RAB Guide

Using radio to reach youth markets

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Contents
Foreword  
Executive summary 
Dynamics of youth markets
Radio’s coverage of youth markets 
•    dominance over BBC services
•    patterns of growth
•    listening across the day
Relationship with radio
Communication aspects of radio 
•    the “frequency medium”
•    intrusiveness
•    the “intimate medium”
•    “me and my gang” listening
•    time of day / day of week
Strategic roles for radio
•    dominant “share of mind”
•    support to other media
•    the “explainer” medium
•    speaking from inside youth culture
Radio advertising
•    consumer opinions
•    consideration
Sonic Brand Triggers
Research sources


Foreword

Using advertising to reach youth markets is quite a challenge. As any parent will know, young people's attention is highly selective and they're quick to reject anything they see as irrelevant or uninteresting.

So development of the strategy and selection of tone of voice are clearly essential considerations - but media choice can play a critical part as well. Not just the medium itself but also selection of the time slot and the probable circumstances in which it will be consumed.

As an example, the HEA's Drugs Education campaign used radio and magazines: the effect was to speak with young people about the reality of drugs from within the cultural "fortress" which they feel they occupy. On their turf, in their language, opening a dialogue allowing us to talk with, not at, them.

I know radio can play an extremely valuable part in reaching youth markets, and I'm happy to say so in this foreword. The numbers are impressive too - radio is not a minority medium for this section of society.

Charles Gallichan
Head of Advertising
Health Education Authority



Executive summary

Young people are disproportionately important to marketers, partly because of their growing spending power but also because, in the longer term, they represent the adult consumers of tomorrow.

Commercial Radio has traditionally been seen as a young person’s medium, and it dominates radio listening in this age group. Amongst 4-15 year olds, 69% of listening is to commercial stations, and they listen for 9 hours a week.

Listening increased markedly between the ages of 4 and 15: during this time, the bedroom becomes the main listening location – especially before and after school, and at weekends.

Music is at the core of radio for young people, but they cannot imagine replacing radio with other music sources. Its function becomes increasingly complex as they grow up: it helps them develop their identity, it acts as a remedy for stress, and it provides “social glue” which allows them to feel part of the peer group.

Radio communication is characterised, within the media mix, by being intrusive, high frequency and time-specific (i.e. consumed at certain exact times of day or day of week). In this market it is also particularly characterised by intimacy of listening (i.e. the bedroom) and the presence of peer group listening – “me and my gang”.

Strategically radio is well suited to creating a dominant share of mind; to acting as an “explainer”; and as a support to other media. It can also, importantly, speak from inside youth culture, which rejects external (“parent”) brands. This enhances perceptions of currency and acceptability.

Young people are selective in their attention. They notice that most radio ads are not aimed at them, and see relevance as the key to what they will/won’t listen to. Beyond relevance, creativity in advertising is important to secure their attention.

Sonic Brand Triggers are one way of effectively registering branded impacts – even for brands which are not yet relevant to the younger audience.

Dynamics of youth markets

Youth markets (defined for the purposes of this guide as those comprising people aged 4-15) have a disproportionate importance to marketers - this is despite the fact that the under-16s only account for 19% of the UK population (about 11 million people).

There are several reasons for this. On the one hand they are extremely active consumers. The table below shows some of the amounts of expenditure accounted for by young people.

Pester power has become recognised as a phenomenon, where children coerce their parents into buying certain brands or products, although it is rather difficult to quantify this.

At the same time young people are acquiring financial independence at an increasingly early age and spending their own disposable income (hence the vigour with which banks have been developing and marketing children’s savings accounts).

On the other hand however, the children of today are tomorrow’s adult consumers and brand loyalties can begin to form at a very early age (compare the Genesis Research findings discussed later where 10-year-old girls were singing “Don’t sign on the dotted line until you talk to Tempo”). So there is clearly a process of long-term brand investment taking place.

Young people are also very active consumers of a wide range of media: the next chapter looks at the role of radio within this.

Source: “Family Expenditure Survey”, Office for National Statistics,© Crown Copyright 1999/RAB estimates



Radio’s coverage of youth markets

Dominance over BBC services

Since its introduction in 1973, the growth of Commercial Radio has been dramatic, especially during the nineties. This has meant that it now offers a very good level of reach across a surprisingly wide range of different audiences, including housewives, businesspeople, light TV viewers etc.

But Commercial Radio has always been disproportionately popular amongst young people, and this pattern continues today.

CHART ONE

As Chart One shows, Commercial Radio is dominant over other stations amongst the younger half of the population, accounting for well over half their listening - and this rises to almost three-quarters among the 4-15 age group. On average, they listen to Commercial Radio for 9 hours a week.

The majority of people take their listening habits with them through life - this is known as “the Commercial Radio Generation effect” - and explains why the dominance of Commercial Radio is gradually extending into older groups.

