For consumer durable major Panasonic, radio is not just for engaging consumers and promoting tactical offerings, but also for cost-effective and efficient distribution, says Manish Sharma, MD, Panasonic India
By SIMRAN SABHERWAL
Q] Does radio help connect with not just the masses but also the classes?
Radio listenership in the bourgeois section and the higher socio-economic class is very prominent but in order to reach out to the elite, there is still a lot of scope. Overall, the medium is very powerful and wide-reaching. In line with this, many companies are making use of this effectively today, thereby expanding their ways of communicating to a far reaching target audience.
Q] How do you use radio to promote your festival campaigns?
Campaigning on radio during the festive season is very common. The season is considered to be very auspicious for new purchases; so this is the time companies look at sprucing up the market with a slew of exciting offers. With radio, we can catch consumer attention in a cluttered environment and also promote our tactical, ‘limited-time-only’ offers. It’s easy to get these offers registered in their mind if communicated in a creative or humorous way.
Q] How effective is radio when it comes to targeting specific places, especially small towns?
Area-focused campaigns on radio works very well, especially in small towns, where most people rely solely on it for news and entertainment. A number of radio listeners in smaller towns exceed that of metro cities. Target specific radio advertising and campaigns prove to be efficient and are also far cheaper than a national advertisement.
Q] How effective is radio when it comes to targeting small towns?
Depending on the type of products, brands and retailers can talk about their products over the radio and communicate to their target audience in a cost-effective manner. It also helps in building trade confidence when the campaign is focused towards a particular store to increase footfalls.
Q] What’s been the most innovative radio campaign undertaken by your brand?
Panasonic has earlier undertaken a campaign where we wanted to create awareness about our bottom-freezer refrigerators. A story was created around vegetables, and other food items, which we usually keep in different compartments of the fridge, and how less-used items have been demoted to the bottom part and more useful and handy items have been ‘promoted’ to upper compartment. This campaign was an instant success and resulted in an immediate increase in product queries and sales.
Q] What is radio’s constitution in your media mix? Are you looking at increasing your spends?
Currently, radio’s contribution is approximately 2% of our total ATL spends. We look forward to further optimise our media buying and will use radio to further micro-target for city- or retailer-wise specific campaigns.
Q] How does radio score over other media formats?
Every medium of communication has its own pros and cons. Similarly, radio too scores over features like access to smaller cities, works for short-term campaigns and at the same time it’s cost-efficient. On the other hand, media like television and the Internet have more to offer in terms of wider reach and to create brand affinity.
Q] How important is radio as a communication tool for your brand?
Radio helps in pushing the tactical campaigns which might be focused on certain models, to communicate festive offers or for some mega launch (on-ground activations).
NoteBook: Radio
