Big Audio Dynamite – The case for audio advertising online
Jon Mitchell, Spotify UK sales director, explains why audio advertising will become the norm online…
On Spotify you’d be hard pushed to see our listeners providing us with passionate feedback on our display ads. There’s barely a tweet questioning the Vodafone skyscraper or the Ford leaderboard. Generally it’s the audio ads that get all the attention and comment, and for good reason…
The impact of audio ads on our listeners isn’t a real surprise – the ads deliberately interrupt the playlist or album you want to listen to; while the minutage an hour is around 3 mins (so a tiny amount compared with commercial radio’s 10-14 mins of commercial messaging), yet is still enough to get people talking.
It’s early days for audio ads online and I suspect that people will increasingly get used to them. Spotify is the first company in the UK to properly offer advertisers campaigns online where they can speak in sound about their offers. We know that after the initial shock of hearing a Boots ad people come to not only accept them, but in a variety of cases enjoy them.
So why will audio ads become normal online in the future?
a) The power of aural communication
As humans we listen and speak to people all day long. The ad industry has been very good at using visual communication, but has more often than not neglected the audio channel.
Commercial radio continues to have investment in its aural channel and there’s enough evidence to show that these campaigns work. With people captive online there’s a fantastic opportunity to actually speak with them in very a personal way.
b) Creative flexibility
Let’s be frank – there aren’t many radio campaigns that win the Grand Prix at Cannes, right? The RAB talk at length about radio creativity, as do many radio group chief execs – but the problem lies not so much in the ability of creatives (although seeing more time spent developing a radio campaign would be welcomed) but in the restrictions the ads are governed by for broadcast.
Such limitations tend to kill great ideas. Yet online, these restrictions pretty much vanish. Should you wish to run a risqué ad post-watershed it’s up to the media owner if they want to carry it, not whether if it is allowed on air. Online allows a far greater level of creative audio freedom.
c) Copy length
Spotify has also done away with copy length issues. Why would a creative want to be restricted to 20s or 30s? If their script is perfect at 27s then surely that’s what should be made? And yet this is never done offline. This is why we refer to the copy as audio not radio, requiring a different thought process and approach. The online world enables the old rulebook to be torn up.
Spotify’s bespoke ad copy is so much more refreshing and therefore effective than commercial radio ads. Wired magazine has run copy pre and post watershed, Sky is running different copy for each day of the Ashes aligned to how England are performing, Nokia use Zane Lowe to talk about free music and – quite brilliantly on their part – Suitopia acknowledged that their ad was so bad having read tweets and blogs that they asked listeners to make follow-up ads for them!
By understanding the importance of creative, audio ads online work better for branding as well as selling product and driving call to action.
d) Accountability and targeting
Accountability is where online has been able to set its stall and then deliver time and time again. Just running audio ads without any accountability is a stumbling block. If you look at radio station players where on air ads are streamed online, there is no clue as to who is listening to those streams – just the knowledge that someone has listened to them. Is that acceptable for an advertiser these days? I’d guess not.
If the audio ad has the ability to be clicked, as within Spotify, then it can be measured and compared with other online activity. It’s the only way to be taken seriously online. The question will always be asked “is it more effective than my leaderboard/MPU?” As a media owner, knowing who the ad is being served to also helps the online audio ad’s case. If a brand such as Veet knows that only women will hear its ad then wastage is reduced and creatively can be tailored for the audience. The same can apply to Lynx and 17-24 males. It’s far more effective and works the budget harder.
e) Audio and display working together
We’ve seen enough case studies in the past to know how radio and press, or radio and online work together.
Audio ads online enable an instant click, but also when that click doesn’t take place listeners will have heard the ad – and in so doing helping drive the display advertising and making those ad pounds go even further, as is the case on Spotify.
We can take this further and look at audio ads driving clicks to video content, or even driving a promotional splash page to win prizes. Just because there is no DJ doesn’t mean people will ignore an audio call to action.
Media owners have to work hard to realise the huge potential of audio advertising online. Spotify is still young, but with so much potential to make advertising work harder for a passionate audience, you’ll no doubt be hearing more audio ads on the web in the near future.