Audio - Xaxis

Redefining creativity in advertising

Matthew O'Connell — Mon, 26 Jul 2021 07:43:43 +0000

This is part of 10X10, our year-long series covering the Top Ten Trends in digital media. This month's topic: Creative.

Content, context, and creativity

In a cluttered digital landscape in which cookie-driven targeting is receding, the resonance of ads depends on their conception, content, and construction.

Data-driven marketing strategies and AI-powered programmatic delivery can do a lot to get the right content in front of the right person at the right time. Also, that contextual targeting is becoming more essential than ever. But will the content that arrives then catch the eye, stay with the viewer, even get them to act?

With user engagement becoming an essential factor in effective marketing, many marketers are accelerating their investments in dynamic new formats that help capture consumers’ attention, engage them, and inspire them to action.

Here are some of the most exciting and effective new formats to deliver resonant creative messaging.

Conversational advertising

Great campaigns are informed by deep analysis of the data, built around strong creative concepts, delivered in the right contextual environments, and experienced through formats that encourage deeper engagement. The right applications in the right mix can’t help but improve marketers’ results.

Conversational advertising provides valuable engagement during a two-way exchange of useful information that helps brands meet consumers’ desires while guiding them through their customer journey.

The benefits of conversational advertising can be boiled down to two main points: Partaking in something makes us enjoy it better, and remember it better. Simultaneously, asking people which shoes they are interested in ensures a vastly more accurate answer than cookie-guessing at what they’re looking to buy.

Gabrielle D'Mello, conversation designer, UK, Cavai

Unique benefits of conversational ads

Conversational advertising lets marketers create interactions that parallel human speech. It engages customers in a tone that matches the brand. Marketers can customize messages to audience segments to make the conversations — yes, they’re more than messages — truly resonate. Plus, the conversational threads provide useful data that can help optimize current and future campaigns and even be extrapolated for lookalike marketing to discover more prospects.

What to know about conversational ads

Conversational advertising lets brands tailor offers according to a user’s known attributes and their responses within the ad in real time.

Preparation, data-driven strategy, and clearly defined parameters are imperative to success in conversational advertising. Marketers will create a conversational tree that must be carefully crafted from the outset of a campaign. Putting the work in at the front end is essential for creating interactions that feel natural and provide a meaningful exchange.

Marketers should be ready to quickly shift conversations towards trending priorities as conditions change — a lesson many have learned all too well during the past year.

Adding conversational to the mix can be as simple as utilizing pre-existing assets, and shaping a conversation around it. Almost any product can spark a discussion, if we just center it intuitively around what we know people care about.

Gabrielle D'Mello, conversation designer, UK, Cavai

Dynamic video and audio

Dynamic video and dynamic audio lean heavily on contextual data to adapt and deliver highly relevant content in real time, integrating cues such as weather, location, and time of day.

Brands 'have to learn how to communicate simultaneously in many different ways, so being very personalized and very specific in their messaging in order to direct consumers in the best way to purchase products. … The impact of the technology is that it automates the production of different types of messaging and different versions of messaging and essentially eliminates the manual work that they would otherwise have to pay for.'

Diaz Nesomoney, Founder, President, CEO, Jivox

Unique benefits of dynamic video and audio ads

Dynamic video goes beyond traditional dynamic creative optimization (DCO) to allow deeper and richer design of the user experience. Videos may match the weather or day-part. Overlays and elements can change according to circumstance. Adjustments match the messaging to the audience.

Dynamic audio, delivered through smart speakers and other smart devices, can similarly change according to the audience and conditions on the ground.

The ability to capture context and communicate through that lens results in an ad experience that is inherently more relevant to the audience.

What to know about dynamic audio and video ads

It’s important that dynamic video is used on the right networks connecting to the right devices. Some technologies used across the web are not yet fully adapted to all CTV devices, so the content needs to be created and categorized diligently. When using dynamic audio, marketers must make sure to create plenty of variations and assets so that they can meet a range of potential circumstances.

Messaging should be kept simple while targeting across a broad enough segment to provide the reach that will deliver results. Overly narrow targeting will require too many precise variations and can become inefficient. It’s best to devise customizable messaging that plays across a broader segment, then optimize as you go.

