Insights: Heavy Radio Listeners Key To Brand Growth

This week’s Westwood One blog looks at what happens when a successful AM/FM radio advertiser decides to pull AM/FM radio from the media plan. In light of the pandemic, the case study is a cautionary tale for advertisers who might be considering a cut to their spending. 

CUMULUS MEDIA | Westwood One retained MARU/Matchbox to track campaign effect during 2017 and 2018 for a relatively new brand that was taking on two major category players. With AM/FM radio, the brand became a strong performer in the category. Brand equity grew and usage shot up. Especially among heavy AM/FM radio listeners, every brand equity and behavior measure was much stronger. 

Here’s what happened when, in 2019, the brand decided to shift out of AM/FM radio and double down on TV:

• Nielsen analysis: TV skews much too old for the consumer category. The brand’s category users are mostly made up of adults 18-49 (73%). When the brand left AM/FM radio for television, campaign impressions skewed much older. Only 36% of the TV impressions were 18-49. The vast majority of TV deliveries (64%) occurred over the age of 50.
• The demographic imbalance of the TV plan also extended to key targets for the brand. Compared to heavy TV viewers, heavy AM/FM radio listeners are far more likely to be members of the brand’s frequent shopper club, have access to their distribution platform, and are much more likely to be heavy category users.
• Dropping AM/FM radio in 2019 caused erosion in awareness, weekly usage, brand consideration, and AM/FM radio ad recall. After strong growth from 2017 to 2018, association to brand attributes stagnated from 2018 to 2019.
• Dropping AM/FM radio also caused major damage among heavy AM/FM radio listeners. Brand equity suffered greatly down the entire purchase funnel with double-digit losses.