The radio ads targeted to just one person

Radio Tomorrow with James Cridland

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that radio, as an advertising medium, works really well. Really well. People listen to what’s on the radio – even advertising messages.

You might remember a few radio ads for radio itself. Most of them I’ve ever heard are either talking about the “theatre of the mind” (not very interesting to a would-be advertiser), or use a cheaply-made voiceover saying that radio advertising is “cheaper than you think” and “after all, you’re listening to it!” – you know the score.

So you might like this from the UK’s Radiocentre – a kind of cross between a commercial radio association and a Radio Advertising Bureau.

Radiocentre spotted a few key clients who aren’t spending enough on UK radio. So they did their research. Looking at Unilever (who make everything from tea bags to detergent), they found the Chief Marketing Officer, a man rejoicing in the name of Keith Weed. His Twitter profile says he’s a “lover of all things visual”, which doesn’t bode well for his radio spend.

Radiocentre proceeded to make a radio ad – just for him. They then got it onto the types of radio stations he might be listening to in the morning. Here’s the ad.

When the ads went out, the response was quite fast. “You can not believe how many calls and emails I’ve had from people who had heard it,” tweeted Keith, presumably vaguely flattered at the attention. Others tweeted him to say how great his ad was.

After a day of this ad, in primetime across a number of stations, he’d got the message: radio works. Keith managed to respond by tweeting a rap from one of his brand’s mascots (a monkey that sells tea, as it happens). As a piece of highly-targeted advertising, it worked beautifully.

Radiocentre have now targeted people at a few more companies: Craig Inglis, the Customer Director from department store John Lewis (think Macy’s or David Jones); and Hugh Pile, the Chief Marketing Officer of makeup company L’Oreal. You can hear all the ads here.

The five, nine, twelve or fifteen minutes of advertising that goes out on a typical commercial radio station every hour is just as much a part of the sound of the station as the songs and the presenters; and this is a nice way to have a bit of fun to land a great point: that radio really works and can grab peoples’ attention.

About The Author

James Cridland is a radio futurologist, and is Managing Director of media.info, a companion website to radioinfo and AsiaRadioToday.
He has served as a judge for a number of industry awards including the Australian ABC Local Radio Awards, the UK Student Radio Awards, and the UK’s Radio Academy Awards, where he has also served on the committee. He was a founder of the hybrid radio technology association RadioDNS.
James is one of the organisers of nextrad.io, the radio ideas conference each September, and is also on the committee of RadioDays Europe. He writes for publications including his own media.info, Radio World International and RAIN News.

James recently moved from North London to Brisbane with his partner and a two year-old radio-loving toddler. He very, very much likes beer.