In a world where the US audience has a shorter and shorter attention span and more media choices, is there any loyalty in a medium like radio with so many choices?  Let’s be honest; how many of you listen to the same radio station for more than 7 minutes (or until the next commercial break)?  Most of us have a minimum of 7-10 stations we “flick” between if we do not like the song or the station is in a commercial break.  In fact, the term “P1” (industry term for the listener’s First Preference) has gone extinct.  Fleeting are the days we threw on a radio station in the kitchen or kicked back in our rooms listening to our favorite evening DJ.  Today’s technology allows us to surf the net to background MP3s or turn on a small television in the kitchen for “background noise.”

So, how effective is our :60 second radio commercial?

A study conducted in 2005 done by the Radio Ad Lab ran two campaigns in two separate markets.  One market ran 100% television at 100 GRPs (Gross Rating Points) and the other market ran 100% radio at 100 GRPs.  The overall goal was to track the amount of actual sales produced during the flight of the campaigns.  Nothing in the study mentioned the product or the time of the year the study was conducted.  Actual sales, as measured by ACNielsen scanner data in paired stores, went up as much in the equal-weight Radio market as they did in the control TV market, controlling analytically for other marketing factors.

The radio industry would argue that in the above study, radio was more effective due to the efficiency.  Radio is typically less expensive.  As a result, an advertiser can afford more GRPs for the same budget as television, making it more effective at driving actual sales. The study goes on to explain this theory; “In addition, in the market with 50% more weight in Radio than in TV, a 50% higher weight of Radio advertising provided a 10.82% higher level of sales than the TV-only market.  And that higher weight in Radio still cost less than the TV campaigns.”

Arbitron research does not help in this debate.  Arbitron’s new research method, Personal People Meter (PPM), is designed to track a listener within any 15 minute period or quarter hour. To qualify, a listener with a PPM, must listen to a specific radio station for 5-7 minutes to be counted as a listener for 15 minutes.  Stations know this and set their music breaks for 8-10 minute intervals.  As a result, the data delivered from Arbitron is misleading. Listeners can be counted for 15 minutes when they just stopped in listen to a few good tunes before “flicking” to the next station.

At the end of the day, each advertiser needs to feel comfortable with the media they are advertising in.  It is important to look at demographics, retail locations and your product before choosing a medium.  In the 2012 media world, you need to look at these factors over all else and create a media mix to achieve the advertising goals. Most of the time, the answer is not radio or television alone, but a combination of the two, focused on key times throughout the day.  In a 2010 study done by The Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center in Seattle, today’s short attention span in children is caused by new technologies and more choices in mediums.  As this generation grows older and the choices to advertise get larger, media professionals need to get more focused than ever before.