The Hidden Costs of Radio Commercials

Radio advertising costs include only production and the cost of media, right?  Not quite.  Radio advertising sells, right?  Well...

The Hidden Cost that few advertisers pay attention to is The Cost of The Tenth Airing.  

Many advertisers spend as little as possible on radio production so as to spend as much as possible on radio media. "If I can just run this spot long and hard enough, I'll wear down everyone's resistance and people will BUY!"

     Here's the problem.  The first time anyone listens to a radio commercial, they invariably have one of three emotional reactions:  

1. "Oh! I like that!"
2. "Boy, is that dumb!"
3. NOTHING - They don't even hear you!

    Every subsequent airing strengthens that initial impression.  If they like you, after two or three airings they may pick up the phone, click to your site, or drop buy your store.  If they think your radio commercial is dumb, they will think it's dumber.  (That's not necessarily all bad.  Dumb sells.)

If people feel NOTHING the first time they hear your radio commercial, chances are they will continue to feel NOTHING
every time they hear you. 

 

     Extra frequency rarely improves NOTHING.

    You'll do better if you run a well-produced spot nine times than a me-too yawner ten times.  So, put 10% of your ad budget into production. Make at least one good commercial that will provoke some sort of REACTION on the First Airing. Nine POSITIVE impressions is better than Ten NOTHINGS.

    I realize this idea runs contrary to the thinking of many D.R. advertisers, who usually spend next to nothing on production.  But you're not going up against shoe-string retailers and DR guys.  You're going up against every other commercial on the air.

    Radio advertising sells.  But only if people listen. 

   An even better strategy is to run enough commercials so that few people hear any of them more than once or twice. If your average frequency during a flight is 5 or 6 against target, consider producing 4 or 5 spots and running them in rotation in each day part. Click to The Radio Show for examples of multi-spot campaigns I've run during one week, several months, or over a year.

#1 Cost of Radio Commercials.

#2 Cost of Radio Commercial Jingle Production.

#3 Writing Radio Commercials.

The Radio Show.

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