What makes brands choose radio for content marketing

Popular radio show ‘What Women Want’ with Kareena Kapoor Khan on 104.8 Ishq FM may come across as a plain vanilla celebrity talk show on radio. But from the content marketing perspective, it created a precedent for marketers on how a radio-focused show could go viral on the internet and deliver unprecedented results for brands (Dabur India in this case), which integrated itself with the content. 

With radio now providing a multimedia approach (with both the FM channel and digital), brands are gradually waking up to the strength the medium provides, audio integration on FM channels and further amplification on their digital platforms.

Branded content on radio is said to procure more engagement among consumers better than ads, building brand likeability and relationships and inducing sales. But does the medium provide measurable returns on business objectives to brands? And what exactly pushes a brand to choose radio as a medium for their content marketing or branded content initiatives, given how marketers are increasingly moving onto digital platforms?

Nisha Narayanan

"Radio is and should be a very integral part of any media plan, particularly because it focuses on building a strong relationship with the target audience and helps reach the last mile, being hyper-local in nature with its content approach. Being a frequency medium, the number of times a brand goes out there, the top-of-mind recall improves," says Nisha Narayanan, COO and Director, Red FM.

But when exactly should a brand opt for radio?

Ramanujam Sridhar

“Radio by its very nature is a medium to increase awareness, particularly in the case of new brands that are not very well-known and when a sense of announcement can be added to that. It gives a lot of scope for it to have a slightly advertorial sort of content,” said Ramanujam Sridhar, CEO of Brand-Comm.

Sunil Kumaran

Branded content is evolving across mediums. Radio is also going in the direction of branded content aggressively. What works for radio is that it operates out of different geographies. “If I want to do a branded content campaign in UP as a market, I would draw on strong local insight that would resonate with that target audience and my content could be basically designed around that. Radio gives you those insights specific to that region. When it comes to branded content, that's what most clients are looking to leverage. Local approach, local insights and brands can have customised messaging depending upon the geographies,” said Sunil Kumaran, Country Head, Thwink, RBNL.

It could be national, it could be local, and thus becomes very mouldable where a brand can easily create concepts and solutions for specific requirements.

Sandeep Verma

Sandeep Verma, Managing Director, Bajaj Consumer Care, said that radio can be used for both original content marketing initiatives and also to amplify the existing content initiatives as a part of the overall media mix. Radio can be chosen for original content whenever the brand wants to take a clear stance or position on certain subjects/issues and is confident that the content is engaging enough to get the full attention of the listener.

Radio as a medium nowadays is not just limited to audio-only. Almost all radio channels have expanded over digital with podcasts and their presence over social media platforms. In short, radio is in a way letting brands experiment themselves via a multimedia approach.

Shivangini Jajoria

“Now content is relevant for the entire universe and that's not limited to only radio. So radio is suitable for content that is not only local to a particular city, but if it's a content that I believe is worth exposing to the world, I will put it out on the internet,” said Shivangini Jajoria, National Head, Operations, 104.8 Ishq.

The returns on radio

Given its multimedia approach, what kind of ROI radio as a platform would generate for brands is a question. ROI in terms of top-of-mind recall is something a brand definitely can procure. But what about the exact audience insights? Are brands and channels in a position to collect the right insights of the audiences?

Kumaran said ROI is linked to measurement and measurement in radio is limited at this point of time. But radio channels are putting research into place to ensure the measurement of campaigns, especially in the content space. “There are clients we take on board as pre- and post-evaluation of the campaign to check how it affected the brand on reach and other parameters,” he said.

Nobody wants to put money on radio or any other medium again if they didn't see the effectiveness of the campaign. But since a lot of brands do come back, it means the medium is working somewhere, said Jajoria. Participation of audiences can be measured via the calls they make, messages they share and on-ground participation.

Asked how audio as content can find its place in the era of visuals, Kumaran said, “The advantage radio has when it comes to content space is that it is an audio medium. To communicate the brand messaging with the power of storytelling, the audience actually contextualises it and connects with the story based on their cultural upbringing and their background. There is restriction because you're actually using audio medium, which is powerful when it comes to open your mind. And that's why we say it works at the theatre of the mind, opens your mind to imagination, which no other media can do."

Most brands have something called the sonic branding, the power of this is very integral to the brand and it can be driven by radio, said Narayanan.

Video with all production and tasks become a bit more expensive whereas radio that way is fairly simple, with more access among consumers and with its fast message delivery capacity. 

Categories that work best on radio

But are there any specific categories of brands suitable for radio?

Any brand that is targeting the mass audience and that cut across SBS and ABC categories should definitely look at radio as part of a plan. Radio plus digital combination and on-ground combination are very important as far as categories are concerned. Automobile, ecommerce, real estate, government campaign, hospitality, health categories are fairly strong on radio. More and more new categories are coming into radio and experimenting with radio, said Narayanan.

Indira Rangarajan

“Radio is one constant state of evolution as far as advertising is concerned. There have been some categories such as real estate that use topical content. Any category can come into this. It can be explored across categories, it is a mass medium. It obviously targets large audiences. But there are specific initiatives that target particular audience segment,” said Indira Rangarajan, National Programming Head for Mirchi Love.