Advertising Options In a Sound Universe- Fall 2019

At the time that I drafted this article (Fall 2019), a lot more has hit the “airwaves” for lack of a better term. I promise to do a follow up article to this one but seeing as this information is still valid and holds weight, I wanted to release it anyways.

Although there are a bunch of platforms that advertise through sound and music, I decided to start the conversation off with two that were most noteworthy to me in present day; Pandora and Spotify.

I find both highly intriguing because they continue to surprise me on what they are doing and not doing. They are both actively creating a space for themselves that I’m sure has been under the radar for years. But now it’s getting interesting as things are actively being unveiled.

Pandora

Pandora has been embracing sound marketing in a great way. Not only do they have a podcast which I find highly interesting but they are also launching, or rather have launched their Pandora For Brands department. This is where they are working with brands to develop ads to target their exactly specific audience. We’re not just talking about grabbing music and slapping it on an ad. They actually would encourage you not to do that.

Pandora will develop an ad with you that will speak to your correct audience and ideally increase your click rate by using their 10 years of data and analytics (what they call the Genome) of their consumers to your advantage.

1 in 3 Americans are listening to Pandora. Their data allows you to be able to target your audience based on who they are, what they listen to, where and when they listen, what they are doing when they listen, and even how they are listening. Pandora even has 10+ third party data providers that can hone in even further with data like shopping behaviors, media consumption, purchase habits, what media they go crazy for, etc.

Now before you freak out and say “privacy”, all of this is legal and it is what we all sign up for when we go online…so… moving on.

I’m not sure what the cost is for Pandora. They don’t list it as far as I can tell. They want you to reach out specifically which I could see as good. They do acknowledge the small business in their information so it could be a situation where they calculate based on marketing budget or annual revenue or something like that. Or I could be entirely wrong and you have to sacrifice your first born. Who can say for sure.

I’ll be posting another article in the near future with more details on what Pandora is up to. In the meantime, you can check out my interview on the Sound In Marketing podcast with Roger Sho Gehrmann of Pandora’s Studio Resonate. Here’s part one and part two.

Spotify

With Spotify, they have an Ad Studio where it looks very similar to creating a FaceBook or a LinkedIn ad. You target your audience, write your script, choose your background song, and send it over to them to record V/O and begin the campaign. They have their own V/O team which I could see as a good thing (30 seconds goes by fast…sometimes faster than an average person naturally talks).

Studies have shown that 61% of audiences respond better to an announcer read ad as opposed to a host read ad. So it makes sense to keep this outsourced.

Their minimum ad spend is $250 and you don’t get charged over your campaign budget spend. I say this because I’ve experimented with this with Linkedin Ads and if people are clicking, they WILL keep running it…and keep charging you accordingly. This causes unforeseen spends so that little nugget of information is very reassuring to me.

Spotify also bought up Gimlet in October 2019 and has been HEAVILY focusing on podcast programming. I see that being a massive revenue source and an ideal marketing location for many in the very very near future. More on that venture in future articles.

The Main Objective

I believe both parties’ main objective is that they don’t want to kill the listening vibe. They want to create relevant ad experiences and they now have the data and know-how on how to do that.

I remember not so long ago listening to my kid’s Winnie the Pooh Pandora station in the middle of the day and an ad for Match.com came up …actually this happened multiple times. Seeing as it was a kid’s channel and it was the middle of the day with mom not working I would think that Match was NOT reaching their target demographic. I take that as a “par for the course” situation because since then, my ad experiences have become more and more relevant to me and my lifestyle…and my kids.

Sonic Branding Relevance

And here’s where a sound logo or sonic branding is so very important. Pretty much all of us have turned on a music streaming service at one point or another. When you do that, chances are you are not looking at your phone, or iPad, or whatever device is streaming. So when those all important ads of yours pop up, how do you let the listener (because they are not necessarily a “viewer”) know that it is you? Sound. Ads can be 30,15, or even as short as 10 seconds long.

With a tiny amount of attention real estate, you’ve got to draw your listener in and hook them fast.

Something else to keep in mind is that that listener may not even have time to look at their device by the time your ad is over. What that means is you have to not only hook them, but inspire them to engage with you one step deeper by either finding you independent of a hyperlink or requesting you independently via voice assistance.

Your listener has to be motivated enough to pursue you.

But, if you had a sound…now you have a way for them to recall you that is more effective, I’d argue, then anything else. Even with the most pleasant voice or the most clever script, your brand name could still be forgotten.

I even think sometimes when the script is so clever or so funny, we stop on that and remember the commercial but not necessarily the brand. But, I’m not an advertising manager so we’ll just side step that thought for now.

Display Advertising With Sound

I bring up display advertising because I believe that there is something that has yet to be discovered in them. I believe that with the right creative, you could drive viewers to listen and engage in a different way than what display advertising is currently. What if, for example, you were to use the platform to help tell your story? With visual, audio, and a manipulatable platform, you could tell a very interesting story.

Too much? Well, we’ll see what the future brings. There are some extremely clever people out there and I’m excited to see what they come up with.

So with that all being said, there is a company called AdSonica.

AdSonica creates static ads with sound that you can attach to your marketing arsenal. It creates a rich media asset to play on a standard display platform (banner ads for example). They combine both the audio and the visual into one jpeg file. Both audio and visual file stay synonymous to each other which avoids deterioration of the sound or audio quality.

William Agush, owner and president of Adsonica stated that, “…the maximum length of the audio is fixed by the ad companies — which limits the total ad size to 150K — so when you combine an image with sound you have about 12 seconds of audio and the picture.”

By adding sound, people more fully engage in the advertising and often click 2–3x as often.

Yet another reason why a sonic logo comes in handy. With limited time comes limitations. Create a recognizable sound and you can cut right to your point that much more effectively.

Currently, they are working on how to best implement with smart speakers.

Their cost is a small percentage of your ad spend. That’s it.

With Adsonica, the opportunity isn’t just about adding any old sound. It’s about harnessing the power of sound to tell your brand story that much more clearly and in a more accurate context.

For more information on AdSonica click here.

Measuring the Value of Sound

So this is all well and good. But how do we really know if our sound marketing is being effective? How can we measure the value of our sounds?

I’m so glad you asked!

Veritonic is an unbiased 3rd party company that gathers data from all sorts of companies to see how sounds and sound marketing fairs with the global consumer market.

Recently, they released their 2020 Audio Logo Index which you can find here. This index measures audio effectiveness in advertising globally. I highly encourage you to check this out especially if you are on the fence on whether sound advertising is for you.

In Conclusion

For more information on me and what I do, you can find me at Dreamrproductions.com, Linkedin, and Facebook. You can also check out my podcast Sound In Marketing where I talk about…all the things.

I’d love to help you on your sonic branding journey in any way I can so leave a comment, write a review, send me an email and let’s chat more!

Remember, we all make sounds. Let’s make them on purpose. Let’s make this world of sound more intriguing, more unique, and more and more on brand.