Brand marketing outperforms performance messaging by 80%, says Paul Sinkinson, managing director at Analytics Partners, at Commercial Radio & Audio's (CRA) HEARD conference.
But what do we see in radio advertising? Less brand advertising than in other channels and more performance messaging.
As a result radio advertising is innately set up for less efficiency.
"If the very message you put on the network is something that only performs better than brand positioning 20% of the time, the campaign is up against that from the start," Sinkinson said.
Consistency is also really important but generally radio ads are not running long enough for efficiency, with the average being 2-4 weeks.
"Just do it for longer, even if you're doing the wrong thing, the longer you keep doing it, the better it gets," Sinkinson said.
For example, doubling a campaign length from 10 to 20 weeks will get 34% higher ROI with the same ad, same platform, same strategy.
And if the campaign is extended to 30 weeks, it will get 60% higher ROI.
This chronic underinvestment in brand is a result of businesses wanting to demonstrate good results really quickly says Lauren Joyce, chief strategy and connections officer at ARN.
"This level of impatience means marketers aren't investing in brand for a longer term benefit," Joyce said.
But according to Nathan James, marketing manager at Hendrick's Gin, marketers need both for brand building.
"For our premium brands our ratio is 70% brand and 30% price driven work," James said.
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