The Australian commercial radio industry’s new industry-wide media briefing platform is now live with an easier way to plan and buy radio advertising.
The briefing portal is a key part of the industry ad buying platform RadioMATRIX and allows media buyers to log in and brief multiple radio networks on their campaigns once through a single, cloud-based platform.
Joan Warner, Commercial Radio Australia's CEO, says the new module standardises the briefing process and allows advertisers to save time and get the best results for their campaigns.
“The radio industry has united and worked closely with media agencies to develop a world-leading solution that removes complexity, ramps up efficiencies and makes it easier for advertisers to consider radio for every campaign," she says.
"We want radio to be a valuable innovation partner for marketers as the industry moves into recovery."
Michael Harvey, ARN’s chief operating officer and chair of CRA’s Automation and Programmatic Committee says this solution will be the first stage of simplification of the radio buying process.
"The solution will ultimately enable agencies to plan and buy across the whole radio ecosystem in one place - broadcast, radio streaming, podcasting and more," he says.
The rollout of the briefings module follows extensive collaboration with agencies including Carat, Dentsu, Havas Media, Ikon Communications, Initiative, MagnaGlobal, Mediacom, Mindshare, OMD, Orion, PHD, Rufus, Spark Foundry, Starcom, The Media Store, UM, Wavemaker and Zenith.
Sophie Madden, CEO of media agency body the Media Federation of Australia, says it’s exciting to see the initiative come to fruition.
"It’s another big step forward in streamlining the radio media buying process and takes collaboration between agencies and the radio industry to a new level," she says.
"Radio has shown a strong commitment to innovation that will allow agencies to work more efficiently and to ultimately deliver better results for advertisers.”
RadioMATRIX first launched in October 2017 with automated holdings and is in use by 200 media agencies to manage radio campaigns running across 370 stations.
The first stage enabled buyers to shift from paper to online management of bookings. The platform has processed more than 1.5 billion items of radio inventory since launch.
The next major stage of development of RadioMATRIX will be a proposal module. This is now underway and will enable broadcasters to respond to briefs and submit and manage media proposals with individual or multiple media agencies concurrently. The proposals module is expected to roll out in the first quarter of 2021.
GfK radio survey data will be incorporated into the RadioMATRIX workflow, so that agencies and networks can test and estimate the audience, reach and frequency of each proposal while shaping the best campaign structure to achieve maximum results for clients.
Future stages of development will also allow large direct advertisers and smaller agencies to use the platform.
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