Alexa: What Do Radio and Prime Day Have in Common?

Posted July 18, 2019

Amazon Prime Day grabs so much market share – there’s a downturn in retail foot traffic not just for the day, but for two weeks surrounding the event.

That’s what happens when consumers gobble up 100 million items and spend $4.2 billion as they did last year. Up 33% from a modest $2.41 billion haul back in 2017.

Radio has also started cashing in on Amazon Prime Day as the e-commerce giant surged from outside the top 100 advertisers to #13 for the week last year according to Media Monitors.

In addition, rivals including e-Bay and Macy’s, have bolstered their investment with radio and stepped up their game for what truly has become Christmas in July for retailers.

According to a powerful study commissioned by Westwood One last year, “Heavy AM/FM radio listeners represent half of all Amazon Prime Day purchasers.”

The blog post recap continues, “Full time employment and having kids in the home makes AM/FM radio the engine of e-commerce. According to Nielsen, the vast majority of AM/FM radio listening comes from Americans with a full time job. AM/FM radio is the soundtrack of the American worker. Most AM/FM radio programming formats over index with homes with children.”

These insights are also backed up by independent reporting, including Business Insider, which says, “While Prime members buy an average of $1,400 a year worth of stuff on the website, regular customers only spend $600.”

The disposable income that a regular paycheck provides certainly helps fuel this increased level of spending.

Winning More Occasions From Those With the Most to Give

Nobody knows the value of Prime members better than Jeff Bezos. Here’s what he said back in 2016: “If you look at Prime members, they buy more on Amazon than non-Prime members … they’re looking around to see, ‘How can I get more value out of the program?’ And so they look across more categories – they shop more. A lot of their behaviors change in ways that are very attractive to us as a business. And the customers utilize more of our services.”

Deepening the connection with the heavy users who have the most to give, thereby winning more occasions. Well said Mr. Bezos.

In his ongoing effort to recruit more Prime members, while keeping the ones he already has engaged and spending, he’s once again raising the bar.

This year as Amazon celebrates its 25th anniversary, Prime Day is now a two day extravaganza (July 15-16) with over 1 million deals along with a kickoff concert with Taylor Swift and friends on July 10th at 9pm that can be streamed, you guessed it, on Amazon Prime Video.

At a time when just 8% of consumers describe themselves as brand loyal according to the latest insights from Nielsen, focusing on the employed, heavy users who matter most applies as much to your business as it does to Amazon’s.

On behalf of Catherine Jung, Doug Smith and everyone at DMR/Interactive, thank you for reading and working to drive radio forward.

– Andrew Curran, President and COO