Let me begin with something broadcasters rarely get the opportunity to say anymore: the record political advertising budgets heading our way are genuinely good news. That additional revenue can rescue a quarter, strengthen an entire year, protect jobs, fund better programming and give local stations breathing room they desperately need. 

Radio should welcome every available dollar. But while we celebrate the windfall, we also need to protect the local advertisers—and the station brands themselves—that could easily disappear beneath the loudest political advertising avalanche we have ever heard

The 2026 midterm election is projected to generate a record $11.6 billion in political advertising, according to AdImpact. That would make this midterm cycle more expensive than the 2024 presidential campaign and approximately 30 percent larger than the 2022 midterms.[1] 

For broadcasters, that money is welcome. I’m certainly not suggesting radio stations turn it away. Political revenue can rescue a quarter, strengthen a year and pay bills that still arrive after the last vote is counted. 

But there is another side to the windfall that deserves our attention. 

What happens to the local furniture store, auto dealer, HVAC company, hospital, restaurant or home-services advertiser whose commercial runs between two candidates warning us that civilization itself may end Tuesday? How does that business get remembered? And there is another question radio should be asking: 

What happens to the identity of the radio station itself when its promos, sweepers and imaging are competing with the loudest commercial environment in history? 

WHEN EVERYTHING SOUNDS URGENT, URGENCY STOPS WORKING

Political commercials have developed a remarkably consistent sound. There is the grave opening sentence. The frightening claim. The carefully selected statistic. The opponent’s name repeated several times. Then comes the musical turn, the brighter voice and the candidate who will supposedly restore order to the universe. 

Even when the claims and candidates are different, the production vocabulary is often nearly identical. Now place an ordinary local commercial inside that environment. “Come see us for friendly service, convenient financing and a large selection. We’ve proudly served the area for more than 25 years. Stop by today or visit us online.” There is nothing technically wrong with those sentences. That may be the problem. They could belong to almost anyone.

 Radio’s greatest advertising advantage has always been repetition. A message can follow a listener through morning routines, commutes, workplaces and weekend errands until the advertiser becomes familiar. 

But repetition cannot build a brand when the commercial contains nothing distinctive enough to remember. If I hear a forgettable message 50 times, I have not necessarily learned the advertiser’s name. I may have simply ignored the same commercial 50 times.

 Recent research presented by the Radio Advertising Bureau found that agencies and radio sellers substantially underestimate the number of commercials required to deliver significant reach. Agencies estimated that 33 weekly commercials would reach two-thirds of a station’s audience. The research found that the actual average was approximately 51 commercials per week—and as many as 61 on certain formats.[2]

 To reach 78 percent of the audience, the estimated requirement climbed to approximately 102 weekly commercials.[2]  That does not diminish radio’s effectiveness. It reinforces the importance of using the medium correctly. 

But it also means the creative inside every one of those commercials matters enormously. The schedule delivers the opportunity. 

The creative determines whether anything arrives. ◆

LOCAL ADVERTISERS CANNOT OUTSHOUT POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS

A local business probably cannot compete with the political category on spending, frequency or manufactured catastrophe. It should not try. It can compete by becoming unmistakable. That might mean a melody people recognize before the business name is sung. It might be a distinctive voice, a recurring character, an unexpected opening, a memorable phrase or a production style that sounds completely different from everything surrounding it.

 It could be funny. Warm. Emotional. Musical. Intimate. Proudly local. It simply cannot be interchangeable. We have spent years telling advertisers how many people radio reaches.

 That remains important, and radio’s reach continues to be powerful. Research combining WPP Media econometric analysis with the Profit Ability 2 database found that broadcast radio’s two-year return on advertising investment outperformed the all-media average by 22 percent. Digital audio outperformed it by 27 percent.[3]

 In the short term, broadcast radio surpassed the all-media ROI average by 23 percent, while digital audio exceeded it by 44 percent.[3] The audience is there. The potential return is there. But reach is only the beginning of the transaction.

 If radio delivers 10,000 ears to a commercial and the commercial gives those ears nothing worth retaining, we have delivered an audience without delivering attention. That distinction becomes even more important when listeners are entering one of the most commercially cluttered periods in recent memory. 

