By SIMRAN SABHERWAL
Think of radio advertising and what comes to mind are jingles, RJ mentions and some amount of content integration. Looking to go beyond such “vanilla” solutions is Radio City 91.1 FM which has launched ‘AudaCITY’ – a specialised creative client solutions agency that is being billed as a one stop shop for all the creative and whacky solutions that a brand would need and represents audacious ideas & out of the box executions in radio creativity. Abraham Thomas, CEO, Radio City 91.1 FM says that creativity in Radio has plateaued and AudaCITY is an attempt to break away from that. He explains, “AudaCITY is about completely thinking out of the box. What was innovative five years ago has now become conventional. We want to come up with ideas which go beyond that and FCT (Free Commercial Time) - it could be an integration of an on-ground and on-air across multiple media platforms or it could be the very idea. If content was earlier created with the brand in centre, now it is created with the consumer in the centre. This is where the shift is.”
He adds, “Increasingly clients want integrated communication as against media specific communication which is where we are hoping to kind of come in. The objective is to take it to the next level and treat it how an ad agency would. For the advertiser, the confidence we want to give them is that they now have got radio specialists who are thinking about the brand versus saying this is what we have, come and ride on us. It’s a completely different approach to innovation.”
Thinking along the lines of the theatre of the mind creative solutions would include sonic branding, ‘mogos’ – musical logos as against just plain vanilla conventional integration that has been done till now. Radio City is confident that advertisers will be willing to pay a premium for the quality of the idea and the additional value they get. Thomas also says that with inventory levels running full, AudaCITY is also a move to help sales monetize better. He says, “ To grow now, you have to increase yields, premiums and value and that can only happen if the client is getting more value. Therefore, the drive in ad sales is to actually be able to deliver greater value, justify the higher premiums that we are seeking to kind of grow in the business.” Radio City 91.1 FM has “put together a team of really audacious people, people who think out of the box” from within the network and have also got an extended team of creators freelancing with them on any specific requirements. In addition, the on-air and the programming team have also been integrated into the process.
On the Agenda
It’s been two months since Thomas has been at the helm at Radio City 91.1 FM and the key agenda on his plate is the expansion of the Radio City 91.1 FM into 11 new markets that it won in the recently concluded first phase of Phase III auctions and the main focus currently is on understanding the new markets both from the marketing and programming level. Thomas says that the new stations will be launched in a staggered manner starting April this year but he is optimistic that a couple of stations will be up and running before that subject to government deadlines being met. The other challenge is keeping up with the constantly evolving audience and keeping the brand relevant to both the current and new listener.
The expansion of the radio industry, thanks to the new frequencies, Thomas says will not just increase competition for the existing radio players but also increase the advertising base and in turn the overall market. The other interesting point to note, has been the growth of Tier II markets whose importance has grown not just for the radio players but also for advertisers particularly the national advertisers. While there has been the increase in the growth of local retail advertisers, Thomas says, “Tier II markets have become important. Brands have seen revenues from these markets increase and this is reflected in the way advertising has moved. So be it two-wheelers or FMCG, the increased penetration is helping the network grow. If we thought the revenue is only in the top 8 metros, that’s no longer true, because that’s spread into the top 20 -30 markets that have sizeable revenues now.” Thomas also adds that increasingly advertisers are looking at regional and local strategies and this is helping radio advertising grow.
Re-Defining Prime Time
One of the successes that Thomas says that Radio City 91.1FM has managed is to “re-define prime time.” While prime time on Radio has traditionally been defined as between 7AM and 11 AM and then between 8PM and 10 PM, prime time has now been extended from 7 AM in the morning to 1 in the afternoon and in the evening from 5 PM to 10 PM. On the other hand, while there was a very steep drop in inventory consumption on weekends, there wasn’t a significant drop in listenership. By communicating this fact to advertisers that Radio City 91.1 FM delivers more audiences to clients not just on week-days but also on week-ends, the station has not just managed to pull in more advertisers in this time band but also maintained its content to ad ratio and build premiums on non-FCT revenues.
Leveraging Synergies
The acquisition of Radio City by the Dainik Jagran Group also brought into the fold the eight stations of Radio Mantra and Thomas says that both the Radio stations are now integrated in terms of resources and content and “we are practically operating like one single unit and the integration process is almost complete in the sense of way we had intended it.”
Looking Ahead
In the last fiscal, Radio City 91.1FM had grown at a 30% and the radio player is looking at maintaining the same momentum. Thomas says, “We are looking at continuing that momentum, both in terms of revenues and profitability.” The company is also looking expanding its successful on ground properties, such as ‘Radio City Super Singer, Radio City Freedom Awards. In addition, it is looking to expand other individual radio properties such as Babber Sher’ and ‘Love Guru’ and make it 360 degree and accessible to consumers. Thomas says, “There are plans to come up with a few more tent-pole properties. Radio is a local medium and we are looking at a property that works at a local level and can grow up into a national property. That’s one of our big focus areas now in terms of building more such 360 degree properties.”
Finally talking about the industry at large, Thomas says the Radio industry has “not really done too much for the medium and we need to make radio cooler.” He elaborates, “From a consumption point of view, even on the online radio apps they are listening to playlists which is what Radio is about. There is a lot of opportunity to engage, integrate with the consumer through this medium and that’s what collectively as an industry we need to do and not just as individual players.”
Feedback: simran.sabherwal@exchange4media.com