Patterns of growth

Clearly the way children listen to radio changes between the ages of 4 and 15 (see section on Relationship With Radio for more on the qualitative aspects of this). Rajar analysis shows that there is a clear pattern of increase in radio listening over this age group (see Chart Two).

CHART TWO

As age increases, girls are somewhat more likely than boys to be listening to radio though the differences are not very great.

There appears to be a clear relationship between this growth in listening and the likelihood to own a radio personally. Youth TGI shows that the proportion of children who have a radio in their bedroom rises sharply between 7 and 15, peaking at nearly 90%.

In parallel, there is a dramatic shift in location - by 15, the bedroom is the pre-eminent listening location (see Chart Three).

CHART THREE

Listening across the day

The peak time for young people to be listening to the radio is in the mornings - ratings peak just before school and then fall away dramatically, picking up again after 3pm (see Chart Four).

CHART FOUR

Weekend listening starts rather later - and there is a clear peak on Sunday afternoons when the Network Chart is on.

Inevitably, ratings across the day can vary quite widely for different age groups - as a simple example, the older ones will be staying up much later. Closer analysis of Rajar can identify the most efficient time to reach any particular age group (the Rajar survey is large enough to home in on a single age year, e.g. 11 year olds - for more information see the Rajar website at www.rajar.co.uk).


Relationship with radio

The main dynamic in young people’s radio listening is music (although sport is important for some older ones), but radio is much more than just a music machine for them.

Qualitative research by Genesis Consulting reveals that the function of radio becomes increasingly complex as children develop, and they use it in a variety of ways.


Stages of development in radio’s role

Source: Genesis Consulting 1999

This analysis gives a sense of why radio is so important in the lives of young people - beyond the music, it is helping them develop their identity and independence, as well as offer quite fundamental comforts such as escape from loneliness.

Communication aspects of radio

The “frequency medium”

Radio is often called the frequency medium, and this is because an average-weight radio campaign will be heard many times more often than an average-weight TV campaign.

This is valuable for brands which need to keep reminding potential customers of their benefits, or brands which have several different points to get across - varying the copy treatments in radio is relatively inexpensive.

High levels of frequency also mean that ads need not be entirely understood on first hearing: on average, there are many subsequent opportunities to hear.

Intrusiveness

Like the other real-time media, radio is highly intrusive because it does not allow the consumer to skip through the ads.

In addition, radio is not zapped the way that TV often is. This is partly because it is not a primary activity, so the consumer is less demanding of each moment. It is also partly because repertoires are naturally smaller: where a viewer might flick through a whole series of TV channels to see what’s on, radio formats mean that a young listener will only find the music they like on a very small number of stations.

For advertisers this means that young people are to some extent a “captive audience”: however, their attention is selective and many are able to zone out of campaigns which they find uninteresting or irrelevant to them.

The “intimate medium”

The qualitative research makes it clear that there is a sense of ownership amongst young people regarding radio: it is a very personal possession and mainly used in their own personal space, i.e. the bedroom.

This intimacy or privacy in the consumption of radio means that advertisers can speak very personally to the listener. This entails a very different kind of communication from, say, watching TV with parents.

“Me and my gang” listening

To some extent, radio is a provider of the “social glue” which holds peer groups together. Young people use information from the radio to ensure that they can qualify for membership of the group (this is unusual - older listeners do not tend to have this active sense of group listening).

The “me & my gang” mode provides advertisers with a positive context for their messages: information which is put forward in this context is potentially going to be included in the group culture and conversations.

Time of day / day of week

Unlike magazines and posters, radio is consumed at certain times, and this is true for the advertising as well. This makes it possible for advertisers to speak to young people at the times which are most relevant to the product - during the homework period, in the run-up to the weekend, in the mornings etc.

This was part of the media strategy behind the HEA Drugs Education campaign - potential users were targeted at key times (late evening towards the weekend, early evening on Friday and Saturdays just before they went out, and Sunday afternoons when they were in ‘recovery mode’).

Strategic roles for radio

As Commercial Radio developed in the early days, its key strengths were seen as primarily tactical - fast turnaround, low capital cost and local flexibility. These days however, while the traditional strengths still apply, radio is increasingly being used for strategic roles.

Dominant share of mind

Share of mind can be described as the extent to which a brand makes itself salient within the consumer’s mind - this is often the most challenging task in sectors where there are several top-parity brands, and/or high levels of competitive activity.

The ability of radio to create dominant share of mind is a product of its intrusiveness and the high frequency with which ads are broadcast.

Brands like the Carphone Warehouse have used this unique characteristic of radio to develop an unassailable lead within their category.

Support to other media

Young people are of course consumers of several media, and campaigns which use only one medium can miss out on the “media multiplier effect”. Because of its inherent characteristics, radio can work in a complementary way to other media.

With TV it is traditionally used to add to the length of a campaign or to fill weeks where there is no TV activity - it can also be used to explain products or services in more depth, or to include additional information. Brands in fast-changing areas like retail or financial services often use radio for its ability to put over several different messages as an overlay to a core TV campaign (multiple executions in radio are very inexpensive compared to TV).

