Consumers today are drowning in choices in the attention-based economy we are living in today, thus creating the need for human connections. Marketing and communicating in a way that is like-minded, empathetic and understanding - is job one for America's top advertisers.
Combine this with the fact that audio consumption continues to grow among consumers across all platforms, broadcast Radio should be front and center for marketers. And your RAB has made tremendous progress throughout 2019 unearthing insights, capitalizing on partnerships, educating, advising and advocating. A snapshot of our activity includes:
Poll results have been featured within articles written by RAB and published by the Association of National Advertisers (ANA). The polls were conducted live, on-site at the 2019 ANA Masters of Marketing conference where clients were incentivized to participate for entry to win one of several AMAZING prizes provided by our broadcaster partners. Highlights from the Audio Pulse survey included:
Whether it be partnering with our broadcast membership to support their engagement with clients or working directly with advertisers and agencies, our goal is always to help the advertiser creatively and uniquely leverage the most appropriate Radio assets and platforms to meet their specific objectives and strategies.
2019 brought a wide breadth of activity including advocacy initiatives, best practices presentations, assistance with developing media plans, data to support media decisions, ideation and more. This activity has helped to dispel many of the misperceptions among a diverse number of brands, and has resulted in a renewed interest in Radio and in many cases created incremental revenue.
Brand activity covers all categories, size and scope of businesses – a select group of companies RAB Business Development has partnered with throughout 2019 includes: Skechers, The Hartford, General Motors, Smirnoff, NAPA Auto Parts, ATD American, P&G brands including Febreze, Zzzquil and oral care brands, Madison Reed, GoDaddy.com, JC Penney, Intercontinental Hotel Group, LifeLock, Lumber Liquidators, Target, Benjamin Moore, Progressive, Reliant, Bridgestone, Country Life Vitamins, Boston Scientific, UnitedHealthcare, U.S. Navy and so many more. RAB also keeps agencies at the planning, account management and creative disciplines in the know and up to speed on everything our industry has to offer via lunch and learn events focused on a variety of topics depending on the “brief” (e.g., advocacy, creative best practices, attribution and data possibilities, etc.).
RAB Member Services continued to forward many inbound client opportunities over to Business Development to drive conversation and provide resources. Brands and agencies reach out on a regular basis and run the gamut from those interested in single market Radio plans to others looking for insight to support national activity. Regardless, all leads are nourished and most often result in their future reliance on RAB to support and consult on their marketing programs.
RAB's thought leader partnership with the ANA allows broadcast Radio the opportunity to touch brand leaders from over 1,000 leading companies, representing some 20,000 brands that collectively spend more than $400 billion annually.
2019 represented the third year of a five-year partnership with the ANA and the return on investment for our broadcast supporters is paying off. In fact, 51.7% of advertisers surveyed indicated they have learned more about broadcast Radio having read ANA publications/communications or attending webinars or conferences, and 46.6% of marketers surveyed have included Radio in their strategies as a result of meeting with Radio people at ANA events, attending webinars or reading ANA newsletters.
Radio's strengths, the wants and needs it fulfills for its listeners and communities, multi-platform innovation and best practices are core to the communication conveyed to this massive group of marketers and the results are rewarding:
RAB-written contributions to the ANA Forward (monthly articles published to the ANA Knowledge Center) successfully weaved Radio into the fabric of
some of today's hottest topics among the marketing and advertising community including Influencer Marketing, Voice, Creative and Localism.
These articles were each distributed to the inboxes of 57,000 ANA Members, Associate Members and non-members, blasted via ANA's social media outlets and distributed with personal cover letters to the RAB's proprietary database of 5,300 advertisers and agencies.
The page views and unique views for each piece are consistently 20X greater than ANA baseline metrics and time spent with Radio's content is nearly three minutes among brands across virtually every category of business including automotive, financial, entertainment, consumer packaged goods, sports leagues and teams, retail, pharmaceutical and healthcare, restaurants, wireless, insurance and more.
