If you thought video killed the radio star, think again. Consumers are gravitating to audio and marketers need to follow them, says Lee Thompson, co-founder of Ireland’s first and largest digital audio marketplace, AudioOne.
Its partnerships with global technology and content partners allows it to create an audio content offering that mirrors digital audio consumption preferences in Ireland, spanning music streaming, digital radio and podcasts.
The main reason digital audio should be on every marketer’s radar is size. “With about 2.8 million listeners weekly, it’s big, and advertisers are interested in scale,” says Thompson.
Radio stations probably see digital as a threat or competition for budget but I think that when you combine them, it makes both stronger and complementary
“In a fairly short space of time it has become a viable vehicle for advertisers to reach a very large cross section of Irish adults, 77 per cent of whom are listening to digital audio weekly.”
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That compares with commercial channel TV weekly viewership of about 75 per cent of Irish adults and around 90 per cent for radio.
“The other thing is the format. Irish people love audio. We love to talk, but we also love to listen,” he says. “And studies show that sound tends to trump vision when it comes to ad effectiveness.”
Covid “supercharged” the medium, says Thompson. “We all had a lot of time on our hands and didn’t quite know what to do with it, and I think digital audio was comforting. It gave us escape. But even since then it has continued to grow.”
For advertisers, there is much to love. “Humans process sound five times faster than images, and so the brand effect of audio is a lot more immediate than it is for visual media like TV and digital display,” he explains.
“On top of that, digital audio ads have this emotional intensity. We hear sounds, we remember things, it creates memories and associations. That emotional intensity goes a long way towards winning your attention, which is what advertisers want. They want people who are attentive, who are engaged.”
Meet your audience where they are
Digital audio also resonates with today’s audience. It is part of what Thompson describes as “the unstoppable march of on-demand media”, coming at the expense of traditional linear media.
“We want to enjoy content on our own terms now. We want to be in control of what we listen to, what we view, when we view it and how. Old appointment media, where you sat down at a certain time to watch a certain show on TV or radio, that’s receding. That’s not how we are living our lives,” he says.
Apart from the great exception of live sport, these days consumers pretty much control the schedule. Yet despite this, “listened yesterday” figures for linear or FM radio figures have remained high, points out Winterlich, reducing only marginally in recent years. “Where is all this new listenership coming from?” he asks.
IAB Red C research suggests there are somewhere between 300,000 and 400,000 digital audio listeners weekly who do not listen to radio
But when it comes to traditional radio and digital audio, it’s not a case of either/or, but both. “Most digital audio listeners listen to radio,” says Thompson. “However, there is a group of digital audio listeners who don’t listen to radio. IAB Red C research suggests there are somewhere between 300,000 and 400,000 digital audio listeners weekly who do not listen to radio.”
Therein lies the “additive” element that digital audio brings, he suggests. What’s more, it offers a particular type of reach. “If you’re an advertiser and you are trying to reach young people, you should definitely be including digital audio alongside linear FM on your plan,” says Thompson.
“There’s more of a requirement to do so if that is your target audience. And those people, you’ll find, tend to be more consumed with podcasts and music streaming than they are with digital radio.”
For advertisers, digital audio offers enormous flexibility in terms of purchasing as well as an ability to finely target audiences, “with very little waste”, says Winterlich.
“Radio stations probably see digital as a threat or competition for budget but I think that when you combine them, it makes both stronger and complementary,” he adds.
Irish people love audio. We love to talk, but we also love to listen
In terms of the pecking order, streaming is “still the engine of digital audio”, with around two-thirds of people who are listening to digital audio, listening to streaming from the likes of Spotify or SoundCloud, says Thompson.
Digital radio and podcasts come next, in that order. But podcasts are growing fastest. What’s more, with attention a current industry hot topic, focus on them is likely to grow.
New research from dentsu and Lumen Research measured attention in various audio formats and environments across podcasts, radio and music streaming. It found that audio advertising, including podcasts, radio and music streaming, drove significant attention compared to other ad platforms.
Given the oversupply of media opportunities, achieving cut through is harder than ever for advertisers. For agencies, “attention is going to be a much more meaningful metric as we move forward”, says Winterlich.
Finely tuned
AudioOne has around 2.3 million listeners a month across a portfolio of content types including music streaming, radio and podcasts. Advertisers can pick and choose among all and then go deeper, choosing by genres such as sports, new, business or comedy. True crime is particularly big right now, says Thompson. As well as spot ads there is potential for podcast host reads.
It provides access to music streaming service SoundCloud which, because of its association with new artists, is helpful to planners looking to target people in a ‘discovery’ mindset.
“Some brands really want to associate with people and environments which they believe are in the vanguard, because they have values of being bold, daring and at the frontier; and very often, where interesting people congregate is where culture is shaped,” says Thompson.
Audio is exciting, dynamic and growing like a weed, so yeah, I’m genuinely excited by audio at the moment
AudioOne also allows for targeting on a range of variables, from device to context, genre and geospatial location. Its work with A Million Ads, a software company, enables it to personalise audio ads too, referencing the exact day of the week that the ad goes out on, for example, or the location of the listener.
Other innovations he points to include use of the Shake Me format, where a listener shakes their phone to do something, such as donate to a particular charity or reach a particular landing page.
“Audio is exciting, dynamic and growing like a weed, so yeah, I’m genuinely excited by audio at the moment,” says Winterlich.
To hear more, go to irishtimes.com/tags/insidemarketing-advertisingfeature/