The joint initiative “Werbewunder Radio” (The miracle of advertising on radio) is a cooperation between ORF-Enterprise, RMS Radio Marketing Service, Marx Tonkombinat Arbeitergasse (sound studio) and the Creativ Club Austria whose aim is to strengthen the medium of radio. Since the cooperation was founded, all four partners have supported the initiative through an annual creative competition highlighting the possibilities of radio as a medium and emphasising radio spots as a playground for creative radio advertising.

The winning spots from this competition are broadcast on ORF and RMS Austria radio stations. In addition to all radio listeners, the target group is primarily people from the media sector, agencies and advertisers.

This initiative has been around for more than 15 years and some of the creative spots also went on to win other creative competitions – one spot was shortlisted at the prestigious Cannes Lions festival. The rules for the competition have changed a bit over the years, but in general it all starts with a call for entries in which creatives are asked to come up with a funny idea for a given topic. In a preliminary round, up to ten participating teams (1-3 people) are selected. They then receive a full briefing on the actual task and final campaign.

The selected teams are asked to develop a radio campaign consisting of several spots around a given strength of radio advertising. The spots can have a touch of humour, be catchy and get to the heart of the strength of radio. The goal is to create attention-grabbing and entertaining spots to increase awareness of radio’s strengths.

The winning campaign is then broadcast on the stations of the public service broadcaster (ORF) and most of the private radio stations (RMS) during the summer months with a strong frequency at no cost to the winners. The initiators finance the spot production and submit the campaign to the major domestic creative competitions. The winning team receives a prize of 10,000 euros. All other teams from the final round receive 500 euros per team.

This initiative supporting creative radio advertising has produced many great spots over the years and shows that radio advertising can not only drive sales, but can also implement complex ideas in an exciting way using just the imagination. In addition, young copywriters discover the possibilities radio offers and are encouraged to use radio spots more often for their creative campaigns.

Sector: Energy

Media: Radio, Social media

Time period: Summer 2020, February 2022

Bolt is the first green energy platform that aims to make the Belgian power grid sustainable. Via Bolt, people can buy their energy directly from local, green energy providers. The client wanted to raise awareness and build their brand - they worked with Var to do this through two campaigns.

The first was a sponsorship with Camping Belgica during the summer programme of StuBru radio in 2020. Bolt provided a mobile solar park to fuel the StuBru campsite. The aim was to show that it is possible to fuel festivals with alternative green power. The second collaboration was a fun campaign, ‘De Wekker van StuBru’ (‘The Alarm Clock of StuBru’). Listeners needed to guess which famous Flemish person they heard imitating the alarm clock sound in the morning show. The winner got 5 years’ worth of free green energy from Bolt. Together with the radio host the winner then went on to visit the green energy providers who explained how they supply the green energy via Bolt.

Creative minds and campaign executors

This project was a cooperation between the creative partnerships department and the marketing department of Studio Brussels.

Pricing and package

The budget was a combination of the price of the audioboards linked to the radio campaign and the game, with the different items online and on social media (including a dedicated page on the website, coverage on social media, a video about the price, etc.)

“The cheerfulness of Fien Germijns, radio host of the ‘De Ochtend’ on Studio Brussel, gives the necessary dynamic to our campaign ‘De Wekker van StuBru’ and goes hand in hand with the positive energy that Bolt is known for,” said Co-founder & CEO of Bolt - Pieterjan Verhaeghen

Sector: Tourism

Media: Radio, digital, TV

Time period: 2022

The Italian cruise line Costa Crociere has a long history of luxury travels dating back to year 1854. Following a standstill in operations in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic, Costa was restarting full operations in 2022, including with new cruise ships sailing in the Mediterranean, the Caribbean and more. To relaunch the cruise tourism, Costa decided to rebrand with a new logo. A campaign across radio, TV and digital was created. On the radio side, the campaign included radio spots, sponsorship and brand integration where a radio programme on RAI Radio2 was hosted on one of Costa’s cruise ships.

The radio programme was aired during a special event related to the 72nd edition of the Sanremo Music Festival. The Sanremo Festival is Italy’s most popular song contest and award ceremony, held annually in the city of Sanremo, Liguria. It is the longest-running annual TV music competition in the world and worked as an inspiration for the popular Eurovision Song Contest.

Costa Crociere played a leading role in the Sanremo Festival with a special initiative: Costa Toscana, the company’s new green ship, became an integral part of the show. The ship’s theatres hosted artists and performances, as well as hosting Rai2’s programme “Tre per due” with Gemelli Di Guidonia, an Italian band.

Creative minds and campaign executors

The format was realised within RAI’s sales house by the Brand Integration team.

