New tech is re-energising audio and offering new tools for advertisers and marketers.
Speaking on a bright sunny day at SXSW, ARN’s Creative Director Kade Robinson revealed how dynamic advertising, binaural audio and contextual audio platforms are allowing advertisers to better target audio listeners.
ARN has partnered with audio tech companies to deliver programmatic advertising across its broadcast, podcasting and digital music platforms and is making use of a range of data points to help advertisers hyper-target audience segments.
Why would you want to make your audio campaign dynamic?
Robinson revealed two answers to that question: A 52% uplift in ad recall and a 240% increase in conversion.
“Dynamic audio can unlock a lot of power,” he said. “It can make your content unique.”
He gave an example from ARN’s regional stations in South Australia where the creative team developed a highly targeted campaign across various platforms. It was called Last Chance Servo campaign, delivered for Ampol.
The campaign cross referenced weather, location and other data points to deliver highly targeted safety messages to geo-located outback travellers.
Listeners would hear messages specific to the time of day (watch out for kangaroos at sunset), or reminders to fill up, because the next fuel was hundreds of kilometres away. On hot days messages included reminders to check the radiator water and tyre pressure. Graphics displayed on the car’s visual interface included pictures of the staff they woudl meet in when drivers stopped at the remote road house. The audio ads were heard on radio, on the iHeart app and on podcast platforms.
When drivers entered the service station, point of sale advertising was also aligned with the audio campaign.
“It was a small but very effective campaign that showed how audio advertising can be used to deliver segmented campaigns… it was very granular… it had so many creative variants,” said Robinson.
The video below explains all aspects of the campaign, which is in the running for a Siren in next month’s B&T Awards
Other new applications for audio included a stereo ears microphone. Old library pre-recorded sound effects are often overused and are mostly in mono, which was fine for the era when they were recorded, but audio creatives can do better now.
“Stereo immersive audio can help you set your ads apart… many people are listening in headphones and stereo ear buds now, thir music is stereo, so why not offer them an immersive audio experience in your advertising,” Robinson advised the marketers who had come to hear the latest audio advertising tricks at ARN House. He explained that when a client decides they want to use immersive audio, he and his team treat the onsite recording in the same way as they would a video location shoot.
“When you listen to the recordings you are surrounded by natural realistic sounds, they can sneak up behind you, the can surround you… there are plenty of use-cases for this such as tourism campaigns, sport, cinema… we can capture the real world for real, real world audio cuts through.”
The approach is also delivering cut-through in gaming audio ads because Gamers invest in high quality audio and video deviced to give them the best experience.
The video below explains all aspects of the Last Chance Servo campaign, which is a great thought starter for your next high impact audio campaign.