93% Brain Engagement
Audio is personal! If you want to get inside the heads of consumers, streaming audio should be your primary channel. Researchers from Neuro-Insight took real-time readings of the brains of people listening to different kinds of music accompanied by ads. They found out that digital audio was more likely to engage long-term memory for both details and past memories, as well as increase the emotional intensity, more than radio, TV, social media, or digital video. The research showed that 93% of the brain’s engagement with the content transferred directly into ad engagement as the listener moved from their music and podcasts to the ad.
Audio has a proven ability to hook audiences and hold their full attention. With earbuds, for example, the experience is so intimate that brands are literally inside a listener’s head so when they are talking about something in the audio environment, they really have the awareness of their audience.
It’s not just music either, 75% of all adult Americans listen to spoken word audio each month while 45% listen daily. In 2021, spoken word audio daily listeners average 2 hours and 6 minutes per day listening to spoken word audio, equal to the amount of time they spend listening to music. 54% of listeners agree that spoken word audio engages the mind in a more positive way than other media but they have many reasons for listening:
It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that mobile devices are the leading way for consumers to listen to content. Mobile devices are one of the most personal items we own and we take them everywhere. This creates a special opportunity for advertisers if they look at the data and execute properly. Mobile devices allow brands to target users based on where they are at the moment, where they have been, and where they spend the most time. Combining this data with the users personal content of choice and a variety of other data points such as weather, time of day, demographics and location, advertisers can leverage audio unlike ever before and in a more personal way than any other medium. Every demographic is listening and what resonates with one demographic will differ from the others.
Most advertisers gravitate toward Spotify, Pandora, and iHeart. These are all great choices but they come at a premium. Depending on your target audience and strategy, you can look at many other publishers or networks to grow your reach and drive towards a more effective overall CPM rate. The goal should be consistency in delivery and reaching the right audience at the right time. Most DSPs can help you execute campaigns across a variety of inventory sources.
Regardless of what networks or channels you choose to advertise on, make your ads personal. There is absolutely no reason why advertisers should deliver any type of ad campaign with generic messaging. Personalization and contextualization is easier than ever for every medium, especially audio. Frequency helps brands with every aspect of their creative from copy creation though ad delivery and analytics. Their workflow management tools make it easy to manage and optimize campaigns in one place. Delivering audio ads is as simple as delivering video ads. Audio ads can be dynamically served using the Video Ad Serving Template (VAST) tags just like video, so don’t let the name fool you. The minimal premium you will pay for this service will pay for itself multiple times over because your messages will better resonate with consumers. As the research shows, audio messages will find their way into the memory of listeners and increase long-term recall more than any other channel.