More than 114,000 national radio ads aired last week for insurance companies, with Progressive accounting for nearly half the total. Media Monitors says Progressive was also radio’s biggest-volume advertiser last week, airing 66,320 commercials on stations it monitors. That is on par with what it ran a week earlier when it rose to No. 1. Progressive ran roughly three-times the 23,136 ads aired by Allstate on national radio, and more than four-times State Farm’s total of 14,222.
Macy’s also remained a big spender on radio, moving up into second place, while Pfizer leapt into the top ten, moving to No. 7 from No. 34 a week earlier with a COVID vaccine campaign.
But the hidden headline continues to be just how tightly Procter & Gamble is embracing radio. P&G advertised 15 different products on national radio, led by cold and flu remedy Vicks at No. 3 with 45,776 spots. All in, P&G ran 230,536 national radio ads across its brand portfolio last week.
“Now is not the time to be pulling back on investments in marketing,” Procter & Gamble CEO Jon Moeller said last month. He said the consumer products goods giant has a number of innovations that it is bringing to market, and those sales are how they expect to boost revenue.
Media Monitors data shows the looming tax deadline is also driving ad dollars to radio. Jackson Hewett ran more than 28,000 ads on national radio last week, while Turbo Tax aired more than 17,000. And while auto spending is light this time of year, Nissan ran about 6,300 ads to push its Pathfinder model, while Hyundai aired 5,800 ads to sell its Santa Fe model.
For the week of Feb. 5-11, 2024, the top 10 on the Media Monitors tally are Progressive at 1, Macy’s at 2, Vicks at 3, Babbel at 4, Discover at 5, Total By Verizon at 6, Pfizer at 7, ZipRecruiter at 8, Jackson Hewitt at 9 and Morgan & Morgan at 10.
