Bauer Media Radio

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Promotions

Interest in radio Sponsorship and Promotions is growing because advertisers are looking for new ways to connect with consumers. Radio is a more trusted medium than many others, including newspapers and TV. Sponsorship and Promotions allow the ‘guest brand’ or client to harness this trust.

Promotions

Promotions are interactive, competition based and within station editorial. They tend to be short term (1–4 weeks) and depend on building excitement and participation through entertaining radio output. It is important to remember however, that regulations dictate, that promotional activity must be an integral part of editorial – not just commercial. Promotions need good process management and quality control, with briefs being clear but flexible enough for each station and presenter to create their own best execution of the requirement.  

Benefits of promotions

  • Builds brand awareness through audience participation
  • Can direct listeners to a point of purchase
  • Highlights product launches
  • Highlights an on-pack promotion
  • Communicates short term objectives
  • Creates positive brand associations
  • Draws attention to an airtime or sponsorship campaign 

What makes a great promotion?

  • Brief early and openly: Be clear about what you want from the programming / creative team, and be imaginative in engaging the enthusiasm of the presenters in the product that you want them to talk about.
  • Stay flexible: Take account of the way different presenters will want to make the promotion sound in their shows.
  • Entertain: A promotion which listeners find predictable or uninteresting will not achieve its goals of generating interest and participation.
  • Keep it simple: If the mechanic is complex, people will soon get lost and lose interest.
  • Reward the listeners: Put yourself in their shoes and consider how motivated you would be to participate.
  • Remember the non-participants: For every phone call, website hit or text message, there are another thousand people out there just passively listening for the entertainment.
  • Always think about going beyond the brand: Through to point of sale, on-pack offers, station websites and events etc. 

Competitions

Mechanics
The mechanic should be easy to play and easy to follow. The majority of listeners will never participate in a radio contest, but should not be turned off by complex game play. Although the value of the prize is a relevant factor, the “playability” and general entertainment value of the contest is important to our listeners. Great contest mechanics should be memorable, repeatable and as valuable to the listener as the next song. The best contests are those which get talked about after the event. The prize, the tension, the fun mechanic, the winners and losers all add to the talkability. Truly great contests even get talked about in the press, generating valuable PR.

Station fit
Promotional contests, like all programme elements, should fit comfortably within the overall station sound. Consider the prize, the pitch, the on-air and off-air activity and always have the target listener in mind when constructing the finished product.

Prizes
Contest prizes should reflect the lifestyles and aspirations of our target audiences. Whilst cash, car and holidays will seemingly never fall from favour, money-can’t-buy prizes often have higher perceived value. 

Draws/Finals
Where only one prize is available for an entire promotion (e.g. a big holiday or a car at the end of the week), the mechanic should avoid culminating in an on-air draw. A draw is rarely interesting to listen to and if your name isn’t in it you should ask why you would listen. Strive to create alternative methods of qualification and elimination.

For more details contact:

Tom Hughes
Radio and S&P Project Manager
020 7295 5452
tom.hughes@bauermedia.co.uk