THE RESEARCH SUPPORTS WHAT GREAT PRODUCERS HAVE ALWAYS KNOWN

Sound is not merely decoration placed underneath an advertising message. Sound can become part of the memory of the brand itself. 

Ipsos studied distinctive brand assets and found that sonic brand cues were substantially more effective at generating branded attention than assets borrowed from popular culture, including celebrities and familiar music.[4] 

That difference matters. A popular song may make an advertiser sound current, but the advertiser does not own the association. The listener may remember the song while forgetting which business used it. An original melody, sung slogan, recurring voice or identifiable sound belongs to the advertiser. Every exposure can strengthen the connection between that sound and that particular business. 

A 2024 World Radio Day research summary reported that sonic branding increased advertising recall by more than 17 percent in radio and more than 14 percent in podcasts. Commercials using sonic branding were also perceived as more trustworthy, likable, empowering and relevant.[5] 

An experimental study published in the Journal of Consumer Sciences examined the effects of repeating sonic and visual logos. The researchers found that repeated exposure significantly improved brand recall and recognition and positively affected attitudes toward the brand.[6] 

Another large study conducted by System1 and TikTok examined nearly 900 short-form advertisements and responses from approximately 92,000 consumers. In that short-form environment, the presence of a sonic brand asset in the opening seconds produced a reported 191 percent lift in brand awareness.[7] 

That study was not specifically about radio, but its lesson applies directly to radio: when attention is scarce, recognizable sound can identify a brand before a conventional message has time to develop. Perhaps the most important new evidence comes from a 2026 global analysis presented by Radiocentre, Commercial Radio & Audio and the Radio Advertising Bureau. The research concluded that audio can significantly increase campaign profitability, particularly when emotionally driven creative is paired with distinctive brand assets and used consistently over time.[8]

 Consistency is critical. A jingle used three times and then abandoned is not a sonic identity. A different music bed, voice and attitude in every commercial is not a sonic strategy. It is a folder of unrelated audio files. Memory is built when the listener repeatedly encounters something recognizable—and repeatedly connects it to the same name. 

AI WILL MAKE MORE COMMERCIALS. IT WILL NOT AUTOMATICALLY MAKE THEM BETTER.

The industry is rapidly adopting tools that can write scripts, generate voices, build music and produce complete commercials in minutes. That is not coming someday. It is here. 

I use modern production tools myself. They allow me to explore more musical styles, create more ambitious demonstrations and give smaller-market advertisers a level of sonic polish that once required an enormous production budget. 

But faster production does not automatically produce a better idea. AI can generate another urgent announcer. Another inspirational piano bed. Another smiling script filled with dependable service, knowledgeable professionals and conveniently located locations. 

What it cannot do by itself is care whether the listener remembers the client. That still requires taste. Judgment. Editing. Direction. A strategic idea. It requires someone to ask the question that should come before the first word is written: 

◆What will make this advertiser impossible to confuse with anybody else? 

The danger is not simply that AI will make commercials sound artificial. The greater danger is that it will make unlimited numbers of perfectly acceptable commercials—and perfectly acceptable may be the easiest sound in the world to ignore. Technology can make production faster. It can make sophisticated production more affordable.

 It can place creative tools into the hands of people and companies that were previously priced out of the process. That is the opportunity. But removing the human creative judgment from the process is not innovation. It is merely automating mediocrity. 

A JINGLE IS NOT DECORATION. IT IS OWNED MEMORY.

I have loved jingles for most of my life, but I am not arguing that every advertiser needs a 60-second chorus with six singers repeating a phone number. 

Modern sonic branding can be a full jingle, a short musical logo, a sung slogan, a recurring melodic phrase or a campaign built around one identifiable sound. The form matters less than the ownership. The advertiser should have something in the commercial that cannot simply be dragged into another client’s commercial tomorrow.

 A production-library bed can create emotion, but thousands of other producers can use it. A popular song can establish a mood, but the artist owns the listener’s strongest association. A generic AI track may sound impressive, but impressive and identifiable are not the same thing. 

An original melody attached consistently to one business becomes an asset. Every exposure strengthens the connection between that sound and that advertiser. 

That is why I still believe in jingles—not as nostalgia, but as practical memory devices. And today, we can create them in more styles, for more formats and at a price local businesses can actually justify. 

