Charlotte Hager, who is the Founder and Director at Comrecon Brand Navigation in Austria and Mark Barber MBE, who is planning director at the Radiocentre in the UK spoke about radio and audio in the future, with a particular focus on monetisation.
Charlotte spoke about how audio might be used in the future, by looking at what had happened in the past. She discussed a few pieces of research that she had undertaken to look at the audio rituals across age groups. She focussed on Planet Audio 2025, which looked at podcasts and streaming verses radio. The research highlighted how important podcasting was likely to be in the future and highlighted which personality types preferred which devices and platforms.
Charlotte said that in 2025, autonomous use will be important. She said that in the future listeners would have just one device: “Radio will be customised, radio and digital will merge, content will become more relevant than the channel it’s on, and there will be a surge in media libraries and podcasts”.
Mark Barber followed, discussing, what he called “recession busting radio”. He said, “the only certainty is uncertainty” but advocated action to prepare for economic uncertainty. He said that radio stations should make the case for increased investment with advertisers: “Evidence proves that profits of advertisers who spend during a recession increase, once recovery begins”.
He also suggested that radio stations can encourage clients to re-evaluate their media mix. Radio offers much more audience per-pound than any other type of advertising and should therefore take precedence.
To conclude, Mark said that advertisers should keep one eye on the future, because radio boosts both short and longer terms ad effects.
