Digital Radio Gets Big Push Along

The radio industry is set to launch a series of radio ads promoting digital radio in the weeks leading up to Christmas. The industry will also have demonstration kiosks on Westfield Shopping Centres and banner ads online to promote this new technology.
The six-week three pronged campaign worth over $3 million begins today with a series of six new radio ads promoting digital radio as the perfect Christmas gift with a focus on sound quality and more station choice.  

The radio commercials will be played across 42 commercial radio stations in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth until December 24, plus the banner ads will be featured on all station websites.

To complement the new ad campaign, Digital Radio Plus Demonstration Kiosks will be established at 10 Westfield Shopping Centres across Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.  Beginning with Westfield Chatswood on 2 December and ending with Westfield Carousel in Perth on 21 December.

The interactive kiosks will run for four days in each of the 10 locations and feature digital radios from Pure, Roberts, Sangean, Yamaha, Bush, Grundig and Revo.  Shoppers who stop and try digital radio will receive discount vouchers from participating Dick Smith, Myer, Target, Harvey Norman and Good Guys stores.   

Commercial Radio Australia chief executive officer, Joan Warner said:  “This extensive Christmas campaign is part of the ongoing investment by the industry and stakeholders to raise the awareness of the benefits of digital radio and encourage listeners to buy a digital radio for Christmas.”

Updated digital radio sales figures that will include both the Father’s Day and Christmas retail cycles will be released in early 2011.  The radio industry celebrated one year of digital radio on air in August and reported that at that time  523,000 people were listening to digital radio in an average week and that there were three times the predicted number of digital radios in the market at 150,000.