Brands using radio for advertising get almost eight times the ROI, according to new research.

But what does that actually mean, asks Sue Fernando of Media Buying Agency, The Media Shop.

As a Media Buying Agency our eyes are always glued to our calendars. That places us in good stead to tell you this month commercial radio celebrates its 40th birthday. (Those in the know will recall Capital Radio’s launch in London in October 1973.)

According to the first-ever analysis of cross-agency data by the Radio Advertising Bureau (RAB), radio advertisers on average get their money back 7.7 times over, with automotive and retailer brands showing an even higher performance.

This places radio as the second-highest ROI - behind TV, but outperforming press, outdoor and online. Currently, radio carries 6% of all advertising budgets, the research suggests that if budgets were reallocated to give radio a 20% share of total, the total campaign ROI would rise by over 8%. For the top 100 radio advertisers, this is equivalent to getting an extra £1.4 billion return on advertising investment.

But this Media Buying Agency has a long-wave bone to pick. Although the research appears well constructed there are many sweeping statements being made by the RAB using the research findings to springboard a campaign to entice agencies and advertisers alike to reevaluate their spends in radio (no surprise there!). 

We would like to know if the brands involved have traditionally used radio in their media mix and whether the 40% coverage figure quoted as being a ‘tipping point’ in the research is possible without compromising other media weights within the campaign mix.

The results are based on a 15 month analysis conducted by Holms & Cook, taking confidential ROI data supplied by nine econometrics agencies covering over 2,000 individual media campaigns.

In our opinion, your Media Buying Agency should be delving deeper when confronted with these kinds of stats. After all, there is always more than meets the eye to claims such as these, even if it's about ROI for clients, which at the end of the day is why we're in this game.