More than half (51.9%) of respondents [to research] say they are more likely to purchase a product or service after having seen or heard a personalized ad.

A Million Ads, "The Power of Personalization"

With such a wide variety of tools, publishers can be more creative than ever before. When you can integrate more enjoyable interactive features into websites, you can create experiences that complement your media and work with the flow of the content.

Nikki Gertner, senior product manager, Celtra

Interactive video and playable ads

Interactive video and playable ads allow for powerful engagements with users by enabling them to interact with multiple elements within an ad. Brands can guide their viewers through an experience that they control.

Unique benefits of interactive video and playable ads

Interactive video and playable ads literally allow users to click into them, to select a location or a product from a gallery of images. Elements like pricing or additional product information can also be laid in. And consumers can even click to buy. These self-contained shoppable elements and intuitive interactivity can lead to high levels of engagement. And, as with dynamic ads, elements can change according to condition such as weather or time of day.

What to know about interactive video and playable ads

By letting users shop and buy products from right within an ad, interactive videos let brands gain insights about customers which can help them develop increasingly effective campaigns. The ads can also give the users more control over the experience, letting them selectively interact with the brand without requiring them to click through to another destination.

For example, a video ad for a car might include hot spots that allow a user to mouse over and highlight features of the car. Or a beer ad can let them seek out live local sporting results or locate a vendor near them. Situational triggers are available, too, to further customize for the moment.

Playable ads create micro games within an ad that engage users with a brand. They can also be used as a way to encourage or even incentivize engagement without requiring a clickthrough. And they open the door to extensive creative possibilities.

It's important to note that some of these applications have technical limitations, for example working only in environments that use VAST and VPAID standards. Certain interactive and playable applications require additional resources that may demand extra memory or processing power on a device or be limited by a browser. Privacy restrictions may hinder some types of data from being passed through for certain levels of playable advertising.

When considering playable ads, marketers also should keep the target audience and brand personality in mind. Not every brand’s image works with game-ified messaging. (Should life-saving pharmaceuticals or staid financial institutions use playable ads?)

While it’s possible to layer in a lot of dynamic possibilities along with the interactivity these formats afford, it’s best to keep them separate to make execution easier.

New applications like these can inspire lots of exciting creative possibilities, but marketers should always keep their goals and audiences in mind when exploring them. Don’t pursue them just for the novelty. Always ensure that relevant information is being provided to the user. The ad format should elevate the message, not obfuscate it.

And remember that many users are operating on mobile screens, so simple interactions like a tap or swipe are ideal in interactive ads, while also saving on processing resources.

Last mile delivery ads

Fast delivery services have been rising in prominence along with the rise of e-commerce. Now, platforms that deliver a product or service within an hour are experimenting with ads that drive consumers directly to last-mile fulfillment partners.

Unique benefits of last mile delivery ads

Last mile delivery ads can delight users with nearly instant gratification. The ability to provide targeted offers, personalize delivery options, and immediate fulfillment can serve as major boosts to ad effectiveness. They can be dynamically optimized based on the user's location and product inventory to ensure relevancy. And since marketers’ messages are delivered in a wallet environment, they can increase the purchase levels of relevant products, making them a valuable e-commerce tool.

What to know about last mile delivery ads

As users get just what they want in moments, marketers gather great data. Because the data come from purchase actions in a clear and controlled environment, it’s fully declared and not probabilistic. The data can then be mixed with data based on previous behaviors and demographic details for greatly enhanced results.

Last mile delivery application technology is still maturing and being tested in many markets around the world. Availability is highly dependent on local conditions. As we learn the technology and help it stabilize and scale, marketers will want to be judicious in using it, to learn from tests and make sure to gather data that will be of use in future campaigns.

Retail media (including last-mile delivery) 'is really an opportunity to build a relationship with the shopper, to get closer to them … where they’re in the shopper mindset, with their credit card in hand.'

David Haase, chief revenue and development officer, CitrusAd
The People of Programmatic Podcast Episode 4: A Deep Dive into Retail Media

Data. Creativity. Technology.

Relevance. Resonance. Results.

