With over seven thousand businesses across Ireland excluded financially from the lucrative radio advertising market in Ireland, in 2021 is it possible to attract their advertising revenue into the world of radio?
While many of us know that soft drinks, Nappies, Beauty products and
holidays are regularly advertised on the various Irish radio stations, these
are often agency campaigns for domestic or global businesses targeting Irish
listeners nationally. ‘Great Irish Radio Ads’ postulated,
‘Of all the mediums
available to marketers, radio is the most powerful tool to tell a great story.
Storytelling works superbly through voice alone and it’s an impactful way to
create a strong connection with the listener’.
This is a question that you may ask yourself when thinking about your recent
radio listening,
‘when is the last time you heard and
advertisement for your local public house?’
In 1996 I was the General Manager of the Portobello public house and
after a major refurbishment, we purchased a radio campaign on 98FM. It was a
major investment in announcing our re-opening but was unsustainable
on a longer term basis due mainly to costs. The campaign was paid for from a
promotional budget to target listeners who would enjoy our newly built
nightclub along with a subsidy from one of our major suppliers. In order to promote
the newly built Hotel attached to the pub, a national radio campaign to market our
product proved too expensive and cheaper options in targeting possible guests was
through regional and local newspapers. The initial radio campaign was extremely
successful as a promotional code delivered on the radio was used as an entry
payment to the new nightclub, delivered large crowds. Radio works.
In 2003, when I ran my own pub in the centre of Dublin city, I did some basic local market research on which station my potential customers listened to. This basic market research ranged from asking locals, to listening to what was being played on car radios in the area. As a result, I purchased a Sunshine 106 campaign. This was for two reasons. Firstly, it was in the top five most listened to stations in the catchment area of the pub and secondly it was the least expensive of those five. The campaign which had a radio ad aired over two weeks, that I was never overly happy with, also included a live OB from the pub. This proved extremely popular. The word of mouth reaction was excellent, the local newspaper was there to photograph the event and I believe that the post publicity from the actual campaign was of more value to my business than the radio advertisement itself. [1]
Pubs are the conduits by which companies like Guinness, Smirnoff and
Heineken sell their products to the public. The publican acts as a middle-man
and these major companies with extensive advertising budgets encourage the
consumer to visit the pub to partake of their goods. It is generic advertising
for the pub and not specific to any particular public house.[2]
A public house radio advertising campaign for a pub in Dublin 4 is of little
interest to someone living in Dublin 13. If that publican purchased advertising
on a national or regional radio station, his pub would not resonate with a
listener in Tralee. Even to advertise on a commercial Dublin station is
probably not targeted enough to make much sense unless it is the launch of a
nightclub or as part of an entertainment package. Community and neighbourhood
radio would be the ideal route for that publican but in Ireland in 2021 there
are limitations on the number of advertisements allowed on community radio[3]
and none allowed on temporary licensed stations.[4]
A forerunner of legal local and community radio was pirate radio with many cities, towns and villages across Ireland had at least one pirate radio station entertaining and informing the local community. With advertising relatively cheap, many pubs used the pirate radio stations to reach their clientele whether it was their food offering, the upcoming entertainment, their new beer garden or an event being held there, radio was the perfect vehicle for publicans and their businesses. Since those days of the 1970’s and 1980’s the rules on advertising alcohol have changed and tightened including the blurb ‘Drink Responsibly’ added to the end of both radio and television advertising. The public house has been excluded from the airwaves During that period of illegal radio broadcasting numerous stations were located in public houses including in 1945 at the Beehive pub in Ardara, Donegal which was the location for Radio Nuala. Radio Milinda was famously located above the Diamond Pub in the Gloucester Diamond area of Dublin in 1972, while in the eighties during the golden era pf pirate radio several pubs were located in public houses.
Centre Radio initially
operated from Prosperous, County Kildare above Larry’s public house in the town
going on air in September 1985. In 1983,
Big Tree Radio became a short-lived station based above the Big Tree public
house on North Main Street, Swords. Radio Glenfarne was operated by Paul Graham
and Eamon Brookes from the County Leitrim village of Glenfarne for the local
Festival beginning in 1980 based above a public house in the village and in the
same county Radio North West began life above a pub in Drumshanbo. One of the
so called Super Pirates Radio Leinster went on the air using a
five-kilowatt transmitter on April 29th 1981 broadcasting from a
site behind Lamb Doyle’s public house in Sandyford. The community based station Radio Ringsend who broadcast for the
duration of the local festival from 1982 until 1988, was located in various
venues around the village including a room above Sally O’Brien’s public house
on Thorncastle Street. Dublin’s Westside Radio was based above a pub on James’s
Street in 1982 and Laser 89 in Waterford was also based above a pub. In the UK,
a station Boogaloo Radio began broadcasting from the beer garden of the pub.
