Kyle and Jackie O.
The latest attempt to engage a Melbourne audience comes in Kyle and Jackie O’s new campaign ‘Radio Gone Rogue’, created by an entirely in-house team at ARN.
The instalment is set in a focus group where participants share their 'honest' opinions on Kyle Sandilands and Jackie ‘O’ Henderson – while the pair secretly watch on.
The campaign nudges at the shifting reception audiences have to the two hosts who have been on Sydney's morning radio for the last 20 years.
The campaign also follows shortly after a previous campaign where the radio show hosts were branded as ‘behaving’ now.
ARN's chief audience & content officer Lauren Joyce told AdNews the strategy is shifting to focus on acquiring new Melbourne audiences.
“The show's been in market for 12 months now, and we've run a couple of different messages during that period of time,” Joyce said.
“We’re behaving' was to re-engage audiences that had lapsed between when we first launched in market. Now we’re shifting our strategy to be about acquiring new audiences.
“We want to appeal to those that really don't know what Kyle and Jackie O all are about.”
‘Rogue’ describes the Kyle and Jackie O unanimous behaviour that has not only attracted a 20-year Sydney market of top breakfast radio ratings but also has had the show reported to the ACMA for breaching decency standards.
“Rogue speaks to the maverick like behaviour of Kyle and Jackie O, and it really bucks the trend when it comes to the staples of a radio show, so it allowed us to deliver that message in a playful way,” Joyce said.
The show has seen a 0.7% market rise delivered at a 5.8% share of the breakfast market in the southern capital – becoming the seventh most listened to breakfast show in that market, according to News.com.
This improvement in audience engagement comes after a rocky first few months in the Melbourne market.
Joyce said Melbourne audiences need to develop their own relationship with the Kyle and Jackie O’ show to understand it.
“The show has been around for more than 20 years in the Sydney market, so the Sydney audience have had all that time to become familiar with Kyle and Jackie O's personalities and to evolve with them," Joyce said.
“Whereas to the Melbourne market, Kyle and Jackie O's personalities may be known, but they're not well understood.
“The Melbourne launch has been judged through the same lens as the Sydney market. But you are speaking to very different audiences, that have different life stages in their relationship with the show.
“Our brand tracking now shows that we have regained the majority of the audience that lapsed in that period of time, and once they come back, they're sticking with us.
“So, we can see an upward trend there in our brand tracking, which is how we knew that it was time for us to shift the message.”
ARN has kept the last of its Kyle and Jackie O campaigns in-house.
Joyce has attributed this to a strong in-house team at ARN, a need to adhere to the fast-paced radio environment and understanding of the shows ‘rogue’ attitude.
“What we find with engaging people externally is that they struggle to be as agile as we need them to be, and that's just because of the categories they're used to working within.
“We certainly do engage with external parties from time to time when we're struggling to crack a brief or when we want a different perspective. But I have full confidence in our internal team, and I think that the quality of the creative is testament to that.”
The campaign is now live across Melbourne’s key outdoor sites, digital platforms, and social media, with TV coverage continuing in the coming weeks.
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