With World Radio Day taking place this week, Choose Radio – the Irish industry group set up to promote radio – has unveiled details of a case-study that demonstrates the power of radio advertising.
As part of an overall campaign to promote radio’s effectiveness, Flahavan’s, the Irish-owned manufacturer of porridge oats was chosen as the partner in the case-study and a campaign to promote its new Overnight Oats product was run on radio stations around the country as well as online over a three week period in September 2018. Overnight Oats is a new product in the Flahavan’s portfolio and was launched in early 2018.
As part of the research, Flahavan’s worked with Choose Radio to create a case study to demonstrate the wide breadth of what a well-planned campaign with radio can achieve. It featured a combination of radio ad spots devised by BBDO and radio stations creating their own local video content which was then pushed out across their social channels and websites. The impressive case study results, were revealed at a breakfast briefing earlier this week.
Independent research from B&A, market data analysis from Stephen Rust, Joint Managing Director of Visualise.ie and Tom Harper, Director of Annalect Ireland showed that during the campaign awareness of Flahavan’s Overnight Oats improved from 29% in August to 37% post the advertising campaign in October. This is a statistically significant improvement of the order of 28%.
In addition, sales had increased 269% during campaign when compared to the three weeks prior with sales more than doubling across all major retailers.
During the radio campaign sales of Overnight Oats had a stronger uplift, at full retail price, than when a price reduction was run as a standalone promotion.
According to the Chairperson of Choose Radio, Gabrielle Cummins: “The special, loyal relationship that each individual listener forms with their favourite radio station cannot be taken for granted. We wanted to demonstrate how all our radio presenters understand and connect with their specific target audience in every single county in Ireland. 34 radio stations utilised their own social platforms in an innovative and relatable way which augmented the powerful, traditional, radio tool of spot advertising. This proved to be both entertaining for each station’s target audience while at the time effectively communicating Flahavan’s key brand messages. Advertising agencies have been demanding case studies and now Choose Radio has produced the first of many all industry, collaborative case studies. We look forward to engaging more with advertising agencies and their clients to further demonstrate the unique power of radio advertising.”
John Noonan, Sales & Marketing Director of Flahavan’s adds: “We were delighted to partner with Choose Radio for this case study. It was an easy decision as Flahavan’s has identified radio as a key medium for the brand over many years and it is an important component in our annual communications plan.
“As leader in the Irish oats market, we are keen to keep to the forefront of new trends in oat consumption. Oats are already well recognised for their health benefits and Overnight Oats introduces a new way of enjoying them. We felt that our Flahavan’s Overnight Oats was ideal to use for this case study as it has an important role to play in the evolving lifestyle needs of consumers at breakfast time.
“We were pleased with the success of the campaign at stimulating interest, increasing brand awareness and ultimately encouraging trial and education of this new breakfast concept. The campaign delivered strong results for this new product launch.”
