Bauer Media Radio

Sponsorship

What is Branded Content? 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.

Branded content is popular in all media, not just radio, because it offers the guest brand the opportunity to get “inside the editorial” of the host medium to maximise connections with consumers. With radio this is particularly powerful because of the strong relationship between listener and station – radio is often called the “intimate medium” and listeners usually characterise radio as “a friend”. So, in simplistic terms, when a presenter on someone’s favourite radio station offers some entertainment “thanks to our friends at Company X”, at this point Company X has begun to be included in the warm friendship that exists between listener and presenter.

Branded content is a very broad term – with radio it basically means any brand involvement beyond normal spot ads.Historically branded content on radio came in two main flavours:

• Longer-term sponsorship – where a brand would sponsor an existing programme or feature, in order to secure a place in the listeners’ lives
• Harnessing the multi-media interactivity which is now possible, using SMS texts, Podcasts and microsites within the station websites, etc
• Sponsorship of off-air activities such as concerts, festivals etc, where the brand could harness some of the excitement and coolness of the event

These days branded content comes in many more different guises, as planners and programmers find more and more ways to mesh brands into the station output, for example:

• Advertiser-funded programming – where new content is created by the brand to create exactly the right impression with the listener
• Harnessing the multi-media interactivity which is now possible, using SMS texts, microsites within the station websites etc
• A brand can even sponsor a whole station to create a sense of ubiquity and cool

Sponsorships

What is a sponsorship? The Ofcom guidelines state that a sponsored feature / programme is one broadcast in return for payment or other valuable consideration. All programmes may be sponsored, with the exception of news bulletins.

Sponsorship in its basic form involves attaching the name of a ‘guest brand’ to some part of the station output. Sponsorships of this kind are convergent – there is no particular contrast between the values of sponsor and station – so they tend to be longer term activities aimed at increasing the familiarity of the guest brand.

These messages are not meant to be “listened” to in the normal sense: they seem to operate in a semi-subliminal way, gaining considerable consumer familiarity through reiteration, with little conscious effort on the part of the listener. Unlike TV, brand messages are permitted, although they must not be too long. Brand messages can be varied for tactical purposes. The association with the radio station can have several layers: the ‘guest brand’ is potentially associating itself with the brand values of the station, the music, the presenter, the time of day, the programme and the listener.

The association of the ‘host’ and the ‘guest’ brands lies at the heart of sponsorship, so brand fit is absolutely critical. Many sponsorships are more sophisticated, and extending beyond simple brand associations announced on air. For example, key brand sponsorships further associate themselves with the listener through running on-air competitions and can often be seen sponsoring off-air events or online activity. 

Occasionally, brands can also create programming for stations to run. In the minds of our listeners the ‘guest brand’ can be seen to have made the programming possible, which naturally enhances perceptions. Sponsorships should be 6 months to one year but a test period of 3 months is permitted. Tactical features may be an exception to this rule. Programming will determine whether sponsorship credits are best delivered live or as part of pre-recorded idents before the sponsorship is signed-off. Sponsored programmes will usually receive supporting promotion in the form of pre-recorded trials/promos and/or live reads by presenters. The amount of pre-promotion will be pre-agreed with programming.

Benefits of sponsorship:

• Drip-feed effect
• Long-term association
• Transference of brand values
• Integral association
• Tactical through rotation of tag lines
• Embedding the association into editorial  

What makes a great sponsorship? 

Consider the convergent / divergent fit:
Make sure that the values of the clients brand work with those of the station output. 

What effect will the association be expected to have? 
Make sure that the sponsorship tag lines actively address the client’s objectives for the sponsorship (ie increase in brand familiarly / change in brand perception). 

Creative execution of client message in tag line(s)
The more creative the broadcast, the more memorable it will be. 

For more details contact:

Tom Hughes

020 7295 5452

tom.hughes@bauermedia.co.uk