Cornwall's 105 to 107 Itchy FM - Ofcom Licensing

The seasonal uplift in listener volume will also serve to increase consumer revenues as more young
adults are given opportunities to interact with the station, through SMS features, merchandise or
commercial, branded ‘spin-offs’.
Sponsorship & Promotions Specialism
Itchy FM will align its marketing activity with the objectives of local and national youth targeting brands
to introduce addition revenue to the station through sponsorship revenue. Our research has shown that
numerous brands are interested in utilising Itchy FM’s integrated marketing plans and events activity to
access Itchy FM’s local and “holidaying” audience, and IMD’s team have widespread experience of
delivering this type of integrated brand marketing activity.
Local sponsorship opportunities
Local businesses will benefit from extending their relationship with Itchy FM into live events, Outside
Broadcasts and presence at station club nights / new music gigs. Several local businesses have
already expressed interest specifically in this area of the station’s audience promotion, making us
confident that Itchy FM’s promotions and parties will be well-funded and promoted, and this will
increase their appeal to large sections of our audience.
Co-branded events
We have identified an excellent market opportunity for national brands to benefit from utilising the
station and its large events plans to communicate with the massive number of young leisure visitors
spending time in Cornwall each summer. This is one of the key ways that we believe the station will
achieve significant additional revenues, which would be unavailable to applicants targeting an
indigenous older population. Each year, national youth targeting brands plan advertising and marketing
activity to reach their audience when on holiday (for example in Ibiza) or at the festivals (Glastonbury,
Reading, Leeds etc). In our experience, over the last few years brands have been allocating more of
their budgets to this kind of experiential activity, as a way of achieving brand differentiation. IMD Group
is in regular contact with these brands and is certain that with Itchy FM at the centre of the Cornwall
youth experience, Cornwall will be added to the same national, summer-time media planning schedules
as Ibiza and the Festivals.
"Itchy FM's Cornwall events, supported by the station, will be of major interest to iris as we are always
looking for new ways to reach the diverse youth market and bring campaigns to life for our many youth
targeting clients"
Claire Glennane, Group Account Director, iris
(Marketing Communications agency for Department for Transport and Department of Health)
The Cornwall Visitor Survey also recognised the growth of festivals as being an important driver of
visitor attraction and we are confident this fact supports our live events plans, giving our station
additional opportunities to convert visitors to the county into listeners, and into revenue.
In the five years since IMD proposed the Cornwall station opportunity, an increasing number of national
brands have begun to host or sponsor youth targeting events in Cornwall. The Daily Telegraph, Nuts
Magazine (IPC) and Wrigleys for example all had heavy brand attendance and sampling activity at
Fistral Beach in Newquay this August bank holiday for the Quiksilver Boardmasters Surf Competition.
IMD has researched this market gap and concluded that a marketing focussed youth communication
channel such as the radio station would become a focal point to coordinate this type of activity, using
local market knowledge and the station’s profile and promotional ability to enable brands to access this
massive visiting youth audience. We see this as a separate proposition to that of our national sales
agency, selling national spots to radio buying agencies on a CPT basis.
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