How K9FM Radio proved that old media remains rich territory for creative innovation

By Neville Doyle, Digital Planning Director, Colenso BBDO

There is disproportionate focus on Being First in advertising. When a platform starts to gather momentum and audience, you can be sure that a flurry of tactical brand ads will follow. These do a job of sorts, by garnering PR buzz for a brand, but the effects are usually short-lived.

Perhaps Being First used to mean more. Being First to tap into a truly powerful consumer insight. Being First to challenge long-held assumptions about consumers. Being something above and beyond simply Being First to crowbar a brand into the latest technology.

I believe things may have gotten out of hand ( from someone with a love of digital and a belief in its effectiveness). Whilst people search for short-term PR gains on new platforms, there are meaningful innovation opportunities still available to creative thinkers in places that may have been overlooked.

Radio is a perfect example. Last year, working with Mars Pedigree in New Zealand, we created K9FM. It was the First radio station created specifically for dogs. It also became the First radio campaign in 32 years to be honoured by D&AD with a Black Pencil.

Like all the very best creative ideas, it was based on a simple but powerful insight. I grew up in a household with dogs. Like many dog-owners, my parents always turned on the radio for them when we left them home alone, to keep them company. Combine prevalent consumer behavior with one of the most far-reaching broadcast media, and you have the chance to do something relevant and different that adds real value for consumers and canines alike.

Radio is often passed over in the creative pecking order. But the truth is, it offers more reach and creative flex than ever. With digital radio you can target advertising messages to specific interests or audiences as well as in broadcast.

If anyone insists that traditional media holds no innovative creative opportunities anymore, hopefully projects such as K9FM will convince them to look – and listen – once again.