NPR sponsorship placements continue to inform and engage listeners on a brand’s value. Leveraging NPR’s engaged and influential audience, an online university recently worked with NPM Creative to reach prospective students amongst NPR listeners. With custom audio spots on NPR podcasts, the campaign drove awareness, favorability and intent among NPR podcast listeners, especially among those currently seeking a degree or looking to access new careers.
Objective
The online university aimed to reach prospective students among NPR podcast listeners who are planning to return to school to earn a degree.
Solution
NPM worked with the university to craft a campaign that would resonate with the 28% of NPR podcast listeners who are interested in pursuing a higher education degree in the next six or twelve months. The campaign included custom audio spots developed by NPM Creative and placements across NPR’s Run of Business & Innovation podcasts and in individual shows, including Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me, Planet Money, Fresh Air and This American Life. The brand also made use of Veritonic brand lift and attribution measurement to analyze performance and test perceptions.
Results
NPR Podcast listeners are more likely than non-listeners to show interest in seeking out more education, with their main motivators including a higher income, career advancement, and access to new opportunities. The Veritonic brand lift study found that the campaign was generally effective across key performance metrics.
The campaign saw even higher lifts in awareness and favorability among the target audience.
Attribution measurement found that the campaign overall was successful, with pre, mid, and post-rolls in Business & Innovation programming as the top-performing placement bundle. Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me saw the best performance for cost-efficiency, while Fresh Air had the highest conversion rate. The brand also saw improvement in both conversion rate and cost per web visitor from the previous quarter, showing that consistent brand presence leads to stronger performance.
This campaign’s combination of custom creative specially crafted for the NPR audience, expertly selected programs, and an existing audience of curious learning enthusiasts led to impact for the sponsor.
