We’ve collated all things radio – culminating in this must have collector’s item ‘Radio. The Best of 2011’. Give yourself 5 minutes right now, grab yourself a cuppa, and click on the magazine below to read on …
‘Best of 2011’ is also available in hard copy! Make sure to order yours, absolutely free, by emailing prudence@rab.co.za.
Click here if you can’t view publication below
Let’s face it, no one likes to read a long-winded article, much like no one likes to sit in a studio all day, toiling over a couple of 30” ads, right? But what happens when the hundreds of thousands of rands invested in airtime are riding on the power of your message? What then?
Surely it’s worth slowing down and giving some focussed attention to the crafting and production element of your radio campaign?
We sat down with a couple of radio engineering and production experts who concur that when it comes to producing well written and engaging messages, you’re better off zigging while everyone else zags – The results in brand awareness and actual sales, as they’ve seen, are worth it!
Mashabela Creatives Founder,David Mashabela says;“Although there are a few advertisers who still enjoy selecting the right voice for a particular ad, getting the music that will capture the emotion they are trying to communicate or just want to be a part of the creative process that happens in the studio, they are, in 2011, fading out.The result of this is that more and more radio ads are starting to have the same tone and feel as super market newspaper inserts – just product and price.
Mashabela insists that herein lies the opportunity for involved advertisers and their passionate engineers to shine – a well written, well produced ad on radio stands head and shoulders above the crowd. And isn’t that just the thing that marketers are forever chasing after?
Executive Electronic Producer at an agency that’s become renowned for its award-winning radio work, Net#work BBDO, Tanja Rae thinks that what it ultimately boils down to, is still always an interesting piece of copy;
“Without copy that has a purpose, that evokes an emotion or likeability, you could have the best production team waiting to produce and still come up with pretty much nothing memorable.
Next step is to surround yourself with the best sound engineers, producers, voice artists and language supervisors. The beauty of living in a digital era means that engineers have all the library music, sound effects and a multitude of plug-ins, at their fingertips.
Yet, it still takes an excellent engineer to insist on going on a field trip to record the actual sounds of all the models of cars for a client, so that he can build up his sound effects library for that particular client’s future productions. This is called passion and I suggest finding an engineer that has truckloads of it.
Radio production is an exciting process, where, when all the stars align, there really is no limit to the pictures you can paint in the mind’s eye.
The challenge
In addition to creating awareness for their part time courses in Cape Town, Varsity College also wanted to communicate its offering as an institution that’s not just for school leavers, but one where professionals can further their education.
A secondary objective was to run a test campaign in preparation for the re-launch of the Business School in 2012 and to drive registrations.
Why Radio
Radio would allow Varsity College to be integrated into the conversation between presenter and listener in a subtle, unobtrusive way. The college then selected Heart 104.9FM as it best delivered the market they were targeting, and fitted within their budget.
Implementation
A high impact information led campaign was created, including promos, interviews and a combination of both live and recorded messages.
Pre-promos flighted a week prior to promote the campaign and encourage listeners to tune into Heart 104.9FM. In the week that followed, a high frequency radio campaign which included interviews, live reads and generic ads, encouraged strategic engagement with the brand.
‘Throw forwards’ were flighted before each feature to inform listeners of the upcoming Varsity College topic of the day.To keep the on-air elements relevant, discussions focussed on different aspects of the College that would be relevant to the Heart 104.9FM listeners.
The Results
“All core objectives of (1) increasing awareness of Varsity College, (2) informing and educating the market about the College’s offerings, and (3) generating an increased number of enquiries were achieved.The client reported a 300% increase in enquiries”, says Pippa Cohen of Ultimate Media
Learnings
To achieve the desired results, the client should always be given the liberty to be involved in the process of briefing the on-air presenters. Information should also packaged in such a way that it becomes valuable content for the presenter to use within the show.
RAB Commentary
A good example of how brands looking to raise awareness or understanding of their offerings can align with a station’s programming objectives and leverage their campaign through editorial content.
The Challenge
With a view to spreading the following central messages;
Why Radio?
Taking into consideration, the diversity in markets, and the depth of the message, the campaign needed to be executed on media platforms that could deliver maximum reach, while allowing for more than a generic message. Old Mutual appreciated the power of radio’s relationship with its listeners, and used radio to tap into meaningful engagement with consumers. The decision to flight across 14 different radio stations including African Language stations and go beyond the use of generic 30 second ads, was the perfect fit
Implementation
A multi-platform, non-traditional radio solution flighting simultaneously across 14 different radio stations was created. A combination of both national and regional stations were used, namely; Metro FM, Ukhozi FM, Umhlobo Wenene FM, Lesedi FM, Lotus FM, Kaya FM, 94.7 Highveld Stereo, Jacaranda 94.2, Talk Radio 702, KFM, 567 CapeTalk, East Coast Radio, Algoa FM and OFM.
The 2-week campaign was comprised of 2 distinct parts;
The Results
The stories were what made this campaign work, proving that radio is the most personal medium.
Everybody has a savings or investment goal and we immediately relate when we hear others talking about their goals. The beauty of this campaign is that the inspiring goals coming in kept the presenters interested and ensured that they didn’t rush to get through the execution as quickly as possible. As a result, thousands of qualified, direct leads from all sections of the market as well as a massive increase in volume of incoming SMS traffic to the Old Mutual call centre has been achieved.