Radio also works exceptionally well with TV if there is creative synergy, most conspicuously in the form of a Sonic Brand Trigger (see Sonic Brand Trigger section below).

To press, radio above all adds intrusiveness, because levels of ad avoidance with print are so high. Radio can also, like TV, bring things to life - for services or corporate advertising this can be very valuable in adding personality and tone of voice.

(For a fuller exploration, see the RAB Guide to using radio with other media).

The “explainer” medium

Young people, because of their inexperience, often need the benefits of products or services explained to them before they can make a decision to purchase - for example, a bank account, or a promotional offer.

Radio is particularly useful for this as it uses the human voice in real-time. This means that the young people do not have to wade their way through extensive reading material before they even know what the proposition is.

Speaking from inside youth culture

As the qualitative research illustrates, young people begin to move away from their parents’ world of choices and preferences, and to set up their own world independently. Inevitably this means that some media are seen as outside that independent world - newspapers for example.

Radio, as a personal “me-medium”, allows the advertiser to speak from inside the so-called “youth fortress” (this was the name given to it in the HEA Drugs Education Advertising Effectiveness paper).

As the respondents said in the research, they feel as though the people on the radio treat them like adults - leaving their parents out of the equation. Tone of voice is a key issue with advertising strategies in this territory.


Mini Case Study: Halifax Expresscash

This campaign used radio as part of a mixed media strategy including magazines. It focused exclusively on the Network Chart Show for targeting 11-15 year-olds nationally. High measured awareness levels translated through into increased account openings (up 375%)

For more details see Case Study Database at RAB OnLine


Mini Case Study: Immac

This campaign used radio and press to target teenage girls. Response was measured in detail and showed good results for radio - for example, spontaneous awareness levels were 58% among listeners versus 48% among non-listeners, and ad communication came through more strongly from radio.

For more details see Case Study Database at RAB OnLine


Mini Case Study: HEA Drugs Education

This campaign used magazines and radio over a three year period to target young people at risk of using or experimenting with drugs. The strategy was to speak from within accepted youth media about the realities of drugs in a straightforward and non-preaching way. The campaign won the Grand Prix in the 1998 IPA Effectiveness Awards.

For more details see Case Study Database at RAB OnLine


Radio advertising

Consumer opinions

The evidence from the qualitative research is that young people feel their local FM station is aimed at people like them, but the advertising is not - they feel, probably quite correctly, that most advertising is aimed at adults.

However, because radio is a real-time intrusive medium, they have to sit through the full length of any ads which are for irrelevant products.

There was evidence of three sorts of advertising memories:

relevant
ads which mentioned areas or names of specific interest, e.g. films, outlets selling favoured brands, concerts

vague/ not relevant
memories of ads for local garages, cars and insurance companies - little or no specific detail remembered

Sonic Brand Triggers
much evidence of children’s ability to pick up on musical SBTs and sing them out loud

“People our age don’t buy windows and conservatories”
(Girls, 10-11 years)

“Don’t sign on the dotted line till you talk to Tempo!”
(Girls, 10-11 years)

“They advertise the songs on the radio, and if there is a song that I like, I will go into town and buy myself a single”
(Boys, 13-14 years)

“They advertise JD Sports and stuff like that. So you know where to go”
(Boys, 13-14 years)


Consideration

It seems clear from this analysis that children are very selective in their attention, and are strongly influenced by relevance of the brand or product advertised.

It would follow that, since they expect most ads to be irrelevant to them, care must be taken in the creative work to overcome this expectation - through linking to the relevant topic, involvement, surprise, tone of voice etc.

Tone of voice is a key area with radio: young people can tell when they are being addressed as equals, and when they are not.

Young people pick up very strongly on musical Sonic Brand Triggers, even for seemingly irrelevant brands.


Mini Case Study: Coca-Cola

Commercial confidentiality means that there is no formal case study for Coca-Cola’s use of radio or the results they have achieved. However, their creative strategy is worth considering - their radio campaigns are mostly music-based, allowing them to sew the Coca-Cola message into the musical environment of young people in a very subtle and non-advertising way.

Research sources


RAJAR
Rajar is the joint BBC/Commercial Radio survey which measures radio audiences. More details can be found at www.rajar.co.uk

Youth TGI
A survey conducted annually amongst 5,910 young people aged 7-19 years by BMRB

Genesis Consulting study
Exploratory qualitative study of young listeners in Southampton area in September 1999

Henley Centre Media Futures Study
Large scale survey of media usage and attitudes conducted every two years or so, especially into new media

Family Expenditure Survey
A continuous household survey conducted by the Office for National Statistics. Children’s spending figures are based on the 1995-96 survey of children aged between 7 and 15.




The Radio Advertising Bureau

The RAB exists to guide national advertisers and their agencies towards effective advertising on Commercial Radio.

The RAB is funded by the whole Commercial Radio industry and is therefore impartial within the medium.

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