Two-thirds of all local radio commercials tested in Philadelphia are failures. That might actually be good news.
“Facial Coding” is a form of research based on evaluating the facial reactions subjects have to various stimuli - a way to measure their emotional reaction and engagement. The science has been around since 1978, it’s effective, and one of the leaders in the field is a company called Sensory Logic.
Jerry Lee, the far-sighted Chairman of WBEB (B101) Philadelphia, has worked with Sound Logic to test the engagement and effectiveness of a large sample of national and local (Philly) radio spots. The bad news is that two-thirds of the local spots in a major market were not at all engaging. Only 8% were engaging - the rest were “partially engaging.” The national spots were slightly better - 20% engaging, 50% not at all.
And as you might have guessed, 90% of all car dealer spots were not engaging.
Why is this potentially good news? Because we know already that radio is effective, despite those numbers, so if we make our commercials more engaging everybody wins: radio advertising becomes even more effective, clients are happier and spend more on radio.
Based on their research, Jerry and Sound Logic have developed a set of principles that are common to effective radio commercials, and from that a system whereby proposed commercial copy can be evaluated and improved. And Jerry’s giving it away: any client whose schedule includes B101 can have its proposed copy evaluated and receive research-based recommendations as to how to improve its effectiveness.
As Sensory Logic notes on its website, “emotions drive action.” And we know that when radio is used properly it can drive emotion better than any other medium. Thus radio>emotion>action can become a valuable virtuous cycle: we help advertisers improve their creative, the spots work better, results improve, and they buy more radio.
As Jerry told me yesterday, the service makes the agency a hero to the client, the client is happy with his results, and the station starts getting a bigger share of buy.
As many as two-thirds of local spots don’t engage the audience? That’s not good news. The good news is that there is so much room for improvement. If we can improve radio ads’ effectiveness the results could be much more revenue for our stations.
Our April 20 blog post, “The Netflix/Pandora/HBO Effect on Radio,” described how the technology and entertainment industries are possibly leading consumers to be less tolerant of commercials. It listed a dozen things, including testing like WBEB’s, that can help make radio commercials more effective and/or easier on the audience.