This week, the global advertising world converged on the French Riviera for the Cannes Lions festival, where celebrities, luxury yachts, and champagne remain standard fare. Amid the glamor, US radio groups carved out space along the Croisette to argue that traditional AM/FM remains one of the most effective performers in the modern media mix.
With iHeartMedia and Nueva Network also among the US broadcast groups with a presence at the festival, Audacy personality Joshua “Bru” Brubaker participated in Nielsen-led discussions, highlighting how while marketers increasingly prize measurement and attribution, many continue to undervalue radio’s performance.
Drawing from Audacy’s State of Audio 2025 report, it was noted that 40% of marketing executives cite better ROI measurement as a top priority. A separate Boathouse survey earlier this year found that 71% of US CEOs now expect their marketing teams to focus squarely on sales and revenue, not simply brand awareness.
By those measures, audio is punching above its weight. According to the data, audio advertising outperforms video by 55% in driving conversions, beats search by 28%, and exceeds social media by 13%. Marketers are increasingly able to track exposure across broadcast, streaming, and podcasts to specific business outcomes such as app downloads and online purchases.
Yet a persistent gap remains between perception and performance. Nielsen’s 2025 Global Annual Marketing Survey and Global Compass Benchmarks show that while social media, search, and video platforms earned confidence scores from 62% to 67% of marketers, radio lagged with less than half viewing it as a highly effective channel.
The ROI data, however, suggests otherwise. When real-world returns are measured, AM/FM radio delivers one of the highest returns across media, narrowly trailing social media. Radio generated nearly $1.90 for every dollar spent, outperforming TV, print, podcasts, out-of-home, and digital video. The disconnect between marketer sentiment and financial results remains one of radio’s most persistent challenges in the broader media-buying ecosystem.
Even podcasting, which continues to attract advertiser enthusiasm for its niche audiences, trailed AM/FM radio’s ROI performance, underscoring radio’s relative strength in broad reach and scalable monetization.
Cannes also handed out its top prizes for audio creative. VMN New York earned a Silver Lion for its Oreo radio campaign. The Audio Grand Prix went to Budweiser’s “One-Second Ads” campaign by Africa Creative DDB in Sao Paulo, which made creative use of TikTok’s short-form format to secure top honors.
