The most powerful way to win new business? Show clients something they haven’t seen before.
Media planners value radio’s reach and frequency, but winning business from brands outside your usual client roster requires a different approach. Demonstrating that radio can anchor integrated campaigns, combining on-air promotion with impactful experiences, and delivering measurable engagement and social amplification, which digital channels alone can’t match.
This is exactly what radio station Nostalgie in Belgium accomplished when they partnered with BYD, a Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer. By identifying a unique product feature and building an integrated campaign around it, they generated 30,000 participant interactions, massive social media sharing, print coverage, and, most importantly, a new radio budget.
Finding the Hook
The creative team discovered that BYD vehicles come equipped with built-in karaoke technology. Buyers can order a microphone, and the car arrives with everything needed for in-car karaoke already installed. This feature became the perfect bridge between radio’s audio environment and an experiential brand activation.
Building the Integrated Model
Nostalgie (managed by Mediahuis – Radio) and the campaign partners designed a campaign that leveraged their existing summer broadcast infrastructure while creating new revenue through on-field activations. The approach combined three elements:
On-air promotion: DJs announced the karaoke car locations throughout the day, creating anticipation and driving traffic to the activations. Live broadcasts from both locations allowed listeners to hear the energy firsthand, whether they were at the beach, the festival, or tuning in from home.
Beach activation: Nostalgie set up their radio studio at the Belgian coast for several weeks, positioning BYD vehicles with fully functioning karaoke systems alongside their broadcast presence. The activation attracted 100,000 visitors, with beachgoers invited to step into the cars and sing their favourite songs while DJs encouraged participation on air and captured the moments.
Festival integration: The same concept was applied to Beach Festival Nieuwpoort, a 30,000-capacity event featuring international artists and attracting thousands of music lovers. The karaoke cars sat alongside the stages, creating natural opportunities for festival-goers to engage with the brand in a music-centred environment.
The radio promotion created awareness and drove participation. The on-field presence provided an actual reason to engage with BYD vehicles. Together, they created a campaign that felt less like advertising and more like a summer experience people wanted to be part of.
Radio Driving Results
- Over the course of the summer campaign, 30,000 people sang karaoke in BYD vehicles across both locations.
- Participants photographed and filmed themselves, sharing their experiences across social media platforms. The campaign generated substantial organic reach as people tagged friends, posted videos, and created user-generated content featuring the BYD brand.
- Belgian newspapers covered the activation, amplifying the campaign beyond its original radio and social channels.
- The campaign delivered new radio revenue. According to the partners, “the majority of the budget we earned” came from the radio campaign and event promotion, with on-field branding and activations complementing rather than replacing the core radio investment.
Why This Worked
This wasn’t a usual sponsorship as the value proposition was different: radio’s promotional power driving awareness and participation in experiential activations specifically designed to showcase BYD’s unique product features. The efficiency came from smart infrastructure use:
- Nostalgie was already broadcasting from the coast and the festival as part of their summer programming.
- Adding BYD didn’t require creating new content environments. It required identifying which existing assets could support a brand story, then building the right activation around them.
- The campaign delivered what digital advertising struggles to provide: physical interaction with the product in emotionally charged environments. Radio created the bridge between brand message and real-world experience.
Beyond Current Clients
Creative partnerships that combine radio’s promotional power with insight-driven experiential activations can attract brands that have never considered your medium. When we identify unique product features or brand stories and create integrated experiences around them, we offer solutions that deliver brand engagement, social amplification, and measurable impact.
The BYD campaign demonstrates that radio budgets exist even outside the traditional categories. They are sitting with brands that think radio is irrelevant to their marketing goals. Our job is to show them something they have not seen before.
This case was presented at our 2025 Marketing & Sales Meeting in Helsinki. Watch the full presentation here