The Internet as a Promotions Medium for Radio

In this report, I will be discussing:

1. The internet as a promotions medium for radio stations
2. Advertising-through-radio trends
3. Advertising-for-radio trends
4. How the Internet may be used as an important promotional tool for marketing and brand contacts for a radio station

The Internet as a Promotions Medium for Radio

"Community radio and the Worldwide Web complement each other very well indeed. Though in many ways the two media are opposites, they share similar ethos: access to information, informality, and rapid response. Combine the two, and see how well they can work together." Says Dennis List in his book Participative Marketing for Local Radio.

I have found this statement to be very true. When I take a look at the differences between Radio and the Internet, I see how much more effective advertising would be if these two mediums were used concurrently.

Whereas a radio station gives listeners only one chance to hear a program, a website is always available.

A radio station only has sound, but a website provides visual support.

A radio station serves the local area, whereas the Internet is accessible by anyone anywhere in the world.

A radio station conveys emotions well; the Internet conveys facts well.

A radio station gives broad impressions while a website gives details.

A radio provides the human touch, but the Internet focuses on convenient access to information.

Where one medium falls short, the other is able to provide. They combine push and pull to reach out and engage consumers. Therefore, it is easy to see why so many radio stations are preferring to use the Internet as a marketing medium, instead of the more traditional ones like television and print.

The Internet is the most logical choice of a promotions executive because of a number of reasons, but most importantly because of its rapid growth. The huge growth in online audience is increasingly affecting time spent with other traditional media. The frequency of Internet usage has also increased at an amazing rate. Now, the Internet is a central part of the working lives of most office workers and tends to be on all of the time.

This implies that the internet would be more effective than other forms of advertising and promotions.

A research conducted by the Radio Advertising Bureau (RAB) has found that:

1. Almost 50% listen to radio when online each week
2. 67% of the sample claimed that they ever listen to radio when online
3. 72% of these claimed to have listened in the last week (i.e. 48% of total sample)
4. At any given time 20% of people who are online are also listening to radio

The implications of these results are simple - the internet is one of the best (if not THE best) ways that a radio station can further promote itself and extend its reach beyond the target audience.

All that being said, I feel that there is a need to learn how to strike a good balance between using the internet as a promotions executive, and making the website THE product, instead of the radio station. This can be one of the main dangers of combining the two mediums.

"Radio is different, in several ways. Listeners to a radio station often tune in for hours each day, so the relationship is a continuing one. That's not so unusual: a lot of products have continuing buyers. What's more unusual for radio is that, since it's a communication medium, if all communication about an activity is marketing, does it follow that all radio programs are marketing?" Says Dennis.

Temptations would be to focus so much on building the website (aesthetically, functionally, etc.) that the quality of the radio station suffers ultimately. For example, if the station starts spending more time on creating good news pieces for the website, it could be at the sacrifice of providing fantastic news on-air. The extra time spent on vetting the articles could've been spent on coming with ideas to deliver the message on-air in creative ways.

On the other end of the scale, if the station only wants on-air to do well, and think that the website is not important, it could adversely affect them as well. Bad websites (or poorly maintained ones) can give consumers a bad impression of the station.

What would be considered a good balance, to me, is to still keep the main focus on excelling on-air. The website should serve as a pull to non-listeners - to entice them to tune in to the station.

Going the other direction, there can also be radio programs to direct people to the website (competitions, celebrity/DJs biography, etc.).

It should be a two-way thing, and shouldn't be the case of one medium depending on the other. The two-pronged approach only works if both prongs move together.

Advertising-Through-Radio Trends

Although Press and Television remain the two major media in terms of total advertising expenditure, the mix of advertising media has been changing over time and new media have come into play.

As shown in the table below, these other media have gained market share of total display advertising expenditure to the detriment of press and television advertisement.

Table of total display advertising expenditure in the UK (taken from Ofcom's Radio Advertising Market Research)

Although this statistics are based from the UK, I believe that they are reflective of the local radio as well as radio worldwide.

What does would this information mean, for a radio station?

It means two things. First off, it means that radio has been given a chance, a gateway if you will, to break into the advertising world to be the numero uno (number one) promotions and advertising vehicle.

However, it also means that radio is facing more competitors, and will be contending with many more non-traditional advertising vehicles in the years to come.

