Rai Pubblicità, the advertising sales house of Italian public broadcaster RAI, also represents Radio Kiss Kiss, a national station and brand built around good mood and positivity.
With the Kiss Kiss Way Tour, they turned the station’s connection with its listeners into a live event that brands can be part of and benefit from.
With the Kiss Kiss Way Tour, they turned the station’s connection with its listeners into a live event that brands can be part of and benefit from. Research by Rai Pubblicità and Ipsos shows how these activations drive participation, recall and positive brand outcomes, giving sellers a proposition that goes well beyond spots and reach.
Selling more than airtime
Radio’s commercial value rests on familiarity, trust and proximity. Radio Kiss Kiss is a strong example: 4 million daily listeners, 71% of listening among 18 to 54-year-olds, more than 1.8 million social followers, and a warm, positive personality that is part of listeners’ daily routine.
The question was how to give brands direct access to that relationship. The answer was to take the station off air and bring brands into an experience people actively choose to attend.
The format
Now in its second edition, Kiss Kiss Way has proved it is a returning project rather than a one-off event:
- Four Italian cities, two days of activities in each
- Four weeks of on-air communication
- Free entry, organised with the host cities
- 265,000 participants
Three types of value: how brands are integrated
Partners are built into three spaces, each with a distinct role and value for brands:
Credibility – Casa Kiss Kiss: live radio shows, presenters and artists bring brands into the conversation.
Interaction – Kiss Kiss Village: games, sampling and product trial create direct contact with the product.
Visibility – The stage: live promotion and screen presence connect the brand with the event’s biggest shared moments.
Packages are designed by category, so each brand plays a natural role: tastings for food, displays and test drives for automotive, styling for fashion, content sharing for telco. The level of partnership scales with investment, so clients can match the package to their objectives and budget.
One campaign across the full brand journey
Each partnership runs before, during and after the event:
- Before: radio spots, presenter mentions, web content and digital audio build anticipation.
- During: sampling, games, product placement and lead generation.
- After: stories, reels, creators and paid social extend reach online.
Tour content generated 4.7 million Instagram impressions, 31 million TikTok views and 3.1 million social interactions, with strongly positive sentiment.
Proof of effectiveness
To give clients verifiable evidence, Rai Pubblicità worked with Ipsos, combining a national online survey of 1,000 radio listeners aged 18 to 54, more than 900 face-to-face interviews at the events and ethnographic observation.
Key findings:
- Most attendees engaged with at least one branded activity
- Sponsor recall was strong
- 90% saw a strong fit between the brands and the event
- Among attendees who recalled a sponsor, results were positive across the funnel, from familiarity to consideration and recommendation (average across six sponsors)
Each sponsor received a dedicated report on its own results, giving sellers evidence tailored to every client.
The future of brand partnerships: live experience
Kiss Kiss Way shows how to create new value for brands by designing integrated audience experiences, backed by evidence of what people did, remembered and felt. Three action points to make this approach work:
- Design for participation: Give audiences a role, not just a view.
- Build a natural brand fit: Integrate partners into the format rather than placing them around it.
- Measure the full funnel: Connect participation to brand and business outcomes.
Few media share as close a connection with their audiences as radio. Live experiences make this connection tangible, and brand activation turns it into measurable commercial value.
egta members: watch the full presentation from Rai Pubblicità at the 2026 Marketing & Sales Meeting in Amsterdam here.