Latvia's fuel chains swapped places on radio before the excise cut - and one told listeners to forget discounts

We pulled the fuel chains on Latvian radio for the last 30 days and set them against the 30 before. On Thursday 1 October a temporary cut in fuel excise takes effect, after pump prices approached record levels in early September. On air, the ground had already moved. A month ago Circle K, Virši and Viada each carried about a third of the four chains' radio spots. Now Neste holds 38.3%, Viada 37.2%, Virši 22.7% and Circle K 1.8%. And the chains do not all talk about price the same way.

118 to 1,103 - Neste's radio spots, and its stations went from 4 to 16

1,242 to 51 - Circle K's radio spots, with the last full campaign day on 30 August

445 of 653 - Virši's spots that are sponsorships, on four SWH Grupa stations

Fuel radio changed hands in a month. Source: Spotwise, Latvia, 30 August to 29 September 2026 vs 30 July to 29 August 2026.

The tax cut is worth about 8 cents a litre, from 1 October

The Saeima passed the amendments on 24 September. From 1 October to 31 December, diesel excise falls from 396 to 330 euro per 1,000 litres, the lowest rate the EU allows. Petrol gets a temporary rate of 490 euro per 1,000 litres, the first time its tax has been cut in this price rise. The tax itself drops about 6.5 cents a litre, nearly 8 cents with VAT. How much reaches the pump depends on retailers, and the retailers' association has said fuel already taxed at the old rate must be sold first. The change will not appear overnight.

None of the chains' captured creatives uses the words for excise or tax yet. Transcript searches for the stems "akcīz" (excise) and "nodokļ" (tax) across Retail: Grocery creatives, 1 to 29 September, returned no matches. What the chains did put on air is below.

Neste went from 118 spots to 1,103, and from 4 stations to 16

In the prior 30 days Neste ran 118 spots, 114 of them on Radio StarFM. In the last 30 it ran 1,103, up 835%, across 16 stations, almost all of it in three media groups: TV3 Grupa (41% of its spots), SWH Grupa (31%) and EHR Grupa (27%). Estimated spend rose from €867 to €11,339.

The shape is a step. Neste ran 15 spots on 10 September and 85 on 11 September. Daily volume peaked at 107 spots on 25 September, the day after the Saeima vote, and 444 spots aired between 23 and 27 September. It is almost entirely produced spots (1,093 of 1,103) and 99.9% Latvian.

Circle K's 1,242 spots became 51, with the last full day on Sunday 30 August

Circle K had the most spots of the four in the prior window: 1,242 on 17 stations, an estimated €12,285. Its last full campaign day in the data is Sunday 30 August, with 39 spots. Since then it has aired 12 further spots on scattered days. The last 30 days show 51 spots, and the spend view, which counts 39 of them, estimates €257. Spotwise monitors radio, so anything Circle K ran in other media is not in this data.

In August its radio carried two ideas: a weekend fuel discount of 10 cents a litre through its app (261 airings), and food offers, including a 4 euro meal.

Two ways to say "price" on air

Same moment, two different plays.

Neste led with the base price. Its top creative, aired 508 times, tells listeners to forget hunting for discounts, calls its fuel quality fuel at a quality starting price, and sends them to Neste stations for current prices.

Viada attached a discount to an app. "Desmit centu atlaide katram degvielas litram" (a ten cent discount on every litre) applies on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays through the Viada Latvija or Lidl Plus app, 110 airings. It also ran fuel plus a 0.5 litre energy drink for 89 cents (101 airings) and XL coffee at 30% off (97).

Circle K ran the same 10-cent weekend discount through its own app in August, 261 airings.

Viada is the only one of the four with a sizeable Russian-language share. Of Viada's 1,072 spots, 720 are in Latvian (67.2%) and 302 in Russian (28.2%), with 50 undetermined. One Russian call to action reads "Акция действует с картой Виада Плюс, приложением Виада Латвия или приложением Lidl+" (the offer applies with the Viada Plus card, the Viada Latvija app or the Lidl+ app). Circle K's spots in the prior window were all in Latvian. Neste and Virši ran in Latvian, apart from a single Russian spot for Neste.