RADIO STATIONS ARE ADVERTISERS ON THEIR OWN AIR

Here is where this conversation needs to get a little uncomfortable. 

Radio stations frequently tell clients they need consistent branding, memorable creative and enough frequency to own an idea. Then the station promotes its own product with a generic music bed, an interchangeable voice and a paragraph of information read at high speed. 

We sell branding that we no longer consistently practice. A station promo is a commercial. The client is the radio station. The product may be the morning show, a cash contest, a concert, a community event, a new music feature or simply another quarter-hour of listening.

 That promo is competing against every paid commercial in the break, every song surrounding it, every conversation inside the listener’s car and every notification arriving on the listener’s phone. If the promo sounds like background, it will be treated like background.

 The same is true of station imaging. A sweeper is not merely something that identifies the frequency between two songs. It is an opportunity to reinforce personality, attitude, format and emotional ownership. 

A legal ID fulfills an obligation. Imaging should fulfill a strategy. 

Can the listener recognize the station before the call letters or frequency are spoken? Does the voice belong emotionally to the format? Does the writing sound like something only this station would say? Is there a musical language connecting sweepers, promos, contests and digital video? Or has the station accumulated a collection of unrelated effects, voices and production tricks that sound impressive individually but communicate no common identity? 

Those questions are not cosmetic. They go directly to brand recognition. SiriusXM Media’s Studio Resonate makes the point that a sonic identity is defined by every sound that creates a perception of a brand—not merely by one audio logo. Its research summary notes that audio advertising can produce 50 percent more audience attention than benchmarks across television, video and social media.[9] 

A radio station is already producing hundreds of sonic brand impressions every day. The question is whether those impressions are accumulating into one recognizable identity or canceling one another out. 

PROMOS NEED IDEAS, NOT JUST INFORMATION

Many promos are built backward. ◆We begin with everything management wants mentioned: the prize, sponsor, qualifying times, app, website, rules, date, location and mandatory legal language. Then we try to inject excitement into whatever seconds remain. ◆That is not a concept. That is an audio bulletin board. ◆A great promo should not merely explain what is happening. It should make the listener feel why it matters. ◆A cash contest can sound dangerous, funny, luxurious, rebellious or life-changing. A concert promotion should transfer some of the emotion of the music into the station carrying the event. A community campaign should sound as though actual people at the station care about the community—not as though someone downloaded an obligatory public-service bed. ◆The production should create an emotional doorway into the information. ◆That becomes especially important during the political season, when audiences will already be saturated with commands, claims, warnings and aggressively delivered facts. ◆Another promo yelling “Don’t miss your chance!” may technically possess energy. It may also sound exactly like the five commercials surrounding it. ◆Sometimes the most powerful way to cut through noise is not to become louder. It is to become more human. ◆

THE STATION’S VISUAL AND AUDIO IDENTITIES SHOULD RECOGNIZE EACH OTHER

Radio is no longer experienced only through a receiver. ◆A listener may encounter a station through an over-the-air signal, stream, mobile app, social video, website, podcast, smart speaker, concert stage or digital display advertisement. ◆The station logo may remain consistent across those places while the sound changes completely. ◆That is a missed opportunity. ◆A station’s audio identity should have recognizable extensions just as its visual identity does. A musical signature can appear in full-length sung imaging, a short transition, the end of a promo, a social video and an event open. The energy can change without losing the identity. ◆The sound does not have to remain frozen. It has to remain related. ◆That is the difference between repetition and consistency. ◆Repetition plays the exact same piece until everyone is tired of it. Consistency creates multiple pieces that clearly belong to the same family. ◆Stations understand this visually. They protect logos, colors and typefaces. Nobody redesigns the station logo for every weekend promotion. ◆Why, then, do we sometimes rebuild the station’s entire sonic personality every time we open a new production session? ◆

THE COMMERCIAL BREAK IS ABOUT TO BECOME A BATTLE FOR IDENTITY

This fall, political campaigns will purchase enormous amounts of inventory. Broadcasters should maximize that opportunity. At the same time, we should be having a different conversation with the advertisers who remain with us all year. 

Do not simply sell them enough frequency to survive the political season. Help them develop creative strong enough to benefit from it. Give the insurance agency a sound no candidate owns. Give the restaurant an opening people recognize from across the room. Give the auto dealer a musical signature that survives after the rebates change. Give the hospital warmth and humanity instead of another list of services. 

