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Indrani Sen: Measuring Radio Audience & ROI: Insights from India Radio Forum16

It was clear from the choice of topics and the deliberations that lack of a currency for selling the medium is not a major concern for the radio industry, notes Indrani Sen

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By Indrani Sen

 

The India Radio Forum 16 held last Friday (13th May, 2016) in Mumbai had a number of interesting sessions/ panel discussions related to the various current issues relevant for the radio industry before the grand award ceremony.  Apart from the two presentations “Measuring ROI for Radio” by Gaurav Mehta of OLX South Asia and “How can Radio kill the Video Star” by Hari Krishnan of ZenithOptimedia, there were four panel discussions on “Telling brand stories through effective and creative radio”, “Radio selling beyond FCT”, “Is Radio relevant in a mobile world’ and “Streaming Music – Threat or Opportunity for FM”.

 

It was clear from the choice of topics and the deliberations that lack of a currency for selling the medium is not a major concern for the radio industry. In the panel discussion “Radio selling beyond FCT” moderated by Nisha Narayanan of Red FM, the three panellist Jaideep Singh (Viacom 18), Suresh Balakrishna (Kinetic) and Vanita Keswani (Madison) did not waste any time on discussing the merit and demerit of selling radio with and without FCT. Balakrisna commented “Going beyond FCT is not a choice; how you are going to do it is the question under the current economic structure.” Singh argued that “Branded properties do not survive; properties need to be created to fill need gaps of the consumers.” Keswani cautioned about “the difference between large and small markets” in the same context. Narayan finally summed up by saying that radio industry must take the absence of the proper currency as an advantage and continue with perception selling. TAM, the only research agency providing Radio Audience Measurement (RAM), should take a note and review their research. The radio industry is not only managing without using the current RAM findings, but also is indifferent to the need for audience ratings for selling radio time.

 

Gaurav Mehta’s presentation on “Measuring ROI for radio” reassured number-crunchers like me about the merit of research and analytics and at the same time raised the question if media planners can take the same approach for TV and radio planning. Mehta shared about his experience related to TV advertising with IPL where his investment resulted in a substantial increase in reach and awareness about OLX but created no spike in his sales matrix. On the contrary, his venture into radio advertising gave him a much better ROI related to sales. On the contrary, his venture into radio advertising gave him a much better ROI related to sales. OLX, according to Mehta is a regional marketer because the consumer psyche differs from region to region. Therefore OLX needs to use different advertising communications in different parts of India which makes radio a natural fit in its media mix. Mehta explained in details about the research and analytics undertaken by OLX in relation to measurement of ROI, where around 800 pieces of information are used in a media optimiser model developed in-house for radio planning, buying and scheduling.  OLX chops and changes the radio plan on a two day cycle in order to get the most effective ROI.

 

Academic research and modelling in the above area started in the first decade of this century. In 2012 an interesting while paper was developed by Arbitron showing how to do ROI modeling. http://www.arbitron.com/downloads/ROIonMarketingModelMix.pdf. In 2012 an interesting while paper. In the same year, Drew Kondylas, Marketing Consultant at The Radio Agency wrote in his blog“Using radio is a powerful and efficient tool to generate leads and revenue — one of the most efficient in fact — and tracking results should never get in the way of getting results.” http://www.radiodirect.com/calculate-roi-for-your-radio-campaign/. In 2014, Ad Age India carried report of a Nielsen Catalina Study showing that the ratio of incremental sales revenue per thousand to advertising cost per thousand is highest for radio. Radio also delivers result consistently and gives massive return on advertising investment. http://www.adageindia.in/media/what-medium-scores-highest-roi-it-may-be-radio/articleshow/45733960.cms.

 

It is extremely reassuring to find that the management of a young marketing organisation has given the necessary financial support and freedom to their marketing head for developing a system for measuring ROIs for the media mix in general and radio in particular. Media Agencies should take a note and explore with their clients the scope of measuring ROI for radio through analytics.

 

Indrani Sen is a veteran media agency and marketing services professional. She is currently an Independent Consultant and Adjunct Faculty, Media Management at Symbiosis Institute of Media & Communication, Pune. This column MediaSENse will appear fortnightly. The views expressed here are her own.

http://www.arbitron.com/downloads/ROIonMarketingModelMix.pdf.

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