Three-quarters of customer decisions are based on emotions. Ralph van Dijk, the founder of audio specialist agency Eardrum knows this well. How does one attract customers then? The answer is obvious for Ralph: through emotion, of which the most powerful is love.
Why is love so important in the world of audio? Radio has an unfair advantage: it’s often turned on during the most relevant, most intimate parts of the day. What is more, humans tend to trust their ears more than their eyes as visual recognition takes longer. Due to this privilege, the way to the listeners heart is rather easy, if an ad is put together well.
One of the ways to do this, Ralph claims, is making sure the advertisement promotes loyalty. For this to happen, the listener and the brand need to “spend quality time together”. And putting the effort in is very much worth it: with brand love comes brand loyalty.
What does a good advertisement include then? First, it needs to present a personality the listeners want to discover. Second, it needs to be authentic, otherwise no one is going to believe it. “If you want your brand to be loved, it must be trusted, and to be trusted, it must be authentic”. In conclusion? What radio stations should seek is a long-term relationship rather than a “one-night fling”, van Dijk appeals.
