I work in radio advertising and people are often skeptic when it comes to my medium of choice. What they don’t know is the power that radio has. Most people indulge in this past time – 98% is the number of the US population that is reached by radio on a daily basis. I like to think of radio has having a chat with one of your best friends. They are well informed, have great taste and know exactly what you want to hear. If you’ve ever wanted to be the popular kid in school – well radio is going to be your hook up to the best new music and the best deals and events around town. I tell clients this on a daily basis:
l Word of Mouth. Radio IS word of Mouth advertising – it’s controlled word of mouth x 100,000 watts!
l Radio is Personal. It establishes an intimate communication with the listener. Radio offers the ability to tell your story in many installments, in wonderful human terms. The radio ad can be all about the listener with the word YOU!
l Intrusiveness. No other medium requires as little physical participation as radio. Listeners cannot help but listen to advertising messages when in a “captive” environment. (i.e. a car)
l Theater of the Mind. Radio stimulates the listeners imagination like no other medium. It enables the listener to form his/her own mental image of the product / service and its attributes to match his/her lifestyle.
I’m a big believer in Social Media and love the cost effectiveness of it, but using radio in conjunction with a killer online branding campaign is a win-win situation. Seeing something and hearing something are polar opposite of one another. When we hear something we turn it into what we want it to be – “your perfect couch!” is going to mean something different to everyone. When we see, “your perfect couch!” we don’t always agree with what we’re seeing. Hearing what we want to is much more likely to get us through the door.
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