Monday interview. In 2024, the NRJ Group advertising agency focuses on radio and audio convergence, advice and responsible communication. Building on the momentum of its four antennas, particularly Nostalgia, which gained 400,000 listeners in a year, NRJ Global is going all-in on digital audio. The strategy launched last year to reduce advertising pressure appears to be working and is being imitated. Despite green signals, the advertising market remains tight, requiring historical groups challenged by American actors to reinvent themselves. Cécile Chambaudrie, President of NRJ Global, is a guest of The Media Leader.
The media guide: The latest Médiamétrie study “The radio year 2022/2023” shows good resilience of radio media, especially among young people, in a world where digital media and platforms have taken a very important place in media consumption. Were you surprised?
Above all, I am very excited! Radio is a mass media that reaches more than 39 million French people every day and is also popular among young people. They simply consume it differently, with better access via smartphones and connected speakers. They are diversifying their audio consumption through delinearization (and podcasts), playback and the original content offered (digital radios and native podcasts). All radio audio levers are making progress. Today, every second French person under 50 listens to the radio on a digital device; And every second young person aged 15 to 24 listens to podcasts every month! And we also know that digital radio audio makes it possible to renew audiences with incremental coverage contributions of up to +8.6 points among 15-24 year olds (and 4 points on target combined).
Cécile Chambaudrie: We thought that young people would stop listening to the radio and turn to music streaming platforms instead. How do you position yourself in this competitive world?
We complement each other. And our business models are different. While radio stations offer high-profile advertising-supported content, with advertising being an integral part of the listening contract, audio platforms rely primarily on subscriptions with regular promotions to drive their free audiences to a paid model.
For the advertising market, the playing field is that of digital audio from radio stations and the free part of audio streaming platforms. Today, in terms of viewership, I want to remind you that digital radio audio accounts for +27% more viewers than free audio streaming; and that’s twice as much listening time.
We talked about young people: 15-34 year olds are just as likely to listen to digital audio content from radios as they are to free audio streaming platforms (55% and 56% respectively). And one last number: radio reaches 2.5 times more e-shoppers in a week than the main player in audio streaming does in a month.
It’s important to remember the reality of the characters in order to put (often) preconceived notions into perspective.
The media guide: One of the reasons given by those who abandon radio as a medium and which partly explains France’s success is advertising. They have launched a major campaign to limit advertising duration. What is your assessment of this?
CC: We actually launched our “Less is More” three years ago. We started from a fairly simple observation: Given the saturation of advertising in the media, we had to act out of respect for our listeners and our advertisers. For this reason, in 2020 we limited advertising time on our 4 radio stations nationwide to 9 minutes per hour. We also applied this principle to our environments with digital audio using a single pre-roll.
The results, 3 years later, are very satisfactory:
– Advertising is accepted under this listening agreement for 91% of our listeners (that’s +8 points)
– By limiting advertising pressure, communication comes into its own, attention is optimized and this leads, for example, to an increase in the effectiveness of purchase intention/willingness to purchase by 18 points.
– Finally, our listening contract with listeners is strengthened by a 7% increase in listenership and an increase in listening time by 15 minutes.
The Media Guide: Other radio groups follow you. Is that a good thing?
CC: That’s a very good thing! We are pleased that other market participants are joining us. We believe this is beneficial for the media as a whole.
The Media Guide: Nostalgie is the channel making the biggest progress and could even overtake NRJ. How do you explain it?
CC: Nostalgia is THE radio hit of the year! It is the result of a team led by the station and an editorial promise that responds to social demands with cult hits from the 1980s and 1990s.
You spoke earlier about young people, young people are also fans of nostalgia. The station is making strong progress among 18-24 year olds with +54% cumulative audience, +80% in QHM compared to the previous wave and achieving the strongest progress of any radio station among young people with +1.8 pt PDAC!
As for overtaking NRJ, NRJ remains the leading music radio brand in France both linearly for under 60s and digitally. Beyond nostalgia, it is our 4 radio stations that fulfill the need for entertainment and positive emotions.
The Media Guide: They launched a premium audio hub by adding third-party content. Is this a way to respond to specific aggregation applications? What is the goal?