Sector: Media

Media: Radio, VOD

Time period: 2021

Strim is a Norwegian streaming service that has established itself in its local market as a provider that gathers TV channels and streaming services in one place, making it easier for viewers to find the content they are looking for. Operating in a competitive TV market that has undergone major changes in recent years, Strim wanted to run a campaign that would describe well their product range, build the brand and increase subscriptions.

Radio was chosen as the main medium together with commercials and sponsorships on TV, with the goal of informing and activate consumers to visit strim.no and test the streaming service.

Thorough testing of the radio campaign

To maximise the effect of the radio campaign and to analyse the impact, the radio spots were tested by the analytical software company Penetrace. The results were then actively used to adjust the commercials throughout the campaign.

The very first test showed that the radio spots received high attention. Strim as a brand was distinct and the message was, according to the results from Penetrace, relevant to listeners. However, the test also showed a significantly high level of receivers that disliked the ads and even found them annoying. Based on these results, Strim continued working on the composition of the ads to increase the perceived positive association to the brand. This was done by using relatable humour from everyday situations.

After tweaking and developing the concept further, a second test was made showing a significantly higher liking of the new radio spots. Strim’s identity received notably better results. During the second radio campaign pulse, Strim decreased the investment by almost 50%, and results were still impressive.

The sender ID went up from 63% to 74%. The spots were perceived as entertaining and received high scores in other important areas that would indicate an increased brand awareness and higher level of intended product testing.

Creative minds and campaign executors

Viaplay, Strim, Penetrace analytical company, Los & Co advertising agency

"Since the launch, and especially since utilizing broadcast media in the summer of 2021, we have had fantastic results. The main goal of the campaign was to increase brand awareness and increased product testing. We have succeeded in both,” said Ida Svele, Marketing Director at Strim. The overall campaign results lead to increased traffic to strim.no and lower Cost per order (CPO) which decreased by almost 50% from Q1 2021 to Q1 2022. From 1 April 2021 to 1 April 2022, traffic to the streaming service increased by 158.6%.

The campaign was also very cost-effective. Even with a significantly lower budget, Strim’s radio spots have yielded significantly better results compared to the average. By using the insight and the intricate parameters from the tests, the creatives were adjusted and improved the campaign’s costeffectiveness, maximising the outcome of the radio investment.

By testing and adapting along the way, Strim successfully created a humorous concept associated with the challenges of finding content across TV and streaming suppliers. The campaign was not only recognised by listeners, as Strim and the advertising agency Los & Co. were awarded the Sølvmikken (Norwegian radio award celebrating great creative concepts) for best radio ad in February 2022.

Sector: Electronics

Media: Radio, podcast, digital

Time period: March – May 2021 and December 2021 – February 2022

Fujifilm wanted to position itself as a high-tech brand for medical imaging instruments. Atresmedia, therefore, developed a brand-building campaign to promote and explore various scientific advances with a subtle yet effective intervention from the Fujifilm brand.

The campaign consisted of a series of 10 podcasts that feature reports and interviews with leading scientists from different fields. The focus being how the pandemic accelerated innovation and the adoption of new technologies and procedures in the healthcare field in Spain. Special attention was paid to the sound quality.

To boost the visibility of the campaign, a radio + digital multimedia campaign was designed with incorporated advertising and content integrations. On top of the branded podcast there were also related branded news on web, branded news on air, radio spots, live mentions and social media posts.

Creative minds and campaign executors

The campaign was a collaborative development in which the commercial department, the content department and the technical team each played its role. No creative agency was involved in the process.

Pricing and package

Atresmedia packaged the campaign as a new commercial offer for branded content.

The client returned for a second campaign, while initially the purchase was only for a series of 6 podcasts. The campaign’s success has allowed Atresmedia to bill a new client for the medium of radio. Fujifilm's healthcare division would never have considered a conventional radio campaign otherwise.

Sector: Retail/FMCG

Media: Radio, TV, online

Time period: November - December 2021

Major European retailer, Lidl, wanted to promote and increase awareness of its Deluxe product range, drive in-store traffic and convince French consumers to opt for their Deluxe products for the Christmas holidays. Lidl decided to collaborate with TF1 Live and Unify to meet their objectives and offer an innovative marketing strategy to the general public.

UNIFY brings together the digital activities of the TF1 group (excluding OTT and Replay TV) and in particular the Marmiton brand, whose website is the leader for cooking and recipes in France. Associating this brand with Lidl’s Deluxe products was, therefore, a way of guaranteeing that the brand was recognised in the culinary world and amongst cooking enthusiasts.

The marketing strategy consisted of proving the quality of Lidl products, through the pre-spot "Ad'vise By" recommendations both on TV and radio, and to integrate Lidl Deluxe into the shopping habits of Marmitons during the winter holiday period.

