Media consultants tired of a corporate vendor’s notes on their messaging in areas like connected television can still find a safe space in radio this cycle.
“There are no restrictions” on the types of ads broadcast radio stations are willing to air, said Tony Hereau, Nielsen’s VP of Cross-Platform Insights. One thing that Hereau suggested, which may sound like nails on a chalkboard to digital consultants, is to take a TV ad and use the audio as a radio spot.
“You can really just use radio to make your TV campaign better,” he told C&E in a recent interview. “A lot of political advertisers haven’t realized that because they haven’t used radio. They haven’t tested that impact, but in other forms of advertising they see that same halo effect so you really don’t need to deviate that much from the same message that you have on television with radio.”
Martha McKenna, head of Democratic media shop McKenna Media, thinks radio is actually a more useful format for some messaging than TV or digital. “The 60-second radio format is [more] useful for telling longer stories than a 30-second TV ad or an even shorter digital format,” she said. “Republicans have always used radio to deliver negative messages, particularly in rural areas, where people spend a lot of time with the radio on.”
She added: “It’s a strong part of the media mix for Democrats across the board, too, in rural, suburban and urban areas.”
In fact, Eric Wilson’s group, the Center for Campaign Innovation, credited an early investment in radio with giving Virginia voters a favorable view of now-Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R). A December report from the Center, together with Public Opinion Strategies, stated: “Voters who recalled hearing Youngkin radio ads had a 22-point more favorable image and were 13 points more likely to vote for him. This lift was more than TV and digital combined and suggests McAuliffe’s absence from the radio airwaves provided Youngkin a blank canvas.”
Tom Edmonds, a veteran GOP media strategist, echoed Wilson: “Rural radio has probably been more important in winning elections for Republicans than any other single medium,” he said. “A fact that is lost on a lot of this generation of political media consultants, but not the governor of Virginia.”
When it comes to creative, Edmonds likes radio for compare-and-contrast ads in addition to standard GOTV messaging. Though Casey Phillips, a principal at The Hereford Agency, notes that ads must have a real conversational tone to be effective.
“The best radio ads are the ones that are written like people talk and take advantage of the extra time radio advertising affords you,” he said, adding that today’s drivers could be particularly open to hearing messages about energy given the high gas prices the country is experiencing.
“At a time of high energy prices you often have an upset captive voter who has just paid a small fortune to fill up their tank and will be very open to our message of energy independence and lower fuel prices,” Phillips added.
