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AUDIOCOMMERCIALS IN DIGITAL. WHY AND FOR WHAT?

GlobalWebIndex analysts found that most people listen to music online, with 62% of people using streaming services. What is interesting about an audio format for advertising? Audio advertising does not interrupt user engagement and does not interfere with media consumption. Therefore, the audio format does not affect the person like other advertising formats. No wonder big companies have been working on the image of their brand since the last century, both in visual and audio directions. As an example audio: Windows startup sounds and Nokia call.

But the effects of audio on people is not only about audio images. There are many other familiar sounds: the specific sounds of closing the car door, the hum of the engine, the sound of opening a bottle of sparkling water, the crackle of chips and even the sound of lowering a plastic straw in a glass of lemonade. Another type of sound advertising are jingles, which are practically impossible to forget. Once we think about one famous brand and Christmas we instantly want to sing "Holidays are coming!". A striking example of such tunes is the song “Venus”, performed in 1970 by the Dutch rock band Shocking Blue. After 16 years, performed by Bananarama, the track got its second breath: it was used in Gillette's commercial for women's razor blades and created an audio image for the brand.

To achieve this effect, companies are investing heavily in cool, fast-paced ringtones. Why are these jingles so catchy? It’s simple: while consuming audio content, the human brain receives information through only one channel – the audio, and the visual picture is already overpowered by the imagination. That means that the listener complements the advertising message with close and clear images, which helps to remember the main message. Audio messages are hard to ignore – so digital audio ads do not have the "banner blindness" which is common for visual communications. Usually, users consume audio content without breaking down from their activities when the screen has a secondary function or is absent at all. It can be:

Work or studying.

  • Online: reading, browsing of social networks, looking through news and other textual content, games, shopping, etc.
  • Being on a road or walking.
  • Household chores or physical activities.

Here is a special feature of the format – the willingness of interested users to further visit the advertiser's website or app. The user is not annoyed and does not need to take any additional action to further consume media content. Audio placements are also very interesting: music services that provide legal audio content, podcast aggregators, audiobook listening services (such as Google Play, SoundCloud, Spotify, etc). Services are aimed at monetizing the product and providing inventory for advertising (so in 2016 Spotify began to cooperate with Programmatic systems and reported an increase in advertising traffic by 94%). Ukrainian publishers are gradually stepping into the game – traditional radio stations are trying their digital capabilities, Internet radio stations are developing and so on.

The Russian market has already counted one hundred of its publishers. Now, when you go out to digital, audio advertising is not intrusive – usually 3 or even 2 commercials per hour on one resource. As a result, the amount of people who actively don't want to listen to ads is around 3%, 97% of the audience listens to the end, it does not annoy users. The Ukrainian market is only developing audio in digital, but Programmatic systems are ready to use this inventory and understand the mechanism of measuring its performance. The programmatic audio format has several advantages of digital advertising:

  • Deep targeting – the flexibility of settings, the ability to use geolocation, to take into account the interests of the listener.
  • Setting up a single ad campaign frequency for different devices or media – the user communicates with the advertising message in a convenient format: on a computer or mobile phone, with visual or audio material.
  • A detailed measurement of the effectiveness of your ads.

In Western countries, audio formats have been on the market for several years. Thus, according to IAB, in the US in 2017, the advertising budget for audio was $ 1.6 billion, 39% higher than the 2016 budget. So far, it is a small share of the market (88 billion), but growth is significant. MightyHive was one of the first companies to use audio on Google's Programmatic system. At the end of 2017, MightyHive has already published a case study of a CPG branded company. At this time, Google has just begun testing audio format with 30 selected advertisers before launching a new format for general use in 2018..

Guide with details about the audio format, its specifics and capabilities have already been released at IAB USA. There is no such detailed information about audio advertising in the Ukrainian market. And this is not surprising: in Ukraine, digital is still in the testing phase of new inventory, both from advertising sites and from advertisers. We are already actively exploring the new audio format, its features, metrics, and capabilities, and note how they connect to the new direction of publishers. We observe that our inventory of cinema posters and movie theaters has already been brought to the Ukrainian market. We will continue to post updates to you and talk about the audio format on our blog. It is not far from the development of voice assistants to the extent that the user can give feedback on the ad by voice. Experts fantasize that it will not be necessary to break away from activities, and, in response to advertising, it will be possible to place an order with the phrase "OK, seller, send a couple of pieces my way ...", and they are already testing the voice feedback. Therefore, voice shopping is the reality of the near future.

P.S. An example of jingles. Another popular jingle – «I'm loving it», McDonalds. In 2003 the company held a competition between the 14 largest international advertising agencies in search of a new slogan and jingle. The competition was won by German firm Heye & Partner with a slogan «Ich Liebe es». The music was part of the agency's project. The company then collaborated with the music company Mona Davis Music. Famous ‘ba-da-ba-ba-ba’ was inspired by the audio of unknown back-vocalist who helped in a studio. The agency decided that this chant would be remembered by everyone.

In recognition of the idea of Heye & Partner, McDonalds’ new campaign "I'm loving it" began in Germany. The budget for this ad campaign was $ 1.37 billion a year. The jingle is part of 5 commercials that have been translated into 11 languages and launched worldwide. The United States has announced that the jingle will be sung by Justin Timberlake. This was a financial and marketing revolution - now the artists have signed multimillion-dollar contracts for sounding jingles. McDonalds sponsored Timberlake's European tour and, according to The New York Times, the singer earned $ 6 million from this deal. Later, the musician confessed to British magazine GQ, that he regrets the deal with McDonalds.