Thursday morning, so of course it’s training overview time! And it’s Sumitra again! Last night’s talk covered two areas of media, radio and cinema. So 4 speakers in total! We began with radio and it was perhaps an example of what makes a good presentation. As I had said last week, each lecture aims to teach us about a medium; why it is effective, how it works and how to plan, buy and sell it. This week I learnt all of the aforementioned. Furthermore, it wasn’t a biased presentation we were told about both the pro’s and con’s of radio as a medium. For instance, radio listening is mainly habitual and often consumed in an environment where the listener is physically doing something else. Consequently, a person might not necessarily concentrate or even remember an ad they hear on the radio. In light of this, radio should not be used alone. But, if it used in coordination with another medium, the results can be astounding.
Take BA, that music they use in their TV ads (very hard to describe a tune in words, but I think you’ll know the one, you know that kind of sleepy tune) this tune is also used on the radio ads. Together, TV and radio have stuck the BA tune in our heads. And now, whenever you hear that tune, you think of BA, without even to have a visual aid. So I think the idea is, you use radio together with another medium to start with to get all the visual and audio connections running through people’s minds and once that’s achieved you can cut the costs and rely more on radio to sustain awareness of a brand (ie hearing the tune and remembering its about BA). Does any of this make sense to you? I hope so, because I just couldn’t come up with a better way of explaining!
Ok, so we were beginning to understand the power of radio through a variety of campaigns, from BA to the world cup ads. But after last week, the burning question was whether we would learn how to plan and buy radio. Fortunately we did. It became clear that in order to plan a radio campaign, you have to first clearly define what you want to achieve and who you want to target. Then, sticking to the budget, you begin to work out which are the best times to advertise and which are the best radio stations to use. Bearing in mind that ever since digital radio there has been an increase in listening opportunities. The lecture then proceeded to explain to us how to buy radio in the most cost effective manner. By the end of the first presentation I was certainly more aware of radio; how it works, why it is and isn’t effective, how to plan using radio and how to buy radio spots. All in all very informative, although I guess only half the mountain has been climbed and we’ll have to wait and see how all this excellent theory works in practice.
Oh and did I mention that at the end of the talk there was a small quiz, “guess the intro” to 27 songs. I got 10, didn’t realised they were all mixed in together! Concert tickets as prizes as well! Gutting!
The next talk was on Cinema. Felt slightly sorry for the next speakers as they not only had the worst job of going second, but also had to speed through the presentation so that everyone could go and watch the football. Consequently, we had to rush through everything. Despite the hurried pace, the talk was both informative and interesting. Again, the speaker detailed why cinema is an effective advertising medium; cinema is the only medium to offer a captive audience and it is a shared medium. We were then given the lowdown on planning a cinema campaign; from working out the cost (very expensive) to targeting the right people. i.e. not wasting money on a Lynx ad at the beginning of Love Actually (this has not happened, it was just an example from my imagination, as I can’t remember the one from last night!). You can also advertise through cinema beyond the use of the big screen. You can advertise in the foyer or on popcorn boxes or with mirror stickers. There appears to be a wealth of opportunity at the cinema. However, when it comes to direct response media and cinema there is a slight problem. You can’t put an ad on the big screen that says “call this number now” as everyone has their phones switched off! There are ways to get round this, such as ads on the backs of tickets that people can take home. But I’m not convinced that cinema is the best medium for Direct Response Media given the delay in the “direct response”. 3 question quiz at the end, free cinema tickets - I lost again!
All in all: enjoyed the evening, sold on Radio, not sure about Cinema.