The TV campaign on TF1 ran from 30th November to 25th December 2021 - 4 “Ad'Vise By" of 4 seconds were produced (chocolate cake, snails, scallops and foie-gras) and 28 spots of 24 seconds were broadcast.

The radio campaign ran almost simultaneously - 14 spots of 35 seconds in VIP Solo – exclusive ad break - were broadcast for 3 weeks on “Les Indés Radios”, a group of 130 local and regional radio stations, covering 95% of the French population. For this radio campaign, 5 “Ad’vise By” of 5 seconds were produced.

In order to intensify the TV and radio campaign, TF1 Live and Unify decided to integrate LIDL Deluxe products into all Marmiton channels during the end-of-year holidays thanks to the integration of LIDL brand recipes, the promotion of products by influencers, the addition of LIDL to the recipes most consulted by Marmitons, or the activation of Marmiton social networks, followed by millions of French people (3 million fans on Facebook and 832K followers on Instagram).

Marmiton’s strong brand image clearly strengthened the impact of the TV and radio campaign, with good performances across all media including social. The TV campaign generated nearly 130 GRP ind 25-59 yo and more than 33M contacts ind 25-59 yo over the 4 weeks of broadcast. The Radio campaign had the same success, with more than 35 GRP ind 25-59 yo and 10M contacts on the core target.

The objectives concerning Marmiton brand activations were largely exceeded. On social, there were more than 500,000 impressions on influencers' stories, Instagram TV and carousel posts, nearly 300,000 views on Marmiton’s Instagram and Facebook stories and nearly 65,000 page views on brand recipes on the Marmiton website, visited mainly on mobile (57%).

Sector: D2C

Media: Radio, social media, online

Time period: 2021

In the height of the pandemic, with all parties and in-person celebrations cancelled, e-cards were more popular than ever. In a heavily saturated market thortful.com needed to stand out. As a challenger brand to the established players, thortful wanted to quickly grow share ahead of one of the industry’s most crucial retail times – Valentine’s Day. But Bauer was faced with an obstacle – thortful were brand new to radio having never even ran an airtime ad, let alone a multiplatform sponsorship. Bauer overcame this with assurances of their expertise and an idea so ambitious, it beat all their competitor’s pitches.

THE CHALLENGE

1. Increase Brand Awareness in a creative way, making thortful.com famous for being a fun brand.
2. Increase Brand Affinity – hero thortful’s card creators and promote their community messaging.

THE INSIGHT

thortful were looking to target all adults – a challenge in itself, but Bauer’s diverse radio portfolio was the perfect solution. Research showed that radio was Europe’s most trusted medium, at 57%. With listeners having assurance in their favourite presenter, Bauer shaped their proposition around their audiences’ love for their on-air talent. THE IDEA To get everyone talking about thortful ahead of the big day, Bauer challenged their presenters to create the best Valentine’s card of the year. Utilising Bauer’s biggest brands and flagship shows across Absolute Radio, KISS and Magic Radio, over a 3 week editorially led story-arc, presenters were teamed up with thortful card creators to produce their own cards. In the battle of all battles, on each station the breakfast show hosts were pitted against the drive-time presenters, going head-to head in a fierce competition to win the hearts of the listeners and the most votes for their creations.

EXECUTION

In Bauer’s boldest promotion to date – in just 3 weeks the campaign saw 3 editorial story arcs across 3 stations. Campaign moments were purposely extraordinary and deeply engrained into the fabric of the editorial, to create a buzz on socials and make thortful famous.

ON AIR

The heart of the campaign was a multi daypart story arc, featuring Bauer’s flagship talent, within the Breakfast and Drivetime shows across all 3 stations. This was supported by live reads and presenter-voiced trails across the schedule; alongside live in-show editorial across each of the competing shows.

ONLINE

Bauer created bespoke pages on each station’s website for the full duration of the campaign. With exclusive home page take-overs across KISS and Magic Radio. Listeners were driven here to vote for their favourite card, for the chance to win! Pages included key messaging, imagery and click-through links to thortful.com. Users were encouraged to purchase the competing cards or pick from thortful’s huge range – with a portion of sales donated to Bauer’s charity Cash for Kids.

ON SOCIALS

Social campaigns ran across all three brands. It also saw additional organic posts from Bauer’s talent on their own social channels – from Joel Corey on Instagram to Ritchie on Twitter. The campaign was supported by app interstitials and digital audio.

16% increase in brand awareness 10% of listeners bought something from thortful.com 50% of listeners took some form of action, with 1/3 visiting thortful.com 187% over delivery on the on-air campaign.