Scottish Media Awards: Promotion of the Year

Win a Car a Day in May was one of the biggest ever Radio Promotions to run in the UK. The idea was created locally by GMG sales director Gavin Bruce, pictured left, and programme director Jay Crawford.

The promotion was the first tri-partner deal of its scale bringing both The Scottish Sun and Arnold Clark to the table.

This meant three sets of objectives to be met. The Scottish Sun looked to maintain its trend of increased year-on-year circulation against a decreasing market, while defending this growth at a time when it was looking at an increased price point of 20p (up from 15p).

Meanwhile, Arnold Clark had a different objective as it looked to drive general web traffic, increase fresh opportunities for vehicle sales and positioning the brand as fun, friendly and approachable.

Last, but by no means least, Real Radio aimed to see reach grow across the transmission area by attracting new listeners as well as increasing loyalty of its listeners by adding to the hours spent tuned in.

As such, Real Radio created an on-air mechanic that was, in effect, a game of finder’s keepers on a gigantic scale. The Real Radio listeners and Scottish Sun readers were challenged to find a car hidden somewhere in Central Scotland and when the first person found it they got to keep it!

Not just one car, as has been done before, but once every weekday across the month of May. 23 brand new cars given away, no catches, no premium phone scandals, just fun and interaction between listeners, readers and presenters.

To drive newspaper sales, the first daily clue to the car’s identity was published exclusively in the Scottish Sun. Without the Scottish Sun clue it would be more difficult to locate the vehicle. At specific points across the day, further clues were broadcast live on Real Radio. The promotion utilised all the tools at the radio business’ disposal, creating a full media mix campaign.

Alongside the audio element Real Radio made the most of its Interactive Media team. Entries for the competition were by SMS. Across the promotional period Real Radio received 25,269 entries as well as thousands more messages offering help with the clues.

The station used its website to promote the activity and in the month of May, against its previous average unique users of 55,000 per month, it increased its visitor numbers by more than 52 percent to 84,000. Page Impressions also grew, from an average of 600,000, to 935,000 in May.

All through the month of May, both platforms were helping to support each others’ readers and listeners, but there was also an informative job to be done to catch those people who didn’t listen to Real Radio or read the Scottish Sun. Real Radio ran 10-second ads on STV in Central Scotland, with a heavy weighting to the early weeks in May, to try and get viewers hooked early.

The promotion received over 4,600 column centimetres in the Scottish Sun (or an average of around a full colour page a day). It also achieved just under 43 million impacts, and reached just over 1 million individuals throughout Central Scotland on air.

Further promotion was driven through the Real Radio email VIP list – 22,000 subscribers, who were emailed about the promotion before and during May.

Results: The Scottish Sun’s circulation trend continued year-on-year with a further 5,300 copies sold – a rate of 2% year on year. Even more of an achievement considering that the popular press market in Scotland was down 6.82% year-on-year.

Perhaps most significant result though was the shift in readership figures. The Scottish Sun’s readership actually increased by 21.4% year-on-year. What makes these shifts more impressive is that in the same period last year, the Scottish Sun’s price point was 15p, while in 2007 it was 20p.

Arnold Clark recorded outstanding year on year growth across the majority of its branches in Central Scotland. Revenues were up, vehicle sales were up and web visits were up.

When looking at Real Radio, year-on-year changes were significant. The growth trend was strong, and increases of 6.6 percent in reach and 8.7 percent in total hours show the success of the campaign.

But it was the next RAJAR period, having converted the listeners, in which Real Radio saw some spectacular results, as its weekly reach increased to 809,000 listeners (only 10,000 less than BBC Scotland, a national station) and average hours listened increased to 12.1 hours. Real Radio Scotland also became the first regional radio station ever to achieve over 30 percent reach across its transmission area.

The promotion is universally recognised within GMG Radio as the best promotion ever done on Real Radio Scotland for driving audience and ran as the only listenership driving promotion on air in this period.

To see a list of all the winners check out the Scottish Media Awards website.