ONE BUY: MULTIPLE ADVERTISING MESSAGES 

For years, advertisers have been placing multi-station radio buys and then altering the message delivered on each station for maximum impact.  The “Adults 25-54 buy” was sliced and diced to deliver a different message to men and women, young and old.  After all, a 26-year old man’s buying triggers are much different than those of a 51-year old woman. 

But, on the national level advertisers were by-and-large stuck with one message, bulk-delivered to the masses.  Welcome to 2014 and a world of change.

• National AM/FM Networks and Syndicated programs now offer copy-splitting, whereby different messages are served via satellite to different markets.

• Digital services like Pandora enable copy-splitting by age, gender and geography.  One message can speak to 30-somethings while another speaks to 40-somethings.  Retailers can specifically promote the one location nearest to the individual listener, rather than recite a laundry list of full-market destinations.  Men can hear one ad while women hear another, simply because, they’re different and have different hot buttons.

• On a local AM/FM buy, a savvy advertising agency will creatively copy-split your ad by using different announcers to resonate with each station’s audience.  (Ever hear a country-twanged ad on an Urban radio station?  Ouch.  Or hip-hop delivery on a Country station?  Ouch again.)  There’s no reason not to leverage all available resources to create the right message for each segment of your target audience.

• Using the web browsing capabilities of companies like Triton Digital (which serve radio ads to listeners who’ve exhibited specific behavior online), your radio ad can now be served only to listeners who have demonstrated an action of interest or intent related to your brand.  You can close a sale, instead of spending time attempting to generate buying interest.  Why preach the benefits of owning a hybrid car when you can tell persons already interested in buying a hybrid why they should choose your car, today.

Technology has made radio advertising infinitely more targeted.  That media buying precision translates perfectly to how you can now structure and deliver your message.  Radio’s always been an intimate, one-on-one medium.  Now you can peer clearly through the looking glass to see who that “one” is and tailor your message to make them nod “Yes!”

Look for our fifth and final installment in this series next week.

Mark Lipsky is the President and CEO of The Radio Agency. Please follow The Radio Agency’s Blog “Sounding Board” by subscribing to the email or RSS links above.Visit our website TheRadioAgency.com