The Styles and Purposes of Radio Advertising

The Styles and Purposes of Radio Advertising

Radio in the UK is provided by the BBC and commercial radio companies,

and is broadcast by AM and FM, and a variety of digital platforms. One

of the purposes of radio advertising like any other form of

advertising is obviously to sell products, but the main purpose of

radio advertising is to make money for radio stations. Commercial

radio stations, as the name suggests, are funded by the sale of

advertising, promotions and sponsorship. There are three national

services (INRs - Classic FM, Virgin Radio and Talk Sport), fifteen

‘regional’ services (IRRs - generally covering three major cities) and

more than 240 local services (ILRs). In general, most cities have at

least one FM service and one AM service, although major cities

(London, Manchester, Birmingham, and Glasgow) have a wider choice of

commercial listening. Therefore, without radio advertising, these

commercial stations wouldn’t be able to afford to broadcast. Public

service stations like the BBC are funded by TV licenses and don’t

broadcast a lot of adverts.

One of radio’s strengths is the fact that it’s completely mobile and

can reach people in more places than television can. Radio is a

secondary activity. People listen to the radio whilst they are doing

other things, for example, when people are at work, they often have

the radio on in the background, or when people are driving to or from

work, or dropping their children off at school etc, they are still

listening to the radio. It can be left on and people may not be paying

full attention to it but they may be subconsciously listening. For

this reason, it is very useful to the advertiser if they want to

target people on the move, going about their daily routines as normal.

Individual adverts have different purposes. There is a formula for

these purposes in advertising known as ‘DRIP’. These purposes are to:

o DIFFERENTIATE - Adverts that differentiate define the difference