The Radio Advertising Bureau, the trade marketing body for radio, has announced the appointment of Katherine Dunham to the new role of strategy consultant for the nations and regions.

Dunham, who was previously an account director at mediaedge:cia, will be based in Manchester.
 
The RAB also announces today a new tier of measurement for local and regional radio advertisers (outside of London) on its research tool, RadioGauge.  Regional RadioGauge will offer advertisers access to free research to quantify the effectiveness of their radio campaigns. Dunham will take responsibility for landing the new tier of RadioGauge support for regional radio advertisers.

RadioGauge is designed to measure how participating radio advertising campaigns perform in terms of advertising awareness and brand consideration, and relate this to the broader market by comparing individual campaign performance to a pool of relevant campaigns from other advertisers. It also assesses the strength of each campaign's creative execution using measures relating to the RAB's 5Is creative evaluation technique.
 
The RAB is looking to build on the success of the national RadioGauge research which the industry offers free to qualifying advertisers. The research tool will now be offered to  advertisers spending c.£40k on regional targeted campaigns enabling them to enjoy free communications and creative effectiveness research.
 
Michael McIntyre, chairman of the regional radio forum, representing radio groups outside of London commented: “The appointment of someone with Katherine’s great experience with agencies and advertisers is a sign of the radio industry’s commitment to advertisers outside of the London market”.
 
Simon Redican (pictured), managing director of the RAB, added: “I’m delighted that Katherine is joining the team to work with agencies and advertisers outside of London – she will be promoting the benefits of the medium and getting them on board and signed up to Regional RadioGauge; RadioGauge has been a huge success with national advertisers – providing them with valuable feedback about their radio campaigns - we hope it will prove just as successful in the nations and regions. We are the only media marketing body to make this commitment outside of London and this reflects radio’s strength as both a national, regional and local medium.”