February 13th marks World Radio Day 2019 and one thing for sure is, Ireland loves radio and Flahavan’s are certainly lovers of radio too. Choose Radio, the umbrella organisation for the promotion of radio advertising in Ireland and Ireland’s leading producer of oats and family-run business Flahavan’s, have come together for a first of its kind, multi-platform collaboration study. This took place over a three-week period in September 2018.
With 8 out of 10 adults listening to radio every day, this unique medium is one of the most powerful forms of advertising and the case study results have reinforced radio’s importance to the advertising industry. The Choose Radio Group and the Flahavan’s team donned their creative hats, developed a campaign that ran on air and online showcasing the many varied possibilities that radio offers.
Overnight Oats was a brand new to market product as well as a first in category item when launched in early 2018. Flahavan’s worked with Choose Radio to create a case study to demonstrate the wide breadth of what a well-planned campaign with radio can achieve. It featured a combination of radio ad spots devised by BBDO and radio stations creating their own local video content which was then pushed out across their social channels and websites. The impressive case study results, were revealed at a breakfast briefing this morning,attended by many of Ireland’s leading advertising and media buying organisations.
Independent research from B&A, market data analysis from Stephen Rust, Joint Managing Director of Visualise.ie and Tom Harper, Director of Annalect Ireland showed that during the campaign:
Awareness of Flahavan’s Overnight Oats improved from 29% in August to 37% post the advertising campaign in October. This is a statistically significant improvement of the order of 28%.
While a brand new product to the Irish market and off a small base, sales had increased 269% during campaign versus the 3 weeks prior; with sales more than doubling across all major retailers.
During the Radio campaign sales of Overnight Oats had a stronger uplift, at full retail price, than when a price reduction was run as a standalone promotion.
Radio engages with 3.1 million people in Ireland every day on apps, smart speakers, computers, televisions as well as traditional radio sets. Choose Radio saw the test as an opportunity to use all these platforms to reach out, enhance the campaign and embrace the trust the public has in radio as a medium. That trust in radio is at an all-time high and engaging their listeners on-air and online proves to be a winning formula.
Chairperson of Choose Radio, Gabrielle Cummins said,
“The special, loyal relationship that each individual listener forms with their favourite radio station cannot be taken for granted. We wanted to demonstrate how all our radio presenters understand and connect with their specific target audience in every single county in Ireland. 34 radio stations utilised their own social platforms in an innovative & relatable way which augmented the powerful, traditional, radio tool of spot advertising. This proved to be both entertaining for each station’s target audience while at the time effectively communicating Flahavan’s key brand messages”. Advertising agencies have been demanding case studies and now Choose Radio has produced the first of many all industry, collaborative case studies. We look forward to engaging more with advertising agencies and their clients to further demonstrate the unique power of radio advertising.”
John Noonan, Sales & Marketing Director of Flahavan’s said:
“We were delighted to partner with Choose Radio for this case study. It was an easy decision as Flahavan’s has identified radio as a key medium for the brand over many years and it is an important component in our annual communications plan.
As leader in the Irish oats market, we are keen to keep to the forefront of new trends in oat consumption. Oats are already well recognised for their health benefits and Overnight Oats introduces a new way of enjoying them. We felt that our Flahavan’s Overnight Oats was ideal to use for this case study as it has an important role to play in the evolving lifestyle needs of consumers at breakfast time.
We were pleased with the success of the campaign at stimulating interest, increasing brand awareness and ultimately encouraging trial and education of this new breakfast concept. The campaign delivered strong results for this new product launch.”
