This activity is important because it will help you to understand the benefits of radio as a communication tool.

While some marketers perceive radio to be a rather old-fashioned method of communication relative other promotional tools, it has certain features that make it one of the best tools to use to reach specific target markets. Relative to all the tools the marketer has available at present, within the 330 million U.S. marketplace, it is the most pervasive tool. Radio reaches more consumers than any other single medium.

Certainly, there are some problems and disadvantages associated with using the radioa more limited listener attention, for one. Often the radio is background noise and the listener comes in and out of the program being aired. Because the radio is really only the audio dimension, there are some limitations to the creativity that can be implemented on the radio. However, it remains a viable option by which to communicate with ones target customer.

The goal of this activity is to help you assess the fit of an audio dimension as part of the IMC.

Match the correct feature of radio broadcasting as part of the IMC with the following strengths marketing managers enjoy.

1. Cost
2. Allows Image Transfer
3. Receptivity
4. Flexibility
5. Ability to make Unusual Audience Measurements
6. Selectivity

Match each of the options above to the items below.

• Listeners often have very emotional relationships with the announcer, deejay, or entire show team on the air, and will respond to their appeals very well. Since the radio often goes with the listener in many places from the car to the bathroom brushing teeth in the morning, the listener may be very receptive to an appeal by a popular host such as Howard Stern to buy a security system for ones house.

• Via Nielsen, which covers over 300 radio markets, the IMC manager can learn the AQH figure for listeners. It enables them to know which portions of the quarter of the hour held the most listeners offering good feedback to identify the most effective portions of the broadcast.

• to develop any promotion, there are two are primary expensesone in the media buy and the other in production expenses. With only an audio portion, the production expense involves little more than writing and reading the script. Relative to the amount the marketer has to spend on TV buys, radio can be as low as $2,500 for a thirty-second ad.

• With so many diverse stations across the American market, radio allows brands to reach very specific targets based on their geography, demographics, and lifestyles.

• Since the message can be changed, inserted, or pulled up to almost the moment it is scheduled to air on the radio, IMC managers can adjust their plan nationally or in the spot market.

• Progressive Insurance airs a spot on TV with fairly heavy scheduling for three weeks achieving good reach and frequency. It then runs just the audio portion of the radio allowing the listener to fill in the pictures, backgrounds, and actors seen in the TV ad, and he becomes more actively involved in processing the communication.