A study involving a series of AM/FM radio ad campaigns over two months, across more than 20 local markets – including small, medium, and large markets – found that with significant gross rating points and listener reach and frequency, radio ads successfully boost aided and unaided awareness and ad recall, as well as leads, signups, registrations, and purchases.
The research was conducted by brand tracking firm MARU/Matchbox and attribution measurement firm Claritas, using Nielsen reach and frequency data. While MARU surveyed 1,000 adults 18+ in these markets before and after the radio campaign to measure brand effect, Claritas quantified website conversions and purchases by placing their tracking pixel on the advertiser’s website, and studied the impact of ads on website home page activity, according to an analysis in Westwood One's weekly blog.
The radio campaign, which ran for four weeks with a two-week interruption in between, featured heavy media weight with close to 500 monthly GRPs, generating a monthly reach of 75% and a 7 frequency. In the test markets, three out of four people were exposed to the campaign monthly an average of seven times.
MARU/Matchbox's surveys found that among heavy AM/FM listeners, unaided brand awareness saw a 16% lift, and a 10% increase among total persons 18+, vs. just 5% among heavy TV viewers.
“There was significant growth in unaided awareness despite the short two-month campaign,” Cumulus Media/Westwood One Audio Active Group Chief Insights Officer Pierre Bouvard says. “Unaided awareness is the hardest brand equity measure for a marketer to grow. It requires consumes to name a brand in a category without any help.”
When providing consumers with a list of brands and asked how familiar they were with each brand, MARU's post-campaign survey found 12% boosts in total ad recall, while those saying they were “extremely/very familiar” with the advertised brand grew 9%. “Ad recall is the brand equity measure that is most sensitive to recent advertising,” Bouvard says. “Double digit growth in ad recall indicates strong impact from the AM/FM radio campaign.”
Claritas' attribution measurement found that the campaign drove up leads and signups by 8%, registrations 9%, and purchases 12%. “After the AM/FM radio campaign, there was a powerful lingering sales effect from the AM/FM radio ads as conversions continued to grow,” Bouvard notes. “The closer to the bottom of the purchase funnel, the greater the conversion increases.”
The blog also cites a study from brand tracking firm Tracksuit along with TikTok, showing how aided ad awareness drives conversion rate and improves performance efficiency. The takeaways? “The greater the awareness, the greater the conversion rate,” Bouvard says, “[plus] stronger brand awareness improves performance marketing impact by as much as 2.86 times, and brand awareness is a controlling factor for the outcomes of performance marketing.”