World leading marketing educator, Professor Mark Ritson has revealed that investing just 11% of a campaign’s budget in radio, could double the effectiveness of the entire campaign.

Professor Ritson presented his findings to an audience of 500+ media agency and client executives at HEARD 2024, a major new audio event by Commercial Radio and Audio (Australia).

Ritson had set out to test a personal observation that when his clients did 'a little bit of radio, the whole thing just worked better!' The resulting collaborative study between Ritson and CRA, analysed EFFIE award entries going back to 2018 and returned results that exceeded even Ritson's expectations.

For brands with ESOV (excess share of voice), Ritson revealed that a radio investment of just 11% doubled campaign effectiveness. And the catalytic effect of that small investment rippled across the entire campaign delivering a 3.5x impact on retention, and double-digit improvements in brand association, mental availability, new client acquisition and brand awareness. In Ritson’s own words:

"Radio has been underrated in maximising the overall impact of your marketing. For the best bang-for-buck, marketers should consider radio as an integral part of the channel mix - and an 11% investment can double your campaign's impact.”

"It makes other media look good, which is an ironic predicament for radio because it's not taking credit for itself….

"…Radio doesn't need to be the hero, or the lead media, but it does drive a disproportionately large impact for a relatively modest investment of just 11%. It's the ultimate sidekick."

It’s hard to do justice to Ritson's funny and revelatory presentation; he is after all, widely considered a world-class speaker. So we recommend watching the man himself. Take a look at our 5min edit, or watch the 30min presentation in full.

And if you'd like to download the slides, here's a pdf that neatly summarises all of Ritson's key points.


To add radio to your campaign, get in touch with TRB today.