A breakthrough research study on the creation of effective Radio advertising for kids was conducted recently by consumer research company, ConsumerQuest Inc. and Radio Disney. The objective of the study was to empower clients and creative teams with the strategies and tools to develop powerful Radio ads for kids.

"Radio appears to be a unique and highly effective way to reach and convince children and tweens," said Cory Schwartz, President, ConsumerQuest, Inc. "This Radio Disney study provides powerful quantitative evidence that children can be informed of and persuaded to seek out products they hear advertised on the Radio, completely independent from TV advertising. Kids appear to visualize and desire products they hear at least as much as they would products they see."

Key findings that surfaced from this study:

1) Creative power = selling power:
When kids are entertained -- they will remember the product and want it.

2) Visuals aren't mandatory -- audio can communicate a sense of the product and can drive excitement and intent to purchase:
Conventional professional wisdom posits that toy and game advertising needs visuals in order to work and that Radio is a great complement to TV. This research indicates that fictional games and toys products performed remarkably well -- with no TV reference.

3) Recall across the board was surprisingly high.
Kids listen. Kids remember. Unaided full name recall for a brand-new product after only one commercial exposure in clutter was above 30 percent. Despite only one mode of advertising, kids were incredibly impacted by Radio ads.

Other interesting findings highlighted the importance of humor, excitement, music, and voiceover.

About the study

Focus groups and online interviews were conducted with over 1,200 kids ages 8-12 years. The study examined six specific creative variables: Music, Sound Effects, Voiceover, Delivery, Humor, and Number of Copy Points. Participants were asked to listen to commercials for fictional products and then interviewed on how they felt about each ad. The study included aided and unaided recall, purchase intent and ad likes/dislikes