Episode 3: The Benefits Of Programmatic Audio

Xaxis — Tue, 27 Oct 2020 12:00:04 +0000

In This Episode, We Discuss:

Audio is a uniquely powerful way for brands to engage with consumers.
New types of access and measurement that programmatic advertising affords in audio.
The keys to an omnichannel strategy and driving outcomes with audio.
The rise of smart speakers, and new forms of advertising.
New ways of segmenting audiences using audio.
Key challenges remaining for the digital audio space.

Show highlights

The uniqueness of audio for advertising

“Audio offers things you don't have with visuals. You have theater of the mind. And when you're describing something, it’s as if you were whispering a brand into someone's ear directly.”
—Tony Hereau

There is an intimacy that comes with powerful audio content, Tony and Julia note. Julia notes that neuroscientists have found that sound is an especially effective way of stirring response. “What you hear tells you what you actually feel about something” without distractions, she says.

“Try watching a scary movie with the sound off, and you'll see how critical sound is to generate an emotional response.”
—Julia Rast

Julia adds that streaming audio should no longer be considered “the younger brother of AM/FM” radio.

“Clients and agencies want to reach audiences they can't reach through radio, display or video, to deliver the message at the right time, in the right place and in the right context.”
—Julia Rast
“Intimacy is something podcasting has had in its DNA from the beginning. It's almost like you're entering this kind of walled garden, this rarefied air of an environment where the audience is super-connected to the content.”
—Tony Hereau

Digital audio is encouraging more omnichannel buying and results

Tony says digital is breaking down silos and opening up new opportunities for media across channels, and that “programmatic is really at the center of that.” Buyers who used to buy media based on ratings are now showing increasing interest in impression-based buying, which is “a major first step to start people talking about programmatic buying,” he says.

“All of a sudden, we’re getting more interest in CPM over CPP.” (Cost Per Point, also known as the Cost Per Gross Rating, is a measure of cost versus total audience share.)
— Tony Hereau

He notes that multiple categories are leveraging omnichannel strategies that include audio to reinforce the power of their messaging to drive outcomes. Those categories include retail, home improvement, and quick service restaurants. Julia adds automotive to the mix.

There are “new ways to activate digitally while delivering a message to a broad audience in an offline manner,” Tony says. “They can show results from the digital components, but they're using over-the-air component as a lever to really boost those results.”

Programmatic is introducing new capabilities

Tony and Julia discuss how “host reads” connect with engaged audiences in unique ways, while programmatic ads scale, reach, and measurement to the mix, with its ability to access listeners dynamically via DSPs. Centralized buying gives easy access to top digital audio inventory from multiple sources, they note.

“You can now combine data from your audio, video and display campaigns to get a holistic view and optimize fluidly across devices and channels.”
— Julia Rast
“There's so many ways to plan your audio strategies and to achieve your KPIs. And in that sense, the audio landscape is becoming more mature than we might realize.”
— Julia Rast

Audio is probably undervalued

Americans spend about 15% of their time in electronic media with AM/FM radio, but AM/FM gets only about 7% of spend, Tony says.

“I do think audio is undervalued…. It could have double the revenue, and it still would be not getting its fair share.”
— Tony Hereau

Smart speakers are on the rise

Tony and Julia discuss emerging technologies. Among them are smart speakers, now penetrating a third of American homes — which could rise to 50% after the coming holidays, a proportion that would represent “a kind of inflection point,” Tony says.

“The smart speaker offers up a lot of cool tools that we can leverage when it comes to people responding to ads, gathering big data around audiences that are open to being served ads that are relevant to them based on their other activity that they do on these smart devices and how it connects to their other behaviors.”
— Tony Hereau

Some Links

Nielsen website
Nielsen's Twitter handle.
Tony’s Twitter handle
Xaxis’s Twitter handle
Xaxis Audio content and Insights

Julia Rast

Julia Rast is part of the Global Solutions and Innovation team at Xaxis. Her focus is to drive innovation-and enablement across different solutions, such as Audio & Podcasts, Conversational Advertising and In-Game advertising. With her extensive programmatic, data & analytics experience she is able to identify emerging opportunities for Xaxis and build solutions that deliver on the outcome promise and provide scale that our clients are looking for.

Tony Hereau

As VP of Cross Platform Insights, Tony Hereau is leveraging the full suite of Nielsen’s services to demonstrate the impact that audio has on media investment, marketing execution and sales outcomes.
With over 20 years of experience, Tony’s role as the “Audio Ambassador” gives advertisers and agencies an independent resource for all things audio in an ever-changing media landscape.