Learnings
Old Mutual’s Thembeka Ngugi says; "Our objective was to engage South Africans from all walks of life around the importance of saving for your financial goals. It is a subject that can easily inspire and motivate. We understand that radio is the ideal medium with which to engage people on issues which really matter to them. By getting ordinary people to share their goals live on air we helped create compelling and meaningful content for the stations. Once you’ve connected with listeners on an emotional and meaningful level they are far more likely to respond to your generic call-to-action message”.
RAB Commentary
It’s truly encouraging to see a client like Old Mutual who appreciates that consumers are people too. And that in order to entrench their brand philosophy and generate leads, they need to go beyond the 30” and engage the listener via compelling on-air content.
*Campaign was conceptualised and executed by Ultimate Media and Carat
Radio advertisers can learn a lot by understanding what frightens radio station programming managers the most, says Jason Brownlee. He should know. He’s tested the effectiveness of more than 400 radio case studies on RadioGAUGE…
In my experience, *the* most terrifying thing a Programming Manager has to contemplate is changing the presenter of his breakfast show. It’s no secret that listeners become very attached to their favourite DJs who weave themselves into the routine of daily life and become like real friends.
The second thing would be putting new music onto their playlist. People don’t like songs they don’t recognise and have been known to switch off from a station playing something unfamiliar and cruise around the dial until they hear a song they know and like.
Interestingly, the top 25% of radio ads in terms of creative effectiveness, as measured by RadioGAUGE, were on average 13% better at generating brand campaign awareness than the bottom 25% of ads. Top-performing campaigns often exhibited common attributes such as long standing creative strategies, familiar jingles, recognisable voices, regular characters and consistent story lines.
What am I saying then?
Here are three things, my points above prove;
1. Personalities need familiarity to be successful on the radio – presenters need to develop a rapport with an audience that, over time, will come to embrace them.
2. Music needs familiarity to be successful on the radio – as a song begins to break its way into awareness it builds familiarity within the minds of listeners, who will eventually take it to heart.
3. Commercials need familiarity to be successful on the radio – advertisers need to develop creative themes or templates that express the personality of their brand on the radio and commit to them over a long period of time.
Bottom line; building familiarity on the radio is crucial for any presenter, song or band that wants to cut through into audience consciousness and be taken into the hearts and minds of listeners. Brands that ‘find their voice’ on the radio build the strongest relationships with listeners, which invariably delivers the best ROI from the medium.
Jason Brownlee
Development Director, RadioGAUGE International
The definition of ‘advertising’ has been changing over the last few years, with the most exciting thing about 2011 from a radio perspective, no doubt being how radically the definition of ‘RADIO’ has changed in response to this shift.
Go back twenty four years ago and I remember Stan Katz lecturing a couple of us novices with the words; “There has never been a simpler business invented than Radio – we build a great audience and then we deliver that audience to advertisers”. This was the definition of ‘Radio’ and to an extent it still rings true today. The product is the key. The passion oozing from the speakers delivers the listeners and the listeners deliver the advertisers.
What has changed forever is that Radio stations have morphed into multi-media brands generating content and experiences on an extensive range of platforms. The radio presenter in 2011 bears little resemblance to the DJ of old. Today, that presenter is creating, ingesting and re-purposing content and distributing it through multiple channels, on-air, on the web, on mobile and on tablet products.
Programming Managers who were once slaves to format, formulas and audience research, are seeing themselves as content managers and advertising has found respect as part of the content.
The new breed of programmers are smart, strategic and tactical thinkers able to use the abundant creativity in their station to increase the value of the commercial space.
This fresh focus on creating quality and value and making Radio’s customers happy, is bringing new enjoyment and satisfaction to those of us lucky enough to work in this business. The best consequence will be even better results for our business partners.
Rivak Bunce
Managing Director, United Stations
From a festival at which the world’s biggest and best strive to make the cut – Cannes –SA radio Creative really shone brightest and silenced the critics in 2011. Allow us to boast a little…
Having walked away with a first for their Virgin Atlantic Plain Insanity radio campaign in 2009, local agency, Net#work BBDO proudly brought home the 2ndCannes Radio Lion Grand Prix this year.
Not happy resting on our laurels, South Africa also bagged 10 Radio Lions, almost twice that of the next runners up, Germany with 6, and America and Australia, each with 5.
This strong radio communication culminated in SA taking 13th position in this year’s Cannes country rankings report. Enough said! We’ll stop here and let someone more qualified, that being the President of the Cannes Radio Jury 2011, Eugene Cheong,say his piece…
President’s Message
They say Radio is the lowest hanging fruit in the South of France.
I disagree.
With visionless radio, all you have is A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z and a prayer. There is simply nowhere to hide.
However, if you are a genius you can rearrange the 26 amigos into The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, I Have a Dream, The Goon Show and, of course, ‘Hi, Tom Bodett for Motel 6’.
I spent my entire career avoiding radio for fear of being found out.
Terry couldn’t have found a better man to be President of the Radio Jury.
Eugene Cheong
President Cannes Radio Lion Jury
Regional Executive Creative Director, Ogilvy & Mather Asia Pacific
