Keys To Effective Radio Ads: Brand Early And Often,’ Use Jingles.

Radio advertisers’ fight for listeners’ attention comes down to just a few simple steps for effective commercials, according to an overview of various research sources in the latest Westwood One blog.

“Don’t blame the media plan or media vendors for weak attribution and brand lift: usually creative is the issue and the ad copy fails to brand early and often,” Cumulus Media/Westwood One Audio Active Group Chief Insights Officer Pierre Bouvard says, recommending that advertisers should “check off if your brand is mentioned in first two seconds, and if there are at least five or more audio track brand mentions in 30-second ads.”

Put another way, the greater the number of brand mentions, the stronger the brand equity, whether familiarity, affinity or likelihood to seek information. “Thousands of brand effect studies find the more you say your brand name, the greater your advertising brand recall,” Bouvard says. “If you say your name a lot, more consumers can recall your ad and correctly tie the ad to your brand.”

How important is that rule to all ads, vs. those just on audio media? Citing a DVJ Insights study finding that the more times the brand name was said in the audio track of the TV ad, the greater the brand was linked to the ad — while visual logo flashes have modest brand effect — Bouvard notes that “you can look away but you cannot shut your ears: in video ads, audio branding does all the brand recall heavy lifting.”

As to the importance of jingles, a Veritonic study shows that a sonic logo with melody is two times as likely to be correctly associated with the brand, while an audio logo with the advertiser’s name is 7.5 times more likely to have that brand association.

The blog also suggests adding a jingle or other sonic assets to ads to “supercharge association to your brand.” Results of a study from System1 and TikTok show that the best ways to boost brand awareness during an ad’s first two seconds is with sonic assets, logos, brand characters and jingles.

Another study from System1 and Effie showed how weak branding can ruin advertising impact. Among smaller and medium brands, the number of positive brand effects was 70% lower in ads with poor branding, while ads from category leaders saw a 50% drop from poorly-branded ads.

A LeadsRx study focused on a job recruitment brand’s AM/FM radio ads found that poorly-branded ads had a negligible impact on website traffic, while enhanced creative executions boosted website visits as much as 15% or more.

“Your brand has to ‘be known before you’re needed,’” Bouvard says. “The brand that’s remembered is the brand that is bought.”