• by David Kaplan , February 9, 2005

While marketers tend to pay a bit more attention to African-Americans for special sponsorships for Black History Month, a new survey by marketing analyst Scarborough Research suggests that marketers should pay more heed to urban radio listeners all year round.

The reasoning is simple, according to Scarborough: Urban Radio Listeners--who make up roughly 20 percent of the total radio audience--are big spenders in many significant retail categories, including automotive, sports apparel, wine, and wireless. For example, with regard to automotive, one of the top advertising categories for radio, urban radio listeners are 52 percent more likely than all U.S. adults to plan to purchase a luxury vehicle during the next year.

"This accounts for more than one-quarter of intended luxury vehicle purchases nationally during the next 12 months," said Mario Christino, corporate director of sales and marketing for Radio One Inc., a Scarborough client that owns and/or operates 69 radio stations located in 22 urban markets in the United States, with a reach of approximately 13 million listeners every week.

Urban radio listeners also demonstrate purchasing power when it comes to sports apparel, accounting for more than 35 percent of consumers who spend $500 or more on athletic clothing yearly. In the sports league and team apparel category, urban radio listeners are more than twice as likely as all consumers to have purchased NBA apparel, and 37 percent more likely to have purchased NFL apparel in the past year.

Listeners of urban radio tend to be high-end spenders for wine and wireless services. They are 43 percent more likely than the national average to "usually" spend $20 or more on a bottle of wine, while their wireless phone bill is 10 percent greater than the national average, the survey said--noting that average monthly spending on wireless services is $64 for urban radio listeners, versus the national average of $58.

Still, Scarborough cautions that advertisers should not put people who listen to urban radio in one collective box. For one thing, urban radio as a category can encompass everything from R&B oldies to adult contemporary to hip hop.

Being aware of particular distinctions--such as that gospel radio listeners spend the most on men's business attire within the urban radio group--is exceedingly important to reaching the audience in all its constituent parts, notes Howard Goldberg, senior vice president for radio services at Scarborough.

"The nuances among listeners of various urban formats provide advertisers with an opportunity for very precise targeting," Goldberg said. "But it's crucial that marketers analyze format distinctions across retail categories. Examining luxury versus value, name brand versus generic, older versus younger, and Los Angeles versus Atlanta for the various urban formats can demonstrate crucial differences."

The survey was based on a variety of data that Scarborough collects and updates throughout the year.