Heard & Remembered: How NPR Audio Made Kroger’s Message Stick

Trust is a major factor in consumers’ buying decisions. Today, discerning consumers not only care about a company’s products but the way it operates in the world: 73% of NPR listeners agree that companies must show how they are supporting communities and the environment to win support.¹

As brands find CSR campaigns a powerful tool for engaging audiences with their work toward social accountability, NPR proves to be an effective platform for sharing CSR messages and earning listener trust.

In addition to trust, brands must deliver messages that make lasting impressions. Now, new research demonstrates NPR audio messages – including creative from Kroger’s recent CSR campaign – are effective at being remembered by listeners.

Kroger partnered with NPR to promote their Zero Hunger | Zero Waste social impact plan focusing on improving food security and ending food waste. As their campaign ran on NPR platforms, NPR and Neuro-Insight tested Kroger’s NPR audio spot to measure how effective the CSR message was at memory encoding.

Measuring detail memory encoding

NPR partnered with Neuro-Insight to assess memorability of ads and sponsorship messages by measuring participants’ unconscious brain activity. Measuring the speed of electrical signals in the brain’s left hemisphere – the area responsible for detail memory encoding – provides a key metric that Neuro-Insight uses to inform whether a brand message will make a lasting impression on viewers.

Ads with high detail-memory responses correspond directly to a shift in consumer behavior in market. In other words, a higher memory encoding score translates to listeners remembering the content of the message and taking action accordingly. 

Most important for brand impact is detail memory during an ad’s key branding moments.

Highly memorable at key branding moments

Kroger’s message saw the highest detail memory encoding during key branding moments – the brand and initiative name, and URL call to action for further information.

Memory Encoding in Kroger’s NPR Audio Creative

Not only is Kroger’s NPR audio message memorable, but the most essential details were the moments that were remembered by listeners.

The NPR formula

Kroger’s audio messaging showed strong results for memorability during key moments and took the prize for strongest response to the call to action among the other NPR audio creative tested.

Overall, all the NPR audio creative showed similar high memory encoding during key moments. One out of two branding moments were always encoded, and in most cases 2 out of 3 key moments total in the creative were encoded to memory. However, compared to TV spots, NPR performed stronger. Peak detail memory was found to be 10% higher on NPR than the compared TV News brand, on average.

The bottom line: For brands looking to make a memorable impact with their CSR messages, NPR audio delivers results.

Want to learn more about how NPR can drive trust and memorability for your brand’s CSR campaign?

Download the Complete Study

1. 2021 Porter Novelli Purpose Premium Index