Click here to view a 15-minute video of the key findings.

Click here to download a PDF of the slides.

In Lake Charles, Louisiana, across automotive repair, HVAC, and plumbing services, AM/FM radio campaigns help local businesses successfully become “known before they’re needed.” Each advertiser employed the four keys of AM/FM radio advertising success: consistently and frequently reaching a large portion of the market with memorable, emotion-based creative.

With a population of 175,000, Lake Charles is an unrated market that is home to smart advertisers who understand “you have to win the mind to win the market.” A new study from Quantilope, commissioned by the Cumulus Media | Westwood One Audio Active Group^®, measured unaided awareness of brands in a wide variety of local advertiser categories. One hundred consumers in Lake Charles were surveyed from August to October 2025.

Key findings:

• Through the outstanding use of AM/FM radio, Able Plumbing has the strongest unaided awareness for plumbing services in Lake Charles
• Thanks to AM/FM radio advertising, Burnworth’s AC is a leading Lake Charles brand in unaided awareness; Interestingly, 25% of the market are unable to name any heating/air conditioning service
• Powered by AM/FM radio, Meads Automotive is the leading local auto repair brand in Lake Charles; Nearly one-fourth (23%) are unable to name one car repair service
• Unaided awareness is a crucial measure of the strength of a business: Advertising creates memories and memories generate sales
• Building positive memories creates strong brands: Companies with strong brands sell more at every price point
• People buy from brands they know: A strong brand is better at converting ad exposure into sales; The stronger the awareness, the greater the purchase conversion

For each advertising category, the Quantilope online survey asked consumers to name, unaided, all the brands they could think of. Unaided awareness means respondents are not given a list of brands. On their own, consumers have to name brands they know in a category. Here is an example of the unaided awareness survey question:

“When you think of plumbing services, which ones come to mind? (Please type the names of services that come to mind, typing only ONE name in each box provided. If you cannot think of any additional services, simply leave the other boxes blank.)”

Through the outstanding use of AM/FM radio, Able Plumbing has the strongest unaided awareness for plumbing services in Lake Charles

14% of people in Lake Charles name Able Plumbing unaided, when asked to indicate a plumbing service. Thanks to their AM/FM radio advertising, Able Plumbing beats out all national brands like Roto-Rooter, Lowe’s, Ace, and Home Depot.

It is interesting to note that 29% of consumers are unable to name one brand when asked to name a plumbing service. Unaided awareness studies reveal the number one brand in many local advertising categories is “don’t know.”

This is why advertising is so important. It not just about beating out the competition. To really grow your brand, you must explain that your business exists to the large group of people who cannot think of one brand in your category.

Thanks to AM/FM radio advertising, Burnworth’s AC is a leading brand in unaided awareness: 25% unable to name a heating/air conditioning service

6% of Lake Charles consumers name Burnworth’s AC unaided when asked to name a heating and air conditioning firm. One out of four consumers are unable to name a brand when asked to name a HVAC company. That presents a huge opportunity for an HVAC company to “expand their mind share to grow their market share.”

Powered by AM/FM radio, Meads Automotive is the leading local auto repair brand in Lake Charles; 23% are unable to name any brand

10% of consumers name Meads Automotive on an unaided basis when prompted to name auto repair brands. Nearly one out of four cannot name one auto repair brand. Adverting can teach people brands that exist in a category. One day, when consumers have a need, they will remember that brand.

The king of unaided awareness: Steve’s Pest Control of Columbia, Missouri

Want a spectacular “known before you needed” case study? Look no further, than Steve’s Pest Control of Columbia Missouri, who has achieved an eye popping 34% unaided awareness through the long-term use of radio.

Aim for fame: Your ads should seek to make your business famous in memorable way rather than to persuade why you’re better

Jenni Romaniuk, a widely published expert on brand building at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science explains, “A lot of advertising is geared to persuasion rather than building mental availability. Persuasion is about assuming you’re in the room arguing your point. Whereas mental availability is about getting into the room. So that’s the big challenge – most organizations are failing to get into the room. But they’re spending all their money arguing as if they are already there.”

The four keys of AM/FM radio advertising success

Lake Charles brands like Able Plumbing, Burnworth’s AC, and Meads Automotive, and as well as Steve’s Pest Control, practice the four keys of AM/FM radio advertising success.

1. Go for broad reach: One of the most useful marketing books ever written, How Not To Plan: 66 Ways To Screw It Up, from Les Binet and Sarah Carter, offers this recommendation: “Always aim to get more customers from all segments of the market. It’s the main way brands grow. Reach as many category buyers as possible. Don’t target too narrowly. It may be efficient, but it’s rarely effective. Tight targeting means low sales and profits.”
2. Ensure high frequency since learning is repetition: Aim to reach a big group of consumers 3 or more times. The objective: reach potential customers to get them to think of your business first.
3. Be consistent. Be on 52 weeks a year: Les Binet and Sarah Carter advise, “Talk to everyone who buys your category. Talk to them regularly. Advertising memories fade.”
4. Use interesting, memorable, and emotion-based creative to build trust: Marketing effectiveness guru Dale Harrison says, “Creative effectiveness is the only growth lever marketers actually control. It’s the only variable you can improve tomorrow.” Emotion is the most powerful selling tool you have.

