Brain Research Shows High Effectiveness Of Radio Ads

iHeartMedia Tuesday announced results from a study conducted in partnership with leading neuromarketing firm Neuro-Insight.

Neuro-Insight uses its patented brain imaging technology, Steady-State Topography (SST), to measure how the brain responds to communications, including a broad spectrum of content and advertising.

Neuro-Insight’s research clearly showed radio outperforming television – and radio advertisements in particular outperformed television advertisements for the same brands—showing much higher performance in Neuro-Insight’s Memory Encoding metric, an indicator repeatedly and strongly associated with consumer choice and purchase behavior.

Neuro-Insight tested eight advertising campaigns with parallel radio and television versions across the automotive, financial services, insurance, consumer packaged goods, quick-service restaurants, entertainment, retail and telco categories. In seven of the eight test cases, radio ads returned much higher results than TV in Memory Encoding at key branding moments.  For advertisers, Memory Encoding at branding is the key to a successful ad campaign – and unless Memory Encoding is high at this critical point, the ad will not function successfully. This has been peer-reviewed and published in various other research studies.

Radio was also more effective than TV in converting content engagement into Memory Encoding during advertising breaks – indicating better content-ad interaction and stronger impact on consumer choice and behavior for radio ads as compared to the tested television ads.

Radha Subramanyam

“These findings from Neuro-Insight represent significant scientific evidence that radio’s ability to engage consumers -- and influence them to purchase – can far outperform other media,” said Dr. Radha Subramanyam, Executive Vice President of Insights for iHeartMedia.  “If advertisers want their messages to truly register with consumers – and drive their purchasing behavior -- they need to make radio a significant part of their media budgets.”

Neuro-Insight’s Memory Encoding metric is both scientifically and commercially validated to correlate with advertising effectiveness, consumer choice, and in-market behavior.  In this study, the higher Memory Encoding figures seen for radio indicate that radio advertising in its current form is both well-designed and more likely to impact consumer and market outcomes than TV advertising.



"The data in this study clearly show that iHeartMedia's radio offerings excellently harness the unique power of their medium,” said Pranav Yadav, CEO of Neuro-Insight US Inc.  “It also shows that radio should always remain a part of your marketing mix.”