Radio, the cinderella of media, got spotlighted as a medium which could offer young listeners a “richer experience’ in the seminar Digital Radio: Turning Creatives Into DJs. In the last 50 years, radio has hardly changed but this does not need to be the case said Steve James, head of advertising and marketing at Commercial Radio Australia.
“Clearly, it is important to reach out to young listeners because they are the future,’ he said. It was up to radio to introduce creative ways to engage the young demographic. He pointed out that while DAB+ is still in its infancy in many regions of the world, most radio stations have latched on to the digital environment with podcasts and streaming.
“Digital radio is already here and a web presence is now a crucial part of any radio brand. But DAB+ offers all manner of bells and whistles such as scrolling text, still and animated images and interactivity that we believe will enable it to compete with other media.’
For Nick Piggott, head of creative technology at GCap Media, one of the most important innovations is tagging which allows people to “time-shift their interaction to when they have time’. This allows marketers to get “a form of direct response but on the listener’s terms’.
If one thought radio can’t be visual, according to Piggott radio can have its own look on the PSP, the iPhone or mobile. “We’ve researched if people really want visual and they do. But we’re not talking about TV on the radio – the images will be relevant to what a person is listening to.’
