Indeed, as we predicted, the RAB has responded to Wednesday's claims from the TVB that RAEL's "Radio's Return on Investment Compared to Television" study actually provided data that strongly supports the effectiveness of television. Only by adding several layers of estimated costs does RAEL attempt to position the findings in a positive ROI light for radio." (7/6 TVBR #131)

Here is the response:

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The Radio Ad Effectiveness Lab (RAEL) and its Research Committee stand firmly behind the findings of the recent study, "Radio's ROI Advantage," and flatly refute the misguided interpretations that were widely distributed by the Television Bureau of Advertising (TVB).

"Numerous requests from advertisers and the press to clarify TVB's invalid analysis of "Radio's ROI Advantage" have prompted us to respond," noted Gary Fries, President and Chief Executive Officer of the RAB and Co-Chair of the RAEL Board of Directors. "Our purpose is to bring clarity to the TVB's erroneous conclusions. Furthermore, we are disappointed that the TVB elected to misrepresent our study's findings, rather than contact us with any questions."

"All RAEL studies -- including this one -- are designed, overseen, and released by an independent 38-member Research Committee that includes 14 representatives from ad agencies and another four from advertisers," explained Kim Vasey, Senior Vice President, Director of Radio, Mediaedge:cia and a member of the RAEL Research Committee. "'Radio's ROI Advantage' was conducted by two of the most experienced research companies in the world, Millward Brown and Information Resources, Inc. (IRI)," Vasey added.

The 37-page research paper on "Radio's ROI Advantage," with fully transparent details about the methodology and results, is available free of charge at www.RadioAdLab.org, along with the complete list of Research Committee members. RAEL is not aware of any comparable study from or about any other medium made available so widely and in such detail. The study was recognized as one of the best papers presented at the recent ESOMAR/ARF international research conference in Montreal, http://www.esomar.org/web/show/id=171647.

"Radio's ROI Advantage" quantifies how radio advertising can be a better value than television advertising when users consider both the sales effects and the costs of advertising. In other words, real Return On Investment.

The TVB plucked out partial data that indicated that the TV campaigns RAEL tested delivered more sales results than the radio campaigns in the study, without disclosing that the TV effects came at more than twice the advertising cost of the radio results. In short, the TVB is asking you to look at Return without looking at Investment.

The TVB also questions whether the results -- a 49% higher ROI for radio -- would truly apply to local television, since the study worked with four national television advertisers, and estimated costs at a national level (these details are fully disclosed in the paper). The conclusions compared national costs to national costs, and the TVB asks how that can apply to the spot-buying environment.

Of course, the TVB is welcome to conduct its own million-dollar study of ROI to seek a more precise answer to that question. In the meantime, however, the study unequivocally established that on a national-to-national basis radio demonstrated a 49% better ROI -- a 49% better value. Even if the exact relationship is something other than 49% in the spot market, it is justifiable to conclude that Radio would retain the ROI Advantage, given the magnitude of the difference observed empirically at the national level.

RAEL would also like to correct the TVB on another point where they again selectively cite data: TVB mistakenly concluded that the highest sales lift was produced by TV with the least radio, and the worst were produced by radio by itself. However, the statistics, and good research practice, do not support TVB's conclusion. As detailed in the full research paper, the radio results were statistically equivalent with and without TV, and it's inappropriate to claim that radio's impact varied between those cells.

No one study can answer every possible question, of course. RAEL invites the TVB to produce its own large-scale, original, objective ROI research that partners with advertisers and agencies in the design and communication of results. Perhaps that will answer the questions TVB tries to raise.

Owen Charlebois, President, U.S. Media Services, Arbitron and Co-Chair of the RAEL Board of Directors stated, "The Radio Ad Effectiveness Lab remains confident in the quality of this research, and in the appropriateness of its conclusions. The study's sponsors made a very public investment in an objective study about the value of radio advertising."

Moreover, this isn't the only study that indicates that radio advertising can be a powerful value when advertisers consider both Return and Investment. We describe several other studies in the research paper that support this conclusion.

The bottom line is this: The Radio Ad Effectiveness Lab believes in letting the facts speak for themselves. RAEL also believes in providing all the facts to the industry for free, and encourages interested parties to visit www.RadioAdLab.org for all the facts.