Twenty years after critics said MTV would kill radio and a decade after pundits predicted iPods would bury it, radio is enjoying a digital-driven renaissance.  No longer obsessed with coddling analog technology, content providers have morphed the medium into a multi-platform bundle of options that ensure radio’s ongoing place in our media mix. 

For listeners, this means countless new ways to enjoy their favorite music and spoken word entertainment.  They can listen to radio with or without personalities to presell and backsell music set lists and weave pop culture and banter into the listening experience.  Online radio listeners can choose from professionally-curated radio formats and playlists or craft their own, sculpted to favor the most mainstream or eclectic line-up of artists and genres.

For advertisers, this broad spectrum of audio options has made advertising’s most intimate mass medium even more attractive to those who like to target on a granular level.

To help you rediscover or reconsider your relationship with radio, here’s the first of five amazing things the medium can do today that will benefit your brand. 

RADIO CAN DELIVER 100% EFFICIENCY BY AGE, GENDER AND GEOGRAPHY. 

Many Internet radio platforms can now fulfill this 100% efficiency promise.  And for the sake of example, let’s look at the 800 lb. gorilla of streaming radio, Pandora.  With an estimated 71+ million, unique weekly listeners, Pandora competes with national AM/FM networks for audience delivery and advertiser dollars.  But while AM/FM networks can target a specific demographic, dollars are wasted delivering an advertiser’s message to unintended recipients.  The beer brand spending to reach Men 21-34 on Rock Radio will still pay for the privilege of touching Men under 21, Men over 34 and all Women who just happen to be listening to that Radio station or network.

Pandora’s different.  That same hypothetical advertiser targeting Men 21-34 can place a buy on Pandora and only pay for commercial messages delivered to Men between the ages of 21 and 34.  (Pandora listeners sign up by giving their age, gender and zip code.  Sure, some women may listen on their man’s account, but the purity of the audience target is still light years ahead of broadcast delivery.)  Ads are served to those within the desired demographic and age ranges can be traditional “Nielsen friendly” demos like Men 21-34 or custom-created targets like Men 22-29 years old.

Things get really interesting when you overlay geography.  Mass media like television, newspaper and even terrestrial radio deliver their message blanketed across a wide geography.  A five-location Brooklyn restaurant chain would need to “waste” their advertising message across New York’s other four boroughs, plus Connecticut, New Jersey and upstate New York.  With Pandora, that same advertiser could restrict message delivery to just those who signed up for Pandora with a Brooklyn zip code.  Advertisers can also target by county or create custom clusters of zip codes (provided there are enough listeners in that area to support a media buy).  Imagine what that could mean to a luxury brand that had never before considered radio a viable marketing option, but now can deliver their message to Adults 45-60 who live in America’s 500 wealthiest zip codes.

Few advertisers have fully-leveraged this powerful market segmentation, but more are catching on every day.

More amazing “new tricks” in Part Two…

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