Unaided awareness is a crucial measure of the strength of a business: Advertising creates memories and memories generate sales

Jon Lombardo, former Global Head of Research at LinkedIn’s B2B Institute and the founder of newly launched AI-driven Marketing strategy and measurement firm Evidenza, reports, “One of the primary things people misunderstand is how advertising works. People think they just put an ad in front of you, and you immediately buy. That’s not how it works. Generally, you don’t generate any sale from an ad, what you do is generate a memory and then at some point later they consult their memory.”

Lombardo concludes, ““The ‘most important search engine’ is your brain. It’s your memory that got you to Google in the first place and your memory is going to pull strong brands. Strong brands are not built on clicks, but on memories.”

Erwin Ephron, the father of modern media planning, famously said, “Most advertising usually works by reminding people about brands they know, when they happen to need that product. Ads work best when the consumer is ready to buy.”

Mind share equals market share

The size of your unaided awareness is a pretty good predictor of your market share. If your furniture store has an unaided awareness of 10%, your market share will be around 10%.

Building positive memories creates strong brands: Companies with strong brands sell more at every price point

Dan White’s wonderful pocket-sized book, The Smart Branding Book: How to Build a Popular and Resilient Brand, reveals the impact of brand building on the demand curve. As price increases, the volume sold drops.

However, businesses with a strong brand are able to sell more than firms with a weak brand. At every price point, the strong brand can drive more sales. 

Strong brands drive much more sales volume at better prices

White cites Kantar Millward Brown research that reveals strong brands have 5X the sales volume of weak brands. Most significantly, strong brands can achieve 10% greater price premiums than weak brands.

The 95/5 rule: Only 5% people are in the market for a product or service at any point in time; 95% are not

A major study from the Ehrenberg Bass Institute of Marketing Science reveals at any point in time, 95% of consumers are not in the market for a product or service. The vast majority of people today do not need a plumber, a HVAC firm, or auto repair. Their need might be years away.

Successful advertisers recognize that they need to work hard to create “future demand.” Their business has to be known long before they are needed.

Creating future demand is akin to planting apples trees and waiting nine months to a year for new trees to bear fruit

James Hurman is a globally recognized expert on brand building and marketing effectiveness, having spent much of his career researching, publishing, practicing, and teaching marketing effectiveness. Hurman has published the Kindle book, Future Demand: Why Building Your Brand Among Tomorrow’s Customers is the Key to Start-Up Success. You can order your copy here.

Hurman explains that creating future demand is advertising to that much larger group of consumers who are not in the market and are not ready to buy now but will be in the future. The goal is making them feel familiar with and positively toward an advertiser in order to get them to gravitate toward them when they enter the category.

Creating future demand is planting new apple trees. It takes time and patience for new trees to bear fruit.

A strong brand grows sales: The stronger the awareness, the greater the purchase conversion

A major study from TikTok and brand tracking firm Tracksuit found that the greater an advertiser’s awareness, the larger the purchase conversion.

The purchase conversion of strong brands is nearly 4X greater than brands with weak awareness.

The number one driver of brand preference is being “easy to mind and easy to find”

In How Not To Plan: 66 Ways To Screw It Up, Les Binet and Sarah Carter explain, “The single most important factor driving brand preference is ‘mental availability’: how well known a brand is, and how easily it comes to mind.”

In Lake Charles, Louisiana, Able Plumbing, Burnworth’s AC, and Meads Automotive are highly successful because they have achieved strong unaided awareness thanks to AM/FM radio advertising. AM/FM radio is the medium that helps businesses “become known before they are needed.”

Key findings:

• Through the outstanding use of AM/FM radio, Able Plumbing has the strongest unaided awareness for plumbing services in Lake Charles
• Thanks to AM/FM radio advertising, Burnworth’s AC is a leading Lake Charles brand in unaided awareness; Interestingly, 25% of the market are unable to name any heating/air conditioning service
• Powered by AM/FM radio, Meads Automotive is the leading local auto repair brand in Lake Charles; Nearly one-fourth (23%) are unable to name one car repair service
• Unaided awareness is a crucial measure of the strength of a business: Advertising creates memories and memories generate sales
• Building positive memories creates strong brands: Companies with strong brands sell more at every price point
• People buy from brands they know: A strong brand is better at converting ad exposure into sales; The stronger the awareness, the greater the purchase conversion

Click here to view a 15-minute video of the key findings.

Pierre Bouvard is Chief Insights Officer of the Cumulus Media | Westwood One Audio Active Group^®.

Contact the Insights team at CorpMarketing@westwoodone.com.