When Liberty Mutual took home Radio Marketer of the Year honors at the Radio Mercury Awards last month, Chief Marketing Officer of US Retail Markets Jenna Lebel’s acceptance speech wasn’t just a thank-you. It was a call to action for brands to build around audio.
The century-old insurance company, which spent the better part of a decade reinventing how it shows up in the world, has leaned hard into radio. By Lebel’s own account, it paid off in a way that every brand hopes for. “Honestly, I can’t go anywhere, not even here, without hearing that jingle now. It’s become part of everyday conversation in a way that still surprises me. That’s the magic of this medium,” she said.
Radio and audio, she said, weren’t supporting players in Liberty Mutual’s transformation. “They became one of the engines behind it.”
The strategy is grounded in where audio lives relative to the listener, and how that proximity changes what’s possible. “In the car, on a run, making dinner, sitting in traffic, living life,” Lebel said. “Because audio lives so close to us — literally in our ears — it creates intimacy that’s hard to replicate.”
“In our category, attention and emotion are hard-earned. But audio gave us a way to become not just recognized, but remembered. It helped turn a brand message into something people sing back to us.” The result, Lebel commented, is something the brand considers bigger than a campaign. “We’ve built memory, familiarity, connection, culture.”
Looking ahead, Lebel is bullish on radio’s trajectory. “Audio is only becoming more relevant. Brands have more opportunities than ever to create stories and experiences that stay with people — not interrupt culture, but participate in it.”
