Radio’s Return On Investment

Over a period of six months four advertising campaigns were conducted in four different markets using four different product classifications. The results of the study were based on the actual retail sales generated by these campaigns. 

Here’s a summary of the findings:

• Radio moves product. Across four different advertisers, radio advertising consistently and significantly increased product sales. Radio advertising also delivered meaningful profit for each dollar invested. Radio demonstrated that it can function as a primary medium for advertising.

• Radio ads increase sales even when national television is present. Radio was just as potent when aired with national TV as it was by itself.

• Radio’s effects can be measured. A radio advertising campaign must have sufficient weekly frequency in order to obtain the desired results.

• In this real-world test, Radio proved its ability to deliver strong return on investment for advertisers. In this study, the Radio advertising campaigns significantly out performed Television with a 49% higher return on investment.

Here’s a final word from the Executive Summary of the study:
“We can only guess how much better the value of radio would be if the creative quality of the radio advertising received as much attention and investment as ads in other media. All the television campaigns in this test had received favorable advance testing; none of the radio ads were pre-tested.”

You can find more information about the details of this study at www.radioadlab.org.