WWO: Best Practices for Talent Reads
Cumulus Media | Westwood One Audio Active Group’s weekly blog post focuses on talent read ads on AM/FM radio and in podcasts based on a study from WPP Media and System1 titled, “The Creator Effectiveness Playbook: How to Build Your Brand with Creators.” The study measured creative responses for 1,217 
paid ads among 182,500 TikTok users and connected that to in-market brand lift data. The study covered eight global markets and $71 million of media spend, which generated 23.6 billion impressions. The best practices revealed by the research include: 1) Host-read ads generate greater impact: System1 and WPP Media find creator ads (a.k.a. “host reads”) drive greater brand memory lift, which is the combination of brand awareness and ad recall; 2) Two best practices: Say the name of the advertiser within the first two seconds and ensure strong positive emotion via entertainment; 3) “Say it and show it”: Saying the brand and showing it in the first two seconds of the ad drives the strongest brand recognition; 4) Conduct a “brand early and often” creative audit: Watch/listen to all your ads. Check off if your brand is mentioned in the first two seconds and if there are at least five or more audio track brand mentions in 30-second ads; 5) Use both salesmanship and showmanship: Emotion-based creative that is funny and entertaining builds stronger brands and generates greater business outcomes; and 6) Utilize right brain elements such as characters with vitality, story unfolding, clear sense of place, sounds of the living, dialogue, word play, distinctive accents, and music with discernable melody. See the full blog post here.
Back in 1988, Steve and Anita Hotsenpiller launched Columbia, MO-based Steve’s Pest Control with one truck and an ad campaign on a local radio station. Once the business grew, roughly 9% of their revenue was allocated to purchase ad time on more stations. Fast-forward to today, Steve’s Pest Control has 90 trucks and leads all pest control competitors in Missouri, eventually becoming one of local radio’s largest advertisers. Their humorous radio spots include the tag line, “Now you’ve got a friend in the pest control business – Steve’s Pest Control.” As Cumulus Media/Westwood One Audio Active Group chief insights officer Pierre Bouvard details in his blog, “Steve’s Pest Control offers Madison Avenue a master class on creating future demand, and how building a brand is the main driver of long-term growth and profit. These days Madison Avenue is obsessed with the science of measuring the short-term sales effect of advertising and converting existing demand. Steve’s knows what Madison Avenue has forgotten: To generate substantial sales and profit, a business needs to create future demand rather than just obsess over converting existing demand.” Bouvard points out that in a December 2023 MARU/Matchbox survey of nearly 
That’s an important reason to continuously advertise your business. Also, advertising memories fade. Steve’s usage of AM/FM radio advertising has built a dominant brand. It is so impressive for a local business to win against big national brands.” Creative testing firm System1 conducted an evaluation of Steve’s Pest Control’s radio spots, which scored an 84% in brand recognition, demonstrating effective branding that resonates with listeners long after the ad has played. System1 VP of partnerships insights and strategy Allison O’Toole comments, “Steve’s Pest Control’s category ownership – built on long-term radio advertising – shows the potential of audio to work hard and deliver lasting results for any brand.”
a host-read ad on a podcast or AM/FM radio show drives powerful brand impact and sales effect and positive emotional impact is what measures a successful campaign. System1 studied host-read ads and devised a rating system that correlates creative quality with long-term share growth – in layman’s terms, “the more you feel, the more you buy.” But the study found that only 17% of the ads tested rated high enough to have the sufficient emotional impact necessary to lift long-term brand share by between 1% and 3%.