Most importantly, give the listener a reason to know whose commercial just played. Then apply the same standard to the radio station. Give the morning show promos a point of view. Give the contest a sonic identity. Give the concert promotion some theater. Give the community campaign genuine emotion. Make the station’s name sound like the payoff—not the required wording at the end.

 The political money will eventually leave. The candidates will stop advertising. The urgent voices will disappear, at least until the next election. The local advertiser will still be there. The radio station will still be there. The question is whether anyone will remember hearing either one of them. 

HEAR WHAT “UNMISTAKABLE” SOUNDS LIKE

I recently added new jingle and commercial-production demonstrations at SonicAttention.com. 

Every melody and lyric in my jingle work begins with me. Every voice in the production demonstration was created and directed by me. Modern tools help me expand what is possible, but the concept, casting, musical decisions, emotion and final judgment remain human. 

The demos include work designed for advertisers, but the underlying philosophy applies equally to radio imaging and promotion: identify the emotion, create a recognizable idea and make every production decision serve the brand. 

The goal is not to prove that technology can make noise. We settled that question years ago. The goal is to prove that smaller businesses and local radio stations can still have creative that sounds national, feels personal and—most importantly—gets remembered. 

Take a few minutes. Watch the demos. Listen with headphones if you can. Then ask yourself two questions: When the loudest commercial break in history arrives, will your client have a sound of its own? And will your radio station? 

SOURCES AND NOTES

[1] AdImpact, “AdImpact Reveals 2026 Election Cycle to Reach Record $11.6 Billion in Ad Spending,” June 11, 2026. AdImpact projects a record $11.6 billion election cycle, including approximately $5.6 billion in broadcast television spending. Read the forecast.

[2] Cumulus Media/Westwood One summary of Radio Advertising Bureau schedule research, “How Many Ads Should a Radio Station Run?” June 8, 2026. The research examined responses from 334 agencies and radio sellers and compared perceived frequency requirements with actual station-audience reach estimates. Read the findings

.[3] WPP Media and Profit Ability 2 audio sales-effect analysis, summarized by Cumulus Media/Westwood One, November 10, 2025. Broadcast radio’s two-year ROI exceeded the all-media average by 22 percent; digital audio exceeded it by 27 percent. Read the analysis.[

4] Ipsos, “The Power of You: Why Distinctive Brand Assets Are a Driving Force of Creative Effectiveness,” February 13, 2020. Ipsos found that proprietary assets such as characters and sonic brand cues were more effective than assets borrowed from popular culture. Read the Ipsos summary.

[5] World Radio Alliance, “Radio Builds Brands,” 2024 World Radio Day research summary. The report cites MediaAnalyzer/RMS research showing increased recall and improved listener perceptions for advertising containing acoustic brand signals. View the research summary.[

6] Louise Valencia Pramana, Naomi Valerisha Astridira Putri, Fathony Rahman and Prita Prasetya, “The Effects of Sonic Logo and Visual Logo Repetition Towards Brand Recall, Recognition, Attitude, and Purchase Intention,” Journal of Consumer Sciences, Volume 9, Number 3, 2024, pages 338–361. DOI: 10.29244/jcs.9.3.338-361. Review the study.

[7] System1/TikTok short-form advertising research summarized by SoundOut and Stephen Arnold Music. The study examined approximately 887 advertisements and responses from roughly 92,000 consumers. Its 191 percent result applies to short-form advertising and is cited here as supporting evidence for early sonic identification—not as a radio-specific measurement. Read the research summary.

[8] Radiocentre, “Landmark Global Study Proves Audio’s Impact in the Marketing Mix,” June 24, 2026. Presented with Commercial Radio & Audio and the RAB US, the analysis found that audio’s profitability effect strengthens when emotional campaigns employ consistent, distinctive brand assets. Read the study overview.

[9] SiriusXM Media/Studio Resonate, “Searching for a Sonic Identity? Start With a Sonic Strategy.” The overview draws upon WARC, Dentsu/Lumen and Ipsos research and emphasizes using consistent sonic assets across voices, music, sound design and audience touchpoints. Read the sonic-strategy overview.

^R