Home » Branding » Absolute Radio’s Marketing Gets A Facelift

Absolute Radio’s Marketing Gets A Facelift

Posted by Jonathan Jacob on 14 March 2011

The Absolute Radio Faces for Radio marketing campaign has received a bit of a ‘facelift’ this past fortnight as Christian O’Connell, Frank Skinner and Dave Gorman have had their radio face spread across more outdoor sites and the world wide web as the fully integrated marketing campaign goes to Phase 2.

The successful award winning campaign from 2010 has been revised for the third time around and has been live since the start of March. The standout creative featuring Christian, Dave and Frank with their ‘morning face’ has popped up across the country within major cities including London, Manchester and Liverpool as well as across the Midlands – the home of Frank Skinner and Dave Gorman (including Birmingham, Nottingham, Coventry and Wolverhampton).

A mixture of 6 sheets and 48 sheets delivered across digital, backlight and scrolling display have appeared alongside Bus superside spots. The visual has been changed slightly from previous incarnations of the campaign with a bigger focus on the names (and typography) of the talent as well as the use of the Facebook logo and cleanliness of the station call signs. (I spent six months looking at those three faces nearly everyday, so feel like that visual is imprinted into my brain!)

Alongside some print and PR activity – the most impressive development to this campaign is the below the activity across online, digital and social media touchpoints – which talk to Absolute Radio’s core audience/potentional audiences. It’s important to remember that 65.2% of the Absolute Radio network’s entire listening is on digital platforms (industry average around 30%).

Faces for Radio Homepage Takeover on MSN UK

Absolute Radio has put its money where it’s mouth is by purchasing two high profile homepage takeovers on YouTube and MSN.com – the Homepage Takeover is a key property to digital sales teams at Golden Square. The homepage takeovers feature a banner ad of the main poster with a hyperlink to the Absolute Radio site, plus video creative featuring the Faces For Radio front men. Hovering the mouse over the DJ’s allow the user to listen a podcast of their shows. The homepage takeover is supported across the net with paid search activity (text and banner display) on key websites.

Additionally, Absolute Radio have worked with Betapond to develop a Facebook application This lets users post their “morning faces” – pictures of themselves taken before they’ve readied themselves for the day – which appear on the app and then on their Facebook wall. Have a look at their Facebook Wall to see a few of the funny faces!

The app also automatically generates a comical status update related to the pictures, such as “[Username] has a face like…a bag of spanners”. Friends can vote on the best post, and the one with the most votes by the end of the campaign, at the end of this month, will win £5,000, while runners-up will get £1,000 and £500 prizes.

Absolute Radio has also purchased the enhanced ‘Sponsored Stories’ spots within Facebook which promotes friends’ interactions with the Absolute Radio brand within a key position on the Facebook homepage – with the aim to show Absolute Radio as a trusted product.

While the O’Connells’ morning mug might not what you want to see on your way or work or while surfing the web – the team at One Golden Square hope that it will remind listeners – and encourage new listeners – to listen to Absolute Radio for something that’s honesty and real. The Absolute Radio Faces for Radio Campaign is by Albion London creative with media purchased by MEC. Absolute Radio marketing is Clare Baker and Laura Tannenbaum.

PS – is it me or does the creative used to promote the new ITV1 series Monroe (starring James Nesbitt) looks very similar?!