Study: Moving Some TV Funds To Radio Expands Reach

To determine whether “sight, sound, and motion” trumps audio ads, ABX, the leader in syndicated advertising effectiveness, examined the largest head-to-head creative study of audio and video ads. ABX has a stunningly large normative database of 365,000+ measured ads globally, from the U.S. and 13 other countries, representing 90% of global ad spend. 

For the purposes of the analysis, ABX examined two years’ worth of recent testing, which totaled 40,000 ads and included 10,738 TV ads and 2,779 AM/FM radio ads. The findings are outlined in this week’s Cumulus Media | Westwood One Audio Active Group® blog.

Gary Getto, President of ABX, says, “Moving some TV funds to AM/FM radio produces significantly higher reach. Often the excuse for not doing this is the need for sight, sound, and motion that TV provides and, in many cases, the lack of confidence in AM/FM radio creative’s ability to move the needle.

Study Take-Aways Include:

• AM/FM radio creative effectiveness is 92% of TV at one-fourth of the CPM:TV advertising effectiveness is only 8% better than AM/FM radio at 4X the CPM.
• Best testing AM/FM radio ads outperform nearly half of all TV ads: ABX found that the higher ABX-Index-scored AM/FM radio ads actually outperformed 48% of TV executions.
• Haircare and skincare: AM/FM radio ads perform very close to TV ad effectiveness for highly visual personal care categories. ABX found that in the skincare category AM/FM radio creative performs at 95% of TV effectiveness. In haircare, AM/FM radio performs at 89% of TV.

• Quick service restaurants: AM/FM radio ads perform very closely to TV ads in a category that has valued showing beautiful shots of food: Across a series of measures (clear brand, message delivery, reputation, likeability, and taking action), the QSR AM/FM radio ads performed very similarly to the TV ads at a fraction of the CPM.
• According to Nielsen, 61% of TV ads are not seen: A major study by Nielsen reveals few TV ads earn consumer “eyes on glass.” When TV ads are playing 39% of the time the audience’s eyes are on the screen, 40% of the time people are looking at their phone or a second screen, and 21% of the time people are out of the room.
• Games of Thrones: Audio trumps video in creating consumer engagement with emotion-based stories as audio books beat the TV show in consumer engagement: A study by Nature Research found consumers are far more engaged with an audio story than a video narrative. The Game of Thrones audio book audience showed greater physiological responses (heart rate, body temperature, and galvanic skin response) than viewers of the TV show.