Aizmirsti par atlaižu medībām. Neste kvalitatīva degviela par kvalitatīvu sākumcenu. (Forget hunting for discounts. Neste quality fuel at a quality starting price.)

10 cents vs about 8 cents
Two chains advertised a 10-cent-a-litre weekend discount through an app, Circle K in August and Viada in September. The excise cut is worth about 8 cents a litre with VAT, for everyone, if fully passed on. Different mechanisms.

Virši: 445 of 653 spots are sponsorships, a split a spend report cannot show

Virši's radio fell from 1,173 spots to 653, and its estimated spend from €7,111 to €3,474. Of the 653 spots, 445 (68%) are sponsorships, made up of weather announcements and segment sponsorships, on four SWH Grupa stations: Radio SWH, SWH Rock, SWH Gold and SWH Spin, an estimated €1,335. The other 208 are 206 produced spots and 2 live reads.

The captured lines are food-led. "Pauze, kas atgriež jaudu" (a pause that gives back your power) aired 449 times, and the kebab salad carries a price of 4.99 euro with the Virši card. Two captured transcripts carry the tag "in collaboration with Virši", one of them a weather announcement.

That split is what a spend report cannot show. Kantar AdEx does count sponsorships, but bundled in with spots, so it cannot tell you that two thirds of a chain's radio presence is sponsorship. In Latvia that data is also reported by the stations themselves. Spotwise monitors the actual broadcast and separates it by type.

Fuel chains sell more than fuel

Read by what each chain actually advertised in its most-aired creatives:

• Neste: fuel at a starting price; a car wash offer, "Visu diennakti un nakti vēl lētāk" (all day and night, even cheaper), now also at Kurzemes prospekts 15 in Riga (260 airings); and the Rallycross season finale at the Biķernieki track on 18 and 19 September (156 airings)
• Viada: fuel with an app discount, fuel plus an energy drink, and coffee
• Circle K (August): fuel with an app discount, and meals
• Virši: the kebab salad and sponsored weather

Share of the four chains' estimated spend moved the same way: Neste from 2.7% to 44.0%, Circle K from 38.4% to 1.0%, Viada from 36.6% to 41.6%, Virši from 22.2% to 13.5%. The four chains together fell from about €32,000 to about €25,800 in estimated spend, and from 3,661 spots to 2,879.

The method

This compares 30 August to 29 September 2026 with 30 July to 29 August across Neste, Viada, Virši and Circle K on 29 Latvian radio stations. Fuel retail is filed inside Retail: Grocery (NACE 47.30), so the four chains were selected by hand. KOOL, a fifth fuel chain in the data, ran about 50 spots and is left out. Creatives are the most-aired ones for each chain, read from the monitored ad library, so a chain may run others. Spend is a ratecard estimate with 100% of monitored ads priced (in the last window, 12 of 2,917 airings across the five fuel chains used demo rates), directional and not billed. Tax details are from the Saeima's announcement and LSM's reporting of the vote. Spotwise monitors actual broadcasts rather than station-reported logs.

What it means if you sell fuel, or plan it

In one month a chain went from 118 spots to 1,103, another went from a third of the category to 51 spots, and a third chain put two thirds of its presence into sponsorships. The price message came in two forms and two languages before the tax cut takes effect. A spend total shows the outcome. It does not show who moved first, in what format, or in which language. If a rival made this move against you next month, would you see the shape of it, or just a total?

See what your competitors run and what it costs them, in which language, in which format, on which stations, monitored from the actual broadcast rather than station-reported logs. Advertisers track it in Spotwise self-serve. Agencies track it for every client at once. This whole breakdown took one prompt. spotwise.ai