Brianwaves - The once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for radio advertising

But DAB digital radio – the subject for Media Week ’s Question Time next week – could be about to change all that.

So, are media buyers and clients happy to stick with 30second spots and campaigns built on frequency or do they deserve and demand something more sophisticated so that radio can compete effectively in the digital age? I would like to think DAB digital radio will provide the means for radio to accelerate its way to being a 10%medium. But there is a long way to go.

Now, at the end of 2004, we have a million DAB digital radios out there – about 4% penetration – and it’s currently the second fastest selling consumer technology. Receiver numbers are forecast to outstrip digital television quicker than you might think.

Perhaps the most intriguing question is what can you do with a medium that already gets used around three and a half hours a day by 90%of the population, is available in every mobile, portable and fixed location and in every room in the house and can offer visual content as well as sound.

Starting from here to design radio advertising it is unlikely you would come up with the 30second commercial and consider it “job done”.

We are familiar with stations that schedule over-long ad breaks or run excessive minutage, and of commercials which lack the basic creative imagination to prevent them irritating listeners. But as a product, the spot commercial arose in response to what radio could offer and how people listened to it, so, with the technology of radio devices changing and the explosion of new services, it behoves the industry to come up with something better.

Broadcasters are already aware of the effectiveness of rudimentary text displays on DAB digital radios and it is a small leap to imagine what happens when this text display expands into a colour graphics screen.

For the advertiser, this offers an opportunity to display brand logos, pack shots and other information alongside the audio.

It is quite simple to run moving graphics and even video clips alongside the sound commercial.

If that sounds like cheap TV then think again, because that analogy is to misunderstand how radio is consumed and how the visual display is likely to be used.

The other element to DAB digital radio technology is the addition of memory to radio receivers. “Rewind Radios” are already available and allow the listener to pause live listening and resume minutes or even hours later. The next implementation of this technology to appear from early 2005 adds control signals broadcast via an EPG enabling listeners to navigate and schedule their listening to taste.

This immediately sparks fears of skipping ad breaks, but again that is to make giant assumptions about how radio – particularly commercial radio – is consumed.

Ofcom’s research into the iPod Generation (July 2004) concluded that 18 to 30-year-olds are intolerant of “crappy” adverts, repetitive playlists and lack of listings, which makes it harder to “find good stuff ”.

However, despite downloading, ripping and iPods, it is radio that provides them with company and serendipity in a way music alone cannot. This generation wants radio to add valued content to their mobile phone and iPod via simple screen-based controls and want some of that content to be available on demand.

All of this is realisable with DAB digital radio and, during the next 12 months, convergent devices will begin to appear which meet some of this generation’s aspirations.

Given the way that any mobile device with text and a screen is already used, it is easy to see how radio advertising can forma part of that experience.

But interactive broadcasting need not be the ephemeral experience radio currently is.

Radio advertising displayed in much the same way as a playlist allows the listener to review the information heard, listen again (or hear a longer version) and read text information simply by clicking on the log of commercials played that day.

Imagining adding radio and associated navigation for radio commercials on top of our already familiar experiences of smartphones, Black Berrys and PDAs – it is not difficult to see how it should all work.

Where DAB digital radio is being designed for mobile use with a screen and rewind memory then the same features can – and will – be built in to boom boxes, kitchen and bedroom radios, micro-systems and in-car receivers.

And just as we already push audio content, so we can expect to push associated content to a live screen on the radio, which sits all day on the worktop. This turns the radio into display advertising in the kitchen, by the bed, in the bathroom or anywhere people listen.
Would people look at such a radio? Well not all the time, obviously, but our research suggests something oddly compelling and comforting about the content displayed on the radio’s colour screen.

Equally, however, it highlights the necessity of a balance between certain types of push content and material related or unrelated to the audio content at the time.

In these visual radio devices the sound commercial can be recalled later, together with any amount of screen information.

Interactivity is no more a challenge on a fixed radio than on a mobile phone – a fixed radio with Bluetooth allows it to communicate via your mobile. A hidden advantage is electronic audience research, not only of the impact of a particular commercial, but to radio listening in general. Individuals’ and households’ real-time listening habits recorded and collected, including responses to advertising, would give unrivalled radio research results.

These types of integrated DAB product could begin to appear in less than a year, so where does that leave the 30-second commercial? It is easy to conclude that broadcasting the same 30-second spot buried within a three minute break-set and repeated four times an hour is not the most sophisticated or arresting way to deliver a message.

One conclusion is that you no longer need to cram the entire message into 30 seconds.

Instead, use less time more creatively so a listener will find it compelling to ask the radio to tell him more about the product (be it to hear longer audio ad, text, slideshow, movie clip, weblink or initiate an SMS request).

Longer interaction with the product advertising means the ad works harder than a 30-second spot ever could. It need not be at the expense of missing any usual listening, of course – the radio programme can be automatically paused during interaction.

Alternatively, being the perfect secondary medium that it is, the listener can continue listening to the radio while browsing the advertising graphic/text content.

Now the radio listener takes control of the radio as and when he wishes, stretching the length of a commercial message without the fear of missing out on a station’s programming.

The ultimate effect of this “elastic listening” is still unknown but it offers the possibility of making commercials work harder, of appealing better to their target audience, and having additional up to date content linked directly.

Equally important is the growth in sponsorship.

Sponsored links which prompt to interact on the radio with prestored advertising content is far more compelling and less restrictive than the current approach to sponsors’ tags.

Having the sponsor’s brand present on screen for the duration of a radio programme is in itself more powerful and valuable than anything radio has been able to offer to date.

Five years ago, when Digital One kicked off commercial DAB radio, there was nothing more than a vague concept of elastic listening, rewind radio, visual content or interactivity.

Since then, dotcom has come (or, some of it, gone), SMS messaging reached pubescence and multi channel TV passed through it. We can predict the take-up of DAB radio with some confidence and smell the impact it should make to the mobile world.

We can choose to leave the 30-second commercial alone, of course, but to do so would be to miss an opportunity that comes along only once in a lifetime to make radio advertising better for listeners, better for broadcasters and better for clients .

Quentin Howard is chief executive of Digital One

DAB forum

MediaWeek, in conjunction with Digital One, is hosting a Question Time on the future of DAB.

The event takes place at The Royal Society of Arts, John Adam Street, London, on 17 November, at 11am. If you would like to attend, contact Andrea Hayes on 020 8565 3056.