Following the imposed and extended Covid 19 lockdown[5]
restrictions, which has seen many pubs closed for more than a year, there will
come a moment when publicans need to reconnect with their client base. Some major
pub chains will have advertising budgets but as revenue has been starved from
them for over twelve months, how those budgets are spent will be tightly
controlled. For the smaller, single business publican, the needs are different
and in neighbourhoods and small villages across Ireland in urban and rural
settings, an avenue to advertise their business will be critical as they meet
the challenge from other pubs in close proximity to theirs. For targeted
advertising many publicans have turned to social media and have purchased ad
campaigns from companies like Facebook and Twitter. They also rely on sharing
and retweeting but as the country re-opens and in twelve to eighteen months as
the tourism sectors begins to regain momentum, pubs will need to spread their net
for business wider. The issue for social media platforms is that they have
attracted negative publicity with the rise of so-called ‘fake news’. The bonus however
is the targeting, as advertisers can minutely target the audience they are
after. This requires a certain amount of tech skills which is attractive for
younger publicans but can be somewhat of a minefield for more traditional
publicans. Radio will be key to the success of the recovering economy and is
still one of the most popular mediums for the Irish consumer with 85% of all
adults listening to radio every day.
Radio is popular in the car during the commutes in the morning and
evenings with this reflected in the increased radio advertising rates during
those periods. The evening commute is often the period when listeners decide
where they will be socialising later that evening or over the forth coming
weekend. Radio is used by those exercising and by demographics including stay
at home parents, the elderly and sports enthusiasts. The definition of the term
‘radio’ has changed and expanded in the past decade as technology advances.
Radio station broadcasts or audio content deliverers are now available not just
through the tradition analogue linear broadcasts on AM and FM but via station
apps, online providers such as Tune-In, Radio Garden and radio.ie and through
media players located on station websites. The use of devices to access online radio
and the increasing use of smart speakers like Alexa is a growing market. According
to marketing.ie[6],
‘The digital tools used
are for the most part a mobile device (11.9 per cent), with the PC/laptop used
by 2.6 per cent and smart speakers used by 1.9 per cent. Despite widespread
media content, platforms and devices, Irish radio maintains strong audiences, with
the report showing 3.2 million people now tuned in to radio each weekday – 81
per cent of over-15s.’
Radio.ie at http://radio.ie/streams/ streams over 160 Irish radio stations on its service with over half of them only available to listeners online such as Birdhill Radio or Scariff Bay Community Radio. According to the services founder Brian Greene for the twenty days up to February 20th 2021, there had been over 50,000 listens to radio on his service alone. He also demonstrated how easy it is for online radio stations to add adverts to the streams.
With my own personal passion for radio, one of my favourite stations is
an American Old Time Radio operator called ‘The Crime and Detective
Channel’ which broadcasts programmes from the golden era of US radio, from the
1930’s to the 1950’s. During the interval between programmes, a number of
adverts are aired not directly by the US station but through Tune-In. This
advertising is helpful to the operator to offset the costs of streaming. The
adverts that I heard, as distinct to a listener from Cork City, were targeted
due to the analytics used identifying my interests including numerous
advertisements for Tesco, where I regularly shop and use their free Wi-Fi when
I am in store, identifying me as a potential recipient of the advertisements.
To me that was good value for money. This could also be used to target my
socialising habits. If I live in a particular area, the local public house
adverts could be targeted to my listening habits. These analytics could also
identify any Pub or restaurant when I checked in online, commented on through
social media or used a search engine to identify.
Pubs and publicans will need radio, should use radio in a targeted,
efficient manner and ultimately will reap the rewards of using such a dynamic
and diverse medium as radio. Ad agencies such as Audio One should be encouraged by bodies such as the LVA and VFI to present proposals to
the licensed trade to both boost their survival upon reopening and to give
publicans a chance to understand how digital radio works and what it can do for
them. The pubs need affordable access to the media not just as an industry but
as individuals serving very diverse communities across the country. One size
will not fit all.
“ALCOHOL ADVERTISING AND RETAILERS
A retail advertisement containing alcohol will be
subject to either Full Alcohol restrictions of Part-Alcohol restrictions.
Full alcohol restrictions are the same restrictions
that apply to a branded alcohol advertisement. Part-Alcohol restrictions apply
to the period of 6am to 10am on all Radio and Television channels, RTÉ
programming and the “Big Big Movie”.
Advertisements are considered Full Alcohol unless
the majority of the products being promoted are non-alcohol. For example, a
retail advertisement which includes offers on three products can only be
regarded as a part alcohol advertisement if two of the products are
non-alcoholic. A four product promotion would require that three of the
products are non-alcoholic in order to avoid additional time and station
restrictions applicable to branded alcohol advertising.
It is important to note that in addition to the number of different products being promoted if there is excessive emphasis on the alcohol element or a disproportionate amount of alcohol featuring within the advertisements then full alcohol restrictions would apply.”
[1]
Other Campaigns
[2]
Unless the pub itself is featured as a location in the advertisement.
[3]
BAI Rules applying to Community Radio 4.5: Advertising The time to be given to
advertising in any clock hour shall not exceed a maximum of six minutes.
[4]
BAI Rules applying to Institutional and Temporary Radio Broadcasters: 4.8
Advertising & Teleshopping Spots Broadcasters licensed further to Section
68 of the Broadcasting Act 2009 may not carry advertising, including teleshopping.
[5]
Some pop up radio stations appeared during the Lockdown broadcasting from
closed public houses including ‘Covid Radio Swinford’ which broadcast from the
front lounge of the White House pub on Chapel Street, Swinford, Co. Mayo.
[6] https://marketing.ie/vast-number-of-irish-adults-tune-into-fm-radio/
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