Thinkerbell co-founder and consumer psychologist Adam Ferrier has told Mediaweek he believes brands are missing a huge opportunity by not investing more in audio advertising.
Ferrier’s comments come off the back of a bold new campaign, created by the brains at Thinkerbell, designed to showcase the power of audio.
The ad, crafted in partnership with CRA, MassiveMusic and Glue Society, uses soundwaves to extinguish a flame, a metaphor for radio’s impact.
Ferrier believes radio’s greatest strength lies in its ability to “build strong emotional connections or create strong emotional experiences.” However, he adds that because the medium is “so immediate, and so cost-effective,” advertisers often fail to utilise, or even recognise, its emotive power.
A still from the new ad
“An audio experience can be incredibly moving and can be incredibly intimate and create a strong emotional response,” Ferrier said.
“It’s an incredibly emotive medium and that often gets forgotten about in radio’s story to advertisers.”
This isn’t the first time Ferrier has spoken about the uniqueness of radio’s emotive pull. Back in 2024 he made the same assessment while presenting at CRA’s HEARD conference, where he said: “You can have emotional experiences through audio, that are much more intense than any other medium. And it feels like the whole industry has kind of not embraced that.”
‘Just 11%’
At that same conference, Mark Ritson revealed his groundbreaking findings that by investing “just 11%” of a campaign’s budget in radio, brands could double its effectiveness.
For Ferrier, however, radio advertising doesn’t just hold untapped potential, it also allows brands and agencies to engage in what he calls the “really good mechanics of advertising.”
Those mechanics, he says, include “strong jingles and distinct brand assets.”
“I don’t think people have tapped into the ability for audio to create a strong emotional reaction in advertising, whereas artists obviously use it through their music all the time.”
The statistics
According to CRA, total radio revenue for Q2 2025 came in at $309.2 million. That figure was largely propped up by digital, which rose 27.4% to $28.7 million. Metro broadcast, meanwhile, stalled at $177.1 million, while regional radio slipped 5.3% year-on-year to $103.4 million.
While the data shows advertisers leaning further into digital, Ferrier believes the entire industry remains undervalued.
“It’s undervalued because it does so many things well. So if something’s more cost-effective you have to work doubly hard to get people to see it,” he said. “But that can be really powerful as well.”
Ferrier added that he believes change is coming, and that it’s only a matter of time before agencies start “using radio as the main event rather than the sidekick.”
“Especially as they start to understand the emotive power of it.”
Credits
Client: Commercial Radio & Audio (CRA)
Creative & Media Agency: Thinkerbell
Production & Postproduction: Glue Society
Sound: Massive Music
Dynamic Audio Creative: Original Audio
CRA Sonic ID: David Konsky