Everything you missed at Tuning In North 2022

It was a full-house at the Everyman Manchester as brands, agencies and radio stations from across the North of England gathered for the return of Radiocentre’s Tuning In North event.

Over 100 guests spent the morning hearing from industry experts about the latest developments in radio and audio. There were also some special guest appearances from the Shadow DCMS Secretary of State and MP for Manchester Lucy Powell and Girls Aloud legend Nicola Roberts, who closed the conference in conversation with Hits Radio presenter Stephanie Hirst.

Radiocentre’s CEO, Ian Moss, opened the morning’s proceedings with an overview of the agenda and highlighted the North West as a hub for radio, media and the creative industries. He also talked about radio’s strong revenue performance despite the challenges of the pandemic, drew attention to some of Radiocentre’s recent work, and announced the launch of a new audio series, Backing Brilliant Business with Saira Khan.

“We are in the midst of an audio revolution, and radio is very much at the heart of it” said Radiocentre’s Client Director Lucy Barrett as she took the audience through an update on the current audio landscape. Her presentation demonstrated how radio is highly trusted and highly valued, and audio remains an important part of the media day. Despite the growth of new platforms, radio listening still dominates in the audio space and listening remains high with many tuning in for longer.

Joining Arnold Clark’s Emily Walker on stage was John-Paul Hughes, Group Creative Director Mind Field & Communicorp UK and Paul Reynolds, from international music agency Massive Music. In their case study session, the audience were taken on the car retailer’s journey to creating “The Sound of Arnold Clark”. 

Next up was Radioplayer’s Laurence Harrison, Director of Automotive Partnerships, whose mission is to keep radio strong in the evolving car dashboard.  Even though research shows that 90% of car buyers believe broadcast radio should be standard in every car, there are challenges facing the future of radio in dashboards. As such they are partnering with car companies worldwide and Google, who’s Android operating system is powering many new in-dash media displays, to improve their interfaces. At the end of his presentation, Laurence also gave the audience a glimpse of how cars of the future will look very different, using Citroen AMI, BMW, Audi Virtual Reality and Sony Vision-S as examples.

Wavemaker’s Regional Managing Director Emma Slater and Managing Partner Kate Bradbury provided the morning’s next case study as they presented the agency’s highly successful radio strategy for travel brand Jet2 that included a partnership with Global’s Heart and Capital. They also hinted that with more and more travel restrictions being lifted across the world we should all be acting quickly if we want a holiday anytime soon!

Member of Parliament for Manchester Central and Shadow DCMS Secretary of State, Lucy Powell covered several important themes in her session. She spoke of the current situation with the war in Ukraine, the Online Safety Bill and disinformation and the size and scale of the Department for Digital, Culture Media and Sport more generally. She also emphasised the importance of the commercial radio industry in providing public value and the role government needs to play in continuing to ensure a level playing field with the BBC.

After the coffee break it was over to Radiocentre’s Chief Operating Officer Matt Payton who chatted with Hits Radio Presenter Hattie Pearson and Bauer’s Head of Creative Trevor Jordan about how brands can tap into radio’s unique connections and communities. Trevor talked about Bauer’s ‘Missing Middle’ analysis of the IPA Effectiveness Databank, which shows that radio can positively impact both brand and business metrics, including a 10% impact on return on investment.  Hattie brought to life the connection presenters have with their listeners and shared stories from her show.

Radiocentre’s own Planning Director Mark Barber got the audience laughing with some of his favourite Dad jokes before presenting the latest research project, Big Audio Datamine. By analysing the data from over 1000 campaigns measured by Radiogauge the study concludes that radio delivers significant uplifts in effectiveness outcomes. It also identified clear guidance for advertisers wanting to optimise the effectiveness of their audio – develop creative consistency and focus on building weekly reach.

As the end of the conference neared, Lee Alleston from Global injected a fresh burst of energy into the room with his rousing presentation about the digital audio market. He talked about the digital audio consumer and the content that’s available to them as well as how advertisers can reach audiences effectively using the DAX network. He also touched on the future, highlighting some emerging new forms of audio content. For example, news articles from leading newspapers and publishers are being turned into audio articles – or “audio-fied” as he jokes.

Wrapping up the morning was Girls Aloud’s Nicola Roberts, in conversation with Hits Radio presenter Stephanie Hirst. As a member of one of Britain’s most successful girl bands, Nicola talked about how important radio was to the success of the band, especially in the early days. She shared stories of the tactics they used to get stations supporting “the girls” while they competed on ITV’s Popstars: The Rivals, and the excitement they felt on hearing their single “Sound of the Underground” on the radio for the first time.