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Introduction

In the dynamic world of the media landscape, time is a precious commodity. For sales managers and employees as well as for advertisers and their media agencies. While sales teams feel the pressure to generate leads, create quotes and close deals, clients and agencies are faced with a complex and time-consuming process when they want to book audio advertising.

The complexity of the audio booking process

Currently, booking radio advertising - both traditional FM/DAB+ advertising and online audio advertising - is complicated and cumbersome for many clients and agencies.

Reasons for the complexity:

  • Unclear market: the large number of radio stations (hundreds of FM/DAB+ and thousands of web radios) and the different reach and planning sources (e.g. Media-Analyse ag.ma, AudioXpert, EMA NRW, Funkanalyse Bayern) make it difficult to select suitable stations and compare reach.
  • Categorization of advertisers: The distinction between national and regional/local advertisers limits freedom of choice and makes direct cooperation between clients and broadcasters more difficult.
  • Different terminology: Inconsistent use of technical terms (trailer, jingles, listeners yesterday vs. daily reach, etc.) leads to misunderstandings and makes communication more difficult.
  • Non-transparent pricing: Discount systems, surcharges, different pricing models depending on spot length, time of broadcast and broadcaster as well as non-transparent billing modalities cause confusion and additional work.
  • Lack of self-service solutions: Lack of digitization of the booking process leads to time-consuming processing via email and hinders the scalability of campaigns.
  • Different systems for online audio: Different pricing models and booking processes for online audio compared to traditional radio make it difficult to integrate all audio channels into media strategies.
  • Podcasts: Specific framework conditions and scaling challenges for advertising in podcasts present additional hurdles.

The consequences of complexity

  • Barrier for customers: The complexity of the booking process puts many potential customers off radio advertising and diverts their investments to other media channels. SMEs in particular, with younger decision-makers at the top, are increasingly using digital channels such as Google Adwords, YouTube or social media. Campaigns can be booked digitally and automatically everywhere.
  • Increased effort for agencies: Time-consuming research, negotiations and processing put a strain on media agencies and reduce the channel profitability of audio advertising.
  • Prevented innovation: The system's lack of flexibility and scalability hinder the development of innovative audio advertising formats and adaptation to modern customer needs.
  • Long lead times: In the digital advertising world, an advertising campaign can be bought and played out in milliseconds. Real-time broadcasts are not yet common in linear radio.

Conclusion and need for action

The radio industry urgently needs to simplify the booking process for audio advertising in order to attract customers and agencies as partners and strengthen the status of audio advertising in the media landscape.

In addition, the genre must catch up as quickly as possible for its classic, linear radio business on a topic that all other media genres are already addressing:

  • Participation in programmatic trading

Significant portions of customer budgets are spent in other media types via automated trading. The DOOH category has recently shown what strong growth is possible here, because the advantages from the perspective of the buying parties are great:

  • Higher channel profitability for agencies
  • Automated processes and therefore greater efficiency
  • Synchronized cross-media advertising across all genres with the same default parameters, all bookable via DSP
  • Modern and flexible advertising campaigns (data-driven, targeted)
  • Clear rules - internationally valid - for purchasing: net CPM-based, no zero dates, billing via the DSP

Further necessary steps:

  • Standardization and transparency: Standardization of terminology, reach measurements and pricing models create clarity and comparability.
  • Digitalization and self-service: Development of user-friendly online platforms and APIs for efficient and flexible booking of audio advertising.
  • Integration and scalability: Enabling the seamless integration of traditional radio and online audio advertising in campaigns and scaling across different channels (convergence).
  • Innovation and flexibility: Establishing new booking models and developing innovative audio advertising formats to meet the needs of modern advertisers.

“Simplify the way we sell” could become an initiative dedicated to simplifying the audio booking process. The aim is to provide all stakeholders - sales teams, clients and agencies - with transparent, efficient and user-friendly access to the diverse world of audio advertising.

Together, we can revitalize the audio market and fully leverage the power of audio advertising for companies and brands.

Are you ready to be part of the change? your Andrea Anders

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