Radio listening in the workplace is now very widespread, and accounts for more nearly a seventh of all listening hours.
There are some 26 million adults currently employed on a full- or part-time basis in the UK. Throughout the course of the working day, each will be making a range of purchasing decisions. Some will be of a personal nature: what to buy for lunch, where to book the next holiday, what provisions need collecting from the supermarket on the way home, where to check on the price of the latest mobile phone offers. Other decisions will be business oriented: which stationery supplier to use, what brand of replacement photocopier to order, which business courier to appoint.
Increase loyalty to brand
Over eight and a half million adults listen at work during a typical month - this is 32% of the workforce. Within this, women, ABC1s and the over-35s are somewhat less likely to be workplace listeners.Commercial Radio stations are far more likely than BBC services to be chosen as workplace listening.Functional needs, such as travel news, account for some workplace listening, but listening is more likely to be motivated by emotional needs - to raise spirits and relieve boredom.Station switching is low at work. Nearly 58% of workers listen to only one station in a week.
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In marketing terms, a key benefit of using media which penetrate the workplace is that advertisers can seek to influence these prospects as close to the decision-making moment as possible. Over a four week period nearly two-fifths of the workforce will listen to the radio at some point in time, with penetration biased towards the younger, male and downscale groups. However, as the figures in the table below demonstrate, there is plenty of workplace listening going on in the other groups.