We can see how much potential the radio industry has as an advertising vehicle in the Google-buying-dMarc incident. Why would a tycoon like Google want to buy over a radio data systems company? The answer is simple: Monopolize advertising in the radio industry; you get control over a significant portion of the advertising industry as well.

This is how we can see that the trend of advertising through radio has got a bright future ahead.

Advertising-For-Radio trends

"Over time, we've seen how Singapore radio stations and radio personalities have increasingly evoked strong sentiments and loyalties from listeners. This often translates into fan followings for stations and DJs who have grown together with listeners and given them something to look forward to each day." Says Ms Florence Lian, Senior General Manager (English Programming and Marketing) of MediaCorp Radio.

We can see that as society evolves, the emphasis and hype of celebrities and personalities has reached an almost feverish pitch.

Movies draw crowds more for the actors, actresses, director, producer, etc., rather than for the plot itself.

Singers have fan clubs because they're "cute", not so much because they have a great voice.

Arnold Schwarzenegger became mayor of California because he had his celebrity status to back him up (okay, maybe this example is a little bias, but you get what I mean).

Radio has certainly not been left behind in this fan-crazed society. Now, it's the DJs who embody the radio station; that gives each one its unique identity and image. It's the radio personalities who are the pull, and the motivation for most listeners.

Take the example of Perfect 10. When it emerged, it had a clear goal in mind. It wanted to position itself as a youth radio station; as the fun one, the cool one. This definitely was what set it apart from its counterparts like Gold 90FM and Class 95.

And how did the station go about establishing its image? Through DJs like Jamie Yeo, Daniel Ong, Carrie Chong, and Jean Danker. Through events hosted by these DJs and even television shows that featured them, their celebrity status grew and with it, the station's status as the radio station for teens.

As quoted by Mr Mervin Sim, Managing Director of Carlsberg Singapore, about the 2005 Singapore Radio awards, "We are very honored to present Carlsberg Friendliest Radio Personality Award for the second consecutive time. This award is grounded in Carlsberg's "World of Friends" brand essence and we hope to further our message of friendship to listeners in Singapore through MediaCorp's friendliest radio personalities."

Class 95 has marketed itself in a different way from Perfect 10. Its ads on television focus on what the station embodies - class, high-end living, good taste, sophistication. It uses its image to attract listeners.

The radio industry has already realized that the advertising of the station by itself is not enough. It needs to market its image; what it represents to the listener, what incentives for the listener to tune in.

Internet as a promotional tool for marketing and brand contacts

As mentioned earlier, the internet/website is an invaluable tool for marketing a radio station. Through competitions on-air that drive consumers online, or competitions online that drive consumers to tune in to the station, these two mediums work hand-in-hand to pull and push consumers.

The website can also retain information about consumers who log in through website membership, online surveys, viewership count, their particulars for competitions, forums, etc.; the possibilities are almost inexhaustive. These contacts are good for a number of reasons:

1. It gives a rough idea of how well/popular the station is
2. It gives you a look-see into the target audience's views and opinions
3. It provides you with a list of people to contact if the station ever decides to use a direct-mail approach
4. It brings to awareness certain areas that the radio station could be lacking and needs improvement in.

If you notice on most websites, there are usually web banners to link to other sites of the same category/type. For example, if I was browsing through a website for song lyrics and guitar chords, I will very likely see other ads along the lines of "Guitar lessons for beginners", "Free guitar chords", "Download song lyrics free", etc.

This is because advertisers know where to catch the demographic group they are targeting at. This is one of the great advantages of using the Internet as a marketing tool.

If web banners and ads can be placed on other sites, it means that the radio station has the ability to market itself to even more people apart from its on-air and website efforts. It means that with the right strategy and well-thought categorizing of the people it wants to reach out to, the web could well prove to be a gold mine for any radio station.

Conclusion

I want to conclude with a quote: "What makes great marketing is the interaction. Interaction creates more interaction. Another way to express it is "one and one make three." This means that marketing messages, like living things, breed. One message is just an ad. Two messages (from different senders) are a dialogue - and when other people join a dialogue, you soon have a third voice, and a fourth. So if a radio station is to be a community's voice, it needs to develop a wide range of ways for people to participate."

This sentiment rings true with what I've been discussing. In the current media industry, marketing takes more than the one traditional approach. The evolvement of society has also spurred the evolvement of advertising and media as a whole, and the radio industry is no exception.