India’s Programmatic Audio Playbook

Xaxis — Fri, 17 Jul 2020 15:00:12 +0000

Audio is booming as consumers shift from owned music to streamed, from radio to podcasts, and to listening when, where, and how they want. Soon digital will surpass broadcast as an audio consumption channel. It already provides hundreds of billions of streams.

With the boom in digital audio, advertisers are gaining unique chances to reach — and engage — some of their most desirable consumers. Platforms are launching ad-supported audio channels, competing for both users’ attention and media budgets. The introduction of programmatic advertising to audio has facilitated the capability to automatically insert ads. Targeting and measurement offer unique ways to segment, customize, automate, and attribute audio messaging as part of a larger media mix.

Audio programming can draw listeners in, create a sense of intimacy, and form a literal touchpoint into ears. It can stir emotions, inspire laughter and foot-tapping, even a dance. It is a way consumers educate themselves, find out the news, hear from celebrities and politicians, express social preferences, and indicate moods, tastes, and even generational status.

India is only at the start of its journey in digital audio advertising — but new data suggests that this category is about to take off in this nation in a big way.

Explosive smartphone adoption has led to a 17x increase in content consumption. A staggering 97% of people listened to music through their device in the past three months, and they devote an average of 19.1 hours per week to the activity.
Yet, according to our survey, the vast majority of advertisers in India devote less than 10% of their budget to digital audio. Why?

Our playbook provides a detailed analysis of the current state and projected direction of digital audio advertising in India. It explores important considerations from both the buy-side and sell-side to give a high level perspective. It presents real-world examples alongside qualitative data to fully explain the challenges, misconceptions, opportunities, and outcomes that exist in the category today.

This paper will equip you with all the knowledge you need to approach programmatic digital audio advertising with clarity and confidence.

The Unique Opportunities of Digital Audio Advertising

Xaxis — Tue, 03 Sep 2019 12:00:27 +0000

Excited by the opportunities, advertisers plan to increase their spend in audio this year and beyond. They are able to combine the best of what audio can give — deeply engaged consumers listening to favorite music and programming — along with the targeting and data that digital and programmatic afford. For advertisers, digital audio presents a chance to maximize the power of ad budgets and optimize with targeted reach as never before.

Why Digital Campaigns Need Programmatic Audio

Xaxis — Fri, 24 May 2019 12:00:26 +0000

Originally published in Polish on Signs.PL

Familiar with digital technologies, users have become multitasking masters and have become accustomed to the techniques used by the creators of advertising. This means that standard display ads are sometimes not enough. Effective attention grabbing requires marketers to develop messages that resonate with the recipients, reaching them through significant amounts of information noise.

Making the recipients listen to our content requires an innovative approach to a typical element of advertising - the sound provided in the programmatic model.

Connecting to the digital evolution of audio ads

Programmatic audio campaigns are nothing new. The idea of automatic sound matching gained popularity when in 2017 the Spotify service made available a library of songs through an open exchange. This streaming services giant announced that by mid-2018 profits from programming materials constituted 20% of their total revenue. However, this option has not yet been fully utilized in many markets .

This is due to various factors. Some say that the slow development of this branch of advertising is due to its misunderstanding. Many ad creators have not yet realized that the digital transformation has solved many of the old audio problems, such as the limited ability to take measurements or sales infrastructure issues. Others, however, think that regional development is associated with certain limitations, and low awareness of the benefits that audio campaigns can bring to advertisers makes brands not use them on a wider scale.

What benefits does the programmatic audio model provide?

In Poland, 70% of consumers (22 million people) listen to the radio on a daily basis, and one in five Internet users regularly listen to podcasts. This means that audio is a medium with a huge, multi-channel range, and its diversity additionally increases its value. In contrast to visual media, audio does not limit the performance of other activities. Recipients can consume content anywhere, anytime, such as at work or at the gym. In addition, through audio advertisements, you can build an emotional bond with consumers through engaging content and evoke feelings that resonate with them.

