AM/FM radio is important to the insurance industry. Demographically, Nielsen data shows insurance brand awareness skews older, but those who are in the market are a much younger crowd – radio’s core audience. It’s TV that reaches an older audience, and that’s why adding AM/FM radio to an insurance company media plan fixes TV’s demographic “Bermuda Triangle.”

Once insurance companies add AM/FM radio to the media plan, how can they make use of their ad time most effectively?

Westwood One partnered with audio creative testing specialist VERITONIC to evaluate the effectiveness of a major insurance company’s approach to audio ads to understand what could move the needle for advertisers in the category.

The background: Major insurance company adjusts audio creative with “enhanced branding”

In 2018, the insurance company made strategic changes to their advertising creative that dramatically improved ROI. They began to mention their name earlier in ads. Instead of waiting until the :20 second mark as they had in previous ads, the new enhanced creative included a mention of the brand in the first few seconds of the copy.

The insurance company also made a strategic change in the amount of times they mentioned their name. In prior ads, the brand was mentioned only once or twice. In the enhanced branding ads, the name was heard more often.

The insurance firm followed the important creative best practice of branding early and often to raise their profile in the ad.

Enhanced branding boosts the emotional impact of the ads

VERITONIC evaluated these new enhanced branding ads as well as the prior ads against key emotional factors: happiness, optimism, likeability, and trustworthiness.

Across the board and against any measure, the enhanced branding ads performed better than the prior creative. Overall, the total average score of enhanced ads was +9% greater than the prior ads.

Happiness, optimism, trustworthiness, and likeability all saw growth. Mentioning the brand earlier in the ad and more often helped develop an emotional connection with the listeners rating the creative.

Purchase intent sees significant growth after exposure to enhanced branding ads

Purchase intent is arguably the most important factor for advertisers. Purchase intent is what influences customers to buy a brand or in this case, use the insurance company for coverage.

VERITONIC measures purchase intent twice: before hearing the ad and after the ad is heard. The difference between the two illustrates how effective the audio creative is in impacting intent to buy.

The average difference in purchase lift from the older ads was actually negative. The creative did not positively impact campaign outcome.

By contrast, enhancing the branding grew the difference in purchase intent +160%. Not only does enhanced branding matter for emotional outcomes, it has a significant impact on influencing customer intention.

Audio creative is a powerful tool for brands. By incorporating the “brand early and often” best practice in creative, brands can stir emotions in potential customers as well as drive purchase intent to impact the bottom line.

Key takeaways:

• Brand early and often by using your brand name in the first few seconds of ads and repeating it throughout
• Enhanced branding boosts the emotional impact of the ads
• Purchase intent sees significant growth after exposure to enhanced branding ads

Lauren Vetrano is Director of Content Marketing at CUMULUS MEDIA | Westwood One.

Contact the Insights team at CorpMarketing@westwoodone.com.