 saw scores stay constant for ads continuously airing for more than two years. Other advertising analysts have echoed what these studies all show, that there is no relationship between ad performance and its length of time on air.

Ritson’s advice to brands, based on these findings? Understand the patience of the market, resist new campaigns when existing ads are still working, look backwards to older ads that could work again with some modernization, and, by running ads for longer, move more budget from creative to media investment.