Study: Radio Advertising Is More Engaging Than TV Ads

In a never-before conducted study, Mediaprobe measured second-by-second electrodermal activity (EDA) and dial data on the response of respondents to pre-recorded AM/FM radio segments in various genres for the purpose of understanding overall strength of ad engagement, brand fit, and recall of the AM/FM radio ads. 

This week’s Cumulus Media | Westwood One Audio Active Group® blog outlines the findings from the study.

• Despite lacking “sight, sound, and motion,” AM/FM radio programming was +13% more engaging than Mediaprobe’s norm for television in the U.S. For advertisers, this means the AM/FM radio context for their ads has greater engagement than the TV context.
• Overall, AM/FM radio advertising’s Emotional Impact Score (EIS) outperformed TV advertising by +12%. These new findings validate the recently released Dentsu/Lumen study, which revealed audio ads outperform video for attention and brand recall.

• AM/FM radio News was the most impactful genre, consistently measuring as a high-quality contextual environment for advertising (+14% than Mediaprobe TV News norms and +8% than total AM/FM radio).
• Mediaprobe audio benchmarks reveal the sound contrast between AM/FM radio programming and the ads drives higher attention and brand recall. For example, ads with music and jingles perform very well in spoken word programming due to the contrast.
• Creative best practices: Use female voiceovers, jingles, and include five brand mentions.