Combined with intelligent programming technology, audio gives advertisers the opportunity to increase engagement at the individual recipient level. By using details about the behavior of audiences that provide audio platforms, the creators of ads can real-time adjust the goals of the campaign to the specific habits of recipients to establish a deeper, personal relationship with them. For example, thanks to information about the history of listening, it is possible to determine when a given user usually activates an exercise playlist and send them messages adapted to this context.

What's more, the fact that most people consume audio content via mobile devices opens up the opportunity to use location data. Brands can send advertisements that encourage you to visit a store you pass while listening to your morning podcast or radio program.

Thanks to data and immediate targeting, audio advertising can not only be delivered in the addressable model, but also has the chance to become a fuel for higher returns on investment and a way to achieve desired results. For example, a retail client chooses a personalized KPI based on tangible, measurable results to increase the number of visitors to its flagship store.

Equipped with data on the reach of the campaign and on customer traffic in the store, marketers can show a direct correlation between their activities and the increase in the number of visits. but it also has a chance to become a fuel for higher returns on investment and a way to achieve desired results.

What will the future bring?

Audio is constantly changing. Thanks to the digital transformation, it enters the new golden age in which technological diversity allows recipients to listen to what they want, wherever they want, using a variety of digital and offline channels. Currently, programmatic audio advertising is in an early stage of development. However, automation will undoubtedly be the dominant method of media trade. Algorithm-based campaigns will also be standard in the case of audio content.

For market-minded marketers, this means that it's time to see the potential of data-driven messages published in real time. Precisely timed advertisements that reach the recipients at the perfect moment will soon be the only way to get their attention in the flow of messages. Thus, if the creators of the ads want the recipients to listen to them, they should quickly join the sound revolution.

Have you read the
Outcome Media Report?

We surveyed almost 5,000 marketers across 16 key global markets and unearthed some fascinating insights into how the industry thinks about digital media success measurement and its priorities for this year.

Download the report

Programmatic and Radio: how the audio ecosystem is changing

Erik Rosa — Tue, 11 Dec 2018 08:33:05 +0000

This article was originally posted on Programmatic Italia

In Italy, Radio is a medium that enjoys a loyal audience. According to the latest data from TER (Radio Publishers Table), within the first six months of 2018 there were over 34 million listeners tuned every day to radio stations.
However, the market is changing and for many years now, the medium is characterized by a strong digitalization that has changed the way we listen to the radio, adding new types of use, such as streaming on the web or smartphone or listening through Podcasts.
In the last period, the audio ecosystem has been further enriched by Web Radio, content created for online and available only with this mode of use, and has seen the explosion of a series of on-demand streaming services, from Spotify to Deezer.
Even in advertising terms we are witnessing a growth in spending on non-traditional audio media.
According to the latest data from eMarketer (based on IAB), global digital audio advertising spending is increasing rapidly, it grew to 1.6 billion dollars in 2017 (up from 1.1 billion in 2016).

The ecosystem is booming

In Italy, according to GroupM estimates, there are over 14 million Italians who use digital streaming services every day.
The phenomenon, characterized by important numbers, has allowed us to seize the opportunity, creating a product that utilizes the programmatic and aggregates the main web radio of RadioMediaset, Radio Montecarlo, some radio aggregators and major platforms international on-demand streaming, giving advertisers the chance to buy audio spots delivered before or during a listening session.

Inventory purchased via DSP, with the added infinite potential of data:

In fact, these spots tailored to the interests of each individual user, to their socio-demographic profile, to their device, to their geographical position, like any digital campaign.
Additionally, thanks to the four-handed work carried out with GroupM 's Research & Insight team, it’s now possible to link to the Audio programmatic campaigns,the target of Light Radio Listeners or those who consume less than an hour and a half of daily Traditional radio, with a real advantage for the client in terms of incremental reach achieved and CPG saving (on the specific target), preserving the frequency of the overall audio plan.

Effectiveness, measurement and evolution

The digital world lives with measurement obsession. For clients accustomed to buying space in Radio, being able to measure audio campaigns is essential, just as it is for us it is able to guarantee this activity, in all its wealth of information.
Thanks to the digital efficiency and the granularity of the data it provides, the campaigns are measurable and tracked with the Listen Through Rate (LTR) parameter and the client can receive the data of the users who actually listened to the spot (today we boast a superior benchmark at 90%).
This is a market that is changing rapidly and there are many trends that can no longer be ignored, but even in this case it will be essential to