BioNTech-Pfizer was radio’s top advertiser for the week of June 13-19, 2022, airing 59,467 spots for its COVID19 vaccination campaign. That’s a four-fold increase from one week earlier when it ran 15,557 spots to rank No. 33. BioNTech-Pfizer was radio’s biggest advertiser for five consecutive weeks at the end of 2021, airing more than 100,000 spots for its COVID booster campaign. The pharma giant is likely to remain a top radio advertiser in the weeks and months to come now that healthcare workers have begun to administer vaccines to children aged six months to five years old.
Big Pharma has become a rising ad category at radio after years of under-using the medium. There are a total of six accounts in the Prescription Medications or Pharmaceutical Company categories in the most recent spot count tabulation from Media Monitors. After BioNTech-Pfizer it’s Pfizer at No. 33 with 17,266 spots for Paxlovid, and at No. 51 with 10,948 occurrences for Ibrance. Then there’s Bristol Myers Squibb-Pfizer at No. 63 with 9,498 spots, AbbVie at No. 78 with 8,068 detections for Creon and AbbVie Inc-Ironwood Pharmaceutical Inc at 94 with 6,174 airings for Linzess.
No one ran more announcements on radio last week than its largest station owner, iHeartMedia, which aired 72,190 fee promotional announcements for the iHeartRadio Music Festival which takes place Sept. 23-24 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. That’s in addition to 49,604 promos for the iHeartRadio streaming app.
The remainder of the top ten are all radio cornerstones, even though several have traded places on the weekly spot count list, including Progressive, Indeed, Upside, ZipRecruiter and Grainger. DQ Dairy Queen logs a third consecutive week in the top 10, this time at No.7 for another finish atop the Fast Casual-Quick Service Restaurants category.
The Home Depot, which climbed into the No. 1 position in the week prior to Memorial Day weekend for the first time in six months, spent a second consecutive week in the top ten this time at No. 9.
For the week of June 13-19, 2022, the top ten on the Media Monitors tally are iHeartRadio MusicFestival at 1, BioNTech-Pfizer at 2, Progressive at 3, iHeartRadio at 4, Indeed at 5, Upside at 6, DQ Dairy Queen at 7, Zip Recruiter at 8, The Home Depot at 9 and Grainger at 10.