Incoming 3AW breakfast presenter and advertising executive Russel Howcroft has told a virtual presentation at The Big Ideas Store:
“If you’re not advertising on talk radio you are missing out on a lot of wealth. Average household wealth for older talk radio listeners is $1.2 million. They have money. Advertise to people who have money.”
The presentation, titled ‘Sounds of Success,’ featured Howcroft, Neil Mitchell, Eardrum’s Ralph van Dijk and Money News presenter Brooke Corte, discussed tips for getting then best from your radio advertising and why talk radio advertising is great value for money.
“There is speed, low costs of entry and quick turnaround of production, you can be relentless and persistent with your advertising. Thirty seconds of well written copy can be a wonderous thing, you can think of an idea and it can be on air the next day. Because advertisers are heard so regularly on listeners’ favourite station they become like part of the family… buyers will naturally go to your brands,” Howcroft told the remote audience of agencies and media buyers.
Neil Mitchell said: “Our audience is older, they have money and they want to spend it. There is nothing they won’t buy and they have the money to buy it. Boomers don’t believe they are getting old, they want to prove they’re not, so they want to buy the new car and take the world trip.”
Being in Melbourne the conversation soon turned to the Covid pandemic. Corte said she has enjoyed moving from tv to radio because on radio you can get closer to your audience and hear the things they are concerned about.
“People are really worried right now about their money during Covid… they need empathy. I’m conscious of not sensationalising the wrong thing. For example, a few weeks ago, bank shares were crashing, people were worried about the banks. We didn’t sensationalise it, we said the banks are stable, although share prices are down. I’m conscious of that responsibility… At the moment, people can’t keep up with the massive amount of changing information so they turn to us to break down the most important things for them.”
What are issues that people are concerned about at the moment?
According to Neil Mitchell then answer is pretty clear cut: “Covid, nothing else at the moment. It is dominating. Normally topics we discuss are more varied, but not at the moment.”
In another Big Ideas session earlier this week, 2GB’s new breakfast presenter Ben Fordham echoed similar sentiments: “I’m careful about using too much social media or politics from the Canberra bubble for story topics. I rely on conversations I have with listeners and people, I meet. Never would I dare to do an entire show on one topic in the past, but now every show is really about just one topic, Coronavirus… no one is talking about anything else… everywhere I go people turn to me and say, what about Coronavirus.”
Ralph van Dijk explained the “rules of the game,” for writing good radio ads. “The difference is between hearing an d listening. We hear everything but we have to get the listeners to listen and engage. People don’t listen to radio ads, they listen to what they are interested in. Sometimes what they are interested in is a radio ad…
“We need to use the theatre of the mind, it is that fundamental. Let them imagine their version of what they are hearing and they will remember the brand the proposition and the message. We have to draw them in and make them care, using sound effects, actors that bring the words to life.”
Listen to Ralph explain what he means in this audio from the session (there is an example of an ad that uses good techniques at about 1 min 50 seconds in).
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