Category: Best Use of Branded Content & Sponsorship
Advertiser: BBC RADIO 2
Product/Service: RADIO 2
Agency: RKCR/Y&R
Executive Creative Director: Damon Collins (RKCR / Y&R)
Copywriter: Ted Heath (RKCR / Y&R)
Art Director: Paul Angus (RKCR / Y&R)
Media placement: TV - BBC 1 2 - March 2011
Media placement: Radio - BBC Radio 1,2,4 - March
Media placement: Pre Event TV Trailer 40” + 30” Trailer - BBC OnBBC Two/ Radio 2, Radio 5 Live. - 11/6/11
Insights, Strategy & the Idea
BBC Radio 2 is Europe’s largest radio station with over 14 million listeners. However, mainstream music isn’t all it broadcasts. It airs a wide range of musical genres, documentaries and comedy. As part of its public sector remit, the BBC wanted to champion this eclecticism, briefing us with 3 tasks: 1) make listeners appreciate the breadth of quality content available to them; 2) get listeners to listen more; 3) increase traffic to their website.
The average listener is 51 and incredibly loyal to the shows which they have always liked and listened to. As such, their listening is incredibly habitual with no real concept of the diverse programming available across the station. In order to change this, we needed an idea that would demonstrate this fantastic diversity whilst asking the listener to do nothing more than tune in as usual – we would bring the content to them.
Creative Execution
We created a unique broadcasting event that went beyond simply demonstrating the content as opposed to talking about it, allowing the campaign to deliver maximum impact. We took over the Radio 2 schedule, creating a day of new content. We swapped all the great Radio 2 shows and presenters around for 12 hours so people had to listen to something they wouldn’t normally listen to. We called it 2Day – a whole week of Radio 2 in one day.
Leading up to 2Day we used TV, Radio and PR to drive people to tune in. We filmed behind the scenes on the day to create content for users to view online. We also included content in a post event trailer to point to the website to catch up and find out more about how they could explore all the new things that they enjoyed on the day.
Results and Effectiveness
74% of listeners to a part of 2Day took out that it demonstrated Radio 2 offered a breadth of different content (Pulse)..“2 Day was a great idea, made me realise there is so much more to Radio 2” (Pulse).
The days impact actually changed radio habits. 1/3 claimed that “2 Day makes me want to listen more”.
RAJAR data showed average amount of time listened to Radio 2 after 2 Day increased 27minutes.
Weekly reach of network rose by 340,000 people.
Unique browsers increased by 98% from 53,000 to 104,000 on 2Day.