Interest in audio continues to increase among the marketing community and the RAB has had an influx of requests for meetings by both agencies and marketers alike to share creative best practices and innovation in audio creative. As such, when invited to present a webinar to ANA members and associate members, the focus was an instructive, inspirational and actionable presentation of creative best practices for audio. The webinar, titled “Crafting Radio Creative that Works!” was presented by Tammy Greenberg and produced by Jeff Schmidt for the ANA, and the results confirmed it to be much sought-after insight. We achieved ANA record-breaking attendance of more than 200 marketers including P&G, AAA, State Farm, AFLAC, Del Taco, Ulta Beauty, U.S. Cellular, Universal Studios, White Castle, Caesars Entertainment, Subway, Allstate, ExxonMobil, Tractor Supply Company and many more. The webinar achieved a 3.92/4 content score and verbatim reviews included:
RAB continues to identify organizations that offer forums to meet, advocate and connect with local, regional and national advertising professionals. In the past year, RAB has been invited to present to the 4A's (American Association of Advertising Agencies) Local Audio/Video Committee and has attended workshops and conferences, including MediaPost, Alliance for Women in Media, Local Ad Club and MediaVillage events. The RAB also presented a first-ever webinar on Radio's ability to drive dealer traffic for NADA (National Automobile Dealers Association).
This webinar presented by Erica Farber and Annette Malave focused on providing solutions to NADA and ATD (American Truck Dealers) members as well as delivering information and knowledge from industry experts. Our webinar titled "Using Radio to Sell More Cars" was attended by nearly 140 NADA and ATD members and was well received.
All of this activity has proven fruitful for advocacy and business development efforts throughout the year.
The 2019 $50,000 Best of Show honor was presented to Wieden + Kennedy for their Old Spice Pomade Radio campaign. The diversity in the winners this year was impressive and Beresford-Hill stated it well when he said, “We had tremendous diversity in this year's winning audio, and what impressed the final round judges most was the power of storytelling and the various ways advertisers were able to convey a brand's message through innovative and unique creative.”
The Radio Marketer of the Year award was presented to Jeff Charney, chief marketing officer at Progressive Insurance, for the company's brand efforts that have made Radio a key component in its advertising campaigns, with a laser focus on consumer-first audio creative.
The Radio Mercury Awards Advisory Council continues to guide the competition from year to year, ensuring the awards evolve in an ever-changing audio and advertising landscape. The Radio Mercury Awards build long-term relationships with the creative community, enabling us to elevate the caliber of audio creative and to share best practices for Radio creative that we can then share with our membership and advertisers alike.
The year-long initiative kicked off with Call for Entry, first round and final round judging, with the culmination of the awards event on June 6 at SONY HALL in New York City.
Chris Beresford-Hill, chief creative officer, TBWA\Chiat\Day NY, served as Chief Judge, and along with a notable final round jury, selected 139 Finalist spots created by agencies, radio stations, in-house agencies, production companies and students. The winners were recognized with the world's most respected Radio advertising awards as well as some weighty cash prizes.
The RAB and our partners at the NAB brought together a long-term steering committee comprised of a diverse group of broadcasters to help us reimagine the Radio Show over the next three years.
Committee members include: Tim Clarke, Cox Media Group; Darren Davis, iHeartMedia; Mike Hulvey, Neuhoff Media; Buzz Knight, Beasley Media Group, Susan Larkin, Entercom Communications; Mike McVay, McVay Media; Joel Oxley, Hubbard DC; and committee chair John Zimmer, Zimmer Communications.
Together with this year's committee, the teams determined a focus for this year's show in Dallas which included a new logo and branding for the Radio Show, a hard look at the schedule culminating in more high-impact sessions, and bigger keynote events. This resulted in an increase of general sessions and fewer breakout sessions, bringing the industry together to address our future, and to engage with keynoters and speakers for cross-disciplines including sales, programming, management, and digital.
Feedback has generally been positive with attendees and exhibitors alike regarding the new programming efforts as well as the more integrated approach to bringing everyone together under one roof. We were excited by the opportunity to bring luminaries including Gary Vaynerchuk, Vayner Media, Charlotte Jones Anderson of the Dallas Cowboys, and NYT best-selling author David Fisher to the Radio Show stage, along with advertisers including Procter & Gamble, Reliant Energy, The Richards Group and others.
This year's Radio Show was also attended by a record 138 students who participated in the fourth annual Student Scholars program. Underwritten by broadcasters, this program acts as a great recruiting and marketing vehicle. One of the highlights for students and broadcasters was the mentor/mentee matchups where students had an opportunity to ‘speed date' and meet leading broadcasters, providing them the opportunity to ask specific questions and receive suggestions for their future careers.
We're enthused and excited with the initial feedback and are looking forward to continuing to evolve the Radio Show being held in Nashville, September 13-16, 2020.