CC: The Premium Digital Audio Hub responds to several challenges. The first is that of Power with 61 million downloads per month. In a still fragmented digital audio universe, we offer a powerful, high-quality and brand-safe offering through a one-stop shop. In fact, beyond our audio assets (digital live streams, digital radio, replay and native podcasts from our four media brands), we connect offerings from Nova, Majelan, iHeartMedia and Audiomeans. And we are in discussions with other important partners who should join us soon.
The second goal is targeting. With this powerful interface we can activate data (socio-demo, of interest, geolocated, etc.) and – new for a radio group – we can offer powerful contextual targeting on topics such as well-being or family. It is also an alternative to Cookieless.
The Media Leader: How do you monetize this hub?
CC: In this Premium Digital Audio Hub, our advertising and agency partners can purchase pre-roll display campaigns or work with Hostread devices on more integrated formats, particularly podcasts. Our audio know-how enables us to also offer branded podcast programs that we can market through our own and already acquired audience pools.
The direction of our market is towards platformization and automation of purchasing processes and unified CPM is one of the answers to this change.
The Media Guide: NRJ Global is developing a dual media offering with a uniform CPM. Can you tell us more?
CC: The goal is twofold. The first is to make it easier to access the benefits of radio and audio. The second is to attract digital advertisers and make it easier for them to access the radio through a currency they control.
This bi-media offering was developed as part of our Coupe File offering, which allows an advertiser, during times of heavy congestion, to reserve their space up to 3 business days before their campaign airs and fulfill 100% of their request.
To take it a step further, 6 months ago we launched PopRadio, an audio module within the radio media planning tool that provides a holistic view of the entire richness of the audio offering. We’re pleased that more than 15% of advertisers have played radio and audio since the start of the year.
Furthermore, the direction of our market is towards platformization and automation of purchasing processes, and a unified CPM is one of the answers to this change.
The Media Guide: The market is asking for a uniform CPM for video instead of the TV GRP. What is your vision?
CC: We couldn’t propose a uniform CPM for audio and be against it for TV video. We are closely following discussions between interprofessional market groups and partners on this topic.
The Media Guide: They are launching a whole range of services for advertisers such as pre- and post-tests of campaigns or ROI measurements. What role does a media company play in providing this type of service?
CC: These services are not new. NRJ Global has developed strong study expertise over many years. We have enriched it to cover all funnel stages and provide proof of the effectiveness of our media. The latest is measuring the ROI of our radio offering (€12.7 for every €1 invested) and digital audio offering (€17.1 for every €1 invested). What is new is offering this expertise to meet the specific requirements of our partners. We operate in a changing social context in which communication offers are increasingly complex to orchestrate and short-term decisions take precedence. This offering helps advertisers understand their market, validate communication decisions and provide optimization solutions.
The Media Guide: NRJ Global profiles Jean-Paul. Can you explain to us what this offer is and which advertisers can activate it?
CC: Jean-Paul is a collective, a branded entertainment collective that brings together the creative talents of NRJ Global and the Group, as well as advertising and agency partners. It is based on our DNA of entertainment and generates positive emotions, which is more than favorable territory for brands.
Jean-Paul is our creative activity, and creativity is expressed in all areas. Thus, all types of advertisers can contact Jean-Paul. We have been running this pivot for several months now and already have numerous cases across all industries: automotive, video streaming, pharmaceutical, specialist distribution, FMCG, etc.
The Media Guide: Regarding CSR, according to the carbon benchmarks and calculators launched in 2022 and 2023. What is the next step? What is your strategy?
CC: We are a group seen, heard and followed by 46 million French people every month, which obliges us to have a responsibility to act. In particular, the NRJ Group is a signatory to the Climate Agreement.
After the development of radio-audio calculators by the BDR, low-carbon devices and the expansion of Native Green’s offerings to Corporate and Made In France, without forgetting the Eco-Digital and Eco-Production Charters, today’s step is to do so , balancing CSR and ROI. too often put in opposition. Radio is THE low-carbon medium that combines optimized business efficiency with powerful ROI. This is the whole topic that we are working on with the research institute CSA Data Consulting and its M4 solution, which integrates the carbon impact dimension into its marketing mix modeling solution.