What Makes Radio Advertisements Memorable, Anyway?

First kiss. 

Seeing a different continent. 

That dinner that was so stupendous, the $300 bill lands on your table, and you don’t have a care in the world. You’d do it again.

Memory is one of the most beautiful things we own, and not just because it transports us back to the most thrilling, fascinating, or delicious times of our lives.

Memory also plays a vital role in future decision-making. This of course applies to hurtful memories as well. Bad breakups are a lesson about you and others. Cringy statements at the office you wish you could take back offer insights on how to make better jokes.

Advertisers have long known that memory drives action. But there is one underlying trait radio possesses more than any other medium, and it significantly amplifies its power.

That trait is intrusiveness. When an advertisement airs, the listener is much more likely to hear it. As opposed to say, change the television channel, turn the magazine page, or continue scrolling through their feed. This holds true even if the listener doesn’t necessarily want to hear it. Let’s say a listener hears your ad, but isn’t particularly interested in your message at this time. But at some point, they made find themselves in need of your specific service or product later on. Then what? You guessed it, they will recall the subtle manipulation of their psyche your audio ad made, and if you play your cards right, they’ll remember your brand specifically.

Intrusiveness is the overarching reason radio ads can be so memorable. But there is a collection of unique abilities the medium - and ideally, the written ads - can possess that will have them standing above the competition. Let’s sift through them.

The Best Radio Advertising Uses Room for Imagination

It might be easy to think you can deliver a superior ad with more elements present - pictures, people, faces, graphics, and whatnot. But the rebuttal to that is the timeless attraction of one form of entertainment, learning, and storytelling, is books.

At their core, books are just words. As a result, audiences get to fill in the blanks, paint their own complete picture, since the creator has supplied the brush, easel, and paint.

This is precisely what radio advertisements do. Despite fewer elements, audiences actually feel more engaged because their brain is doing at least a hint of legwork to complete the story they are hearing.

To top it all off, the brain working actually enhances memory. Think about when you were a kid, having to take a language elective even though you had no interest in it. Then, think about you or that person you know who eagerly tackled a new language as an adult. Which do you suspect wound up sticking better?

Books consist of “just” words, and radio advertising consists of “just” voices. But empowering the audience to play a role in the story you tell, is “just” the beginning of their interest in buying from you.

Repetition

Think of our memories as wet concrete. Then think of every time there is a reinforcement of that memory, as a convention center-sized fan blowing on it to accelerate drying.

That’s what radio accomplishes thanks to its efficiency. Air one ad every hour from 6AM - 7PM, and you can rest assured your message is taking a seat in listeners’ heads. And that seat does not have to even be front row, since we know how powerful the subconscious is.

What do people do when the television cuts to commercials? That’s bathroom time, snack time, mail-check time, text-time… none of which you can do while driving.

Additionally, radio’s efficiency goes beyond its airing of ads. It also is present in the actual production. 

See, radio advertising is remarkably simple to execute. This means a quality campaign consisting of 2, 3, 4 ads over 6-12 months really isn’t that difficult, expensive, or stressful. How does this tie into repetition? You can easily “freshen up” radio spots to give your audiences something new… but still keep the same overall feel. For example, you could create two characters that are central to each ad, albeit in different scenes/scenarios. Or maybe it’s a skit that leads into a slogan or jingle you’re convinced will win-over listeners.

Regardless of the specifics, the ease of radio advertising production makes it that much more difficult for audiences to forget who you are (and by the way, radio is the biggest bang for your buck that you’ll ever know).

Speaking of audiences, while it’s important to know their importance…it’s even more important to know you’re speaking to the right ones.

Target Audience

It’s not quite to the level of the whole “Tree drops in a forest and no one’s around” scenario, but advertising can be quite irrelevant if it occurs amidst a huge hurdle - talking to irrelevant people.

Thanks to highly-detailed demographics and software analytics tools, radio stations know broad, but invaluable, information about who is tuning into their stations. 

It’s important to note this is all done ethically, meaning there’s no individual tracking similar to what social media platforms have used in advertising that, you know, resulted in lawsuits.

So let’s say you have a product that is largely meant for older women. Great news, there’s a radio station predominantly comprised of exactly those. Maybe your business caters to young men. What do you know! Radio stations know just where those same ears are listening.

Age, gender, lifestyle, income, education, and geography are just the tip of the iceberg businesses can utilize when identifying which radio stations would be the best match for their advertising. That level of targeting all but ensures listeners’ memory of you becomes exactly what you want - ingrained.

We Create the Memories, So YOU Can Enjoy the Boom in Sales

A lot of station groups say that, we get it. But know what they can’t say? That they are employee-owned, which is what we are, 100%. That means a deeper interest in our clients’ success than anywhere else, because it’s literally our jobs and ownership at stake. We own the place! It’s what’s propelled us to our place atop the ratings in the entire Treasure Valley.

And we’d love for your business to be the next to reap the benefits of collaborating with our smart, fun, and caring team. And even if now isn’t the best time to talk about your advertising budget, we’d love to give you all the tools to succeed in strategically marketing your business.

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