Does Anyone Pay Attention to the Radio?

According to new research based on advanced physiological testing, Radio ads have emotional impact on consumers that is equal to that of television ads. The Radio Ad Lab released the new study, Engagement, Emotions, and the Power of Radio, at the Interep Mid-Year Radio Symposium in New York.

Engagement, Emotions, and the Power of Radio was designed to assess how well Radio ads generate emotional responses and engage with consumers, compared to television ads. The study used methods of measuring emotional responses that don't require verbal responses, but work at a deeper, pre-cognitive level.

Conducted by Gallup & Robinson, the study used leading-edge measures of emotional response, supplemented with traditional validated metrics of advertising effectiveness, to assess the emotional connection that advertising messages make with an audience.

Called CERA (Continuous Emotional Response Analysis), emotional activation is gathered in part through the technique of facial electromyography (EMG), and then more traditional cognitive responses about advertising effectiveness are collected through conventional face-to-face interviews. Positive and negative emotional activations were measured separately. In addition, a more traditional excitement measure based on skin conductance was used to evaluate the strength of the emotion.

The results of the study revealed that positive EMG scores and total excitement levels were just as high for Radio ads as for television ads, and Radio ads actually are lower on the negative emotional score.

All 16 Radio ads used in the study delivered an emotional impact that was equivalent, overall, to their television counterparts. In fact, four of the Radio campaigns showed EMG scores that were significantly higher than the television campaigns, while only one television ad was significantly higher than its Radio counterpart.

"Previous studies from the Radio Ad Lab have confirmed that Radio connects with its audience in very unique ways," observed Jeff Haley, President and Chief Executive Officer, Radio Advertising Bureau (RAB), and Co-Chair of the Radio Ad Lab. "This new research further verifies that Radio is an engaging environment for advertising messages and confirms that the emotional bonds Radio programming establishes with its audience transfers to the advertising."

The full Engagement, Emotions, and the Power of Radio research paper and the executive summary can be downloaded from the Radio Ad Lab website. All of the Radio Ad Lab's earlier studies and its research compendium are also available on the site.

The Radio Ad Lab Research Committee, which designs and oversees all the research, includes members of the agency and advertising communities, as well as broadcasters. That balanced involvement keeps the research objective, assuring that it is both relevant and valuable to advertisers.