ACTION Bus Advertising Update

About a week ago I brought you the news that 2CC are advertising ^[1] on the backs of some ACTION Busses, I even brought you a photo of one such ad, spotted on the back of bus 999.
^[2]

Unfortunately the back of bus 999 was a bit dirty when I took that photo, so I have since taken a photo of a 2CC ad on the back of a cleaner bus, although I can’t remember which bus it was.
^[3]

I have been carefully monitoring busses that I see, and jotting down the bus number of busses which are carrying the ads, and so far I can confirm that there are 2CC ads on busses:
116
121
884
900
901
910
913
916
917
931
934
938
950
994
999

Whenever I have been at an interchange and had spare time whilst waiting for a bus, I have done a lap of the interchange to see which busses have the 2CC ad, today I did about five laps of Woden interchange.

Interestingly, I caught a number of busses today, and on all but one the driver was listening to 2CC…one such driver even turned the radio up so that most of the passengers could hear it (incidentally that bus had a 2CC ad on the back). This probably means one of three things:

1. The ads are working, and people are making the switch to 2CC.
2. 2CC have some kind of agreement with ACTION where certain busses have their radios tuned to 2CC (unlikely, virtually impossible to enforce…and probably not in drivers’ contracts).
3. I was just lucky (again unlikely as I caught far too many busses for this to be a statistical anomaly).

Also interesting in this ratings season advertising blitz is that 2CC have let go of some advertising revenue, by placing the Southern Cross Syndication “BiteSize Cooking ^[4]” program in an ad break during the John Laws Morning Show, with a spoken intro from Lawsie.

Also interesting is that the “instant ratings” (level of talkback calls on local programming) appear to be on the rise. This is probably another good sign for 2CC.

I am surprised that I have not seen any advertising from the other radio stations. Last year Mix 106.3 and FM104.7 advertised on taxis, the ABC advertised on commercial television, and 2CC/2CA did nothing noticeable…looks like the tables have turned this year (with the notable exception of 2CA).

I suppose the one thing which might work in 2CA’s favour is people who check out 2CC after seeing a bus ad, don’t like it, fiddle with the dial and land on “The new sound of Canberra’s 1053 2CA”, which reminds them of Mix 106.3 but sounds better, and so they stay. It’s a long shot but I’m sure it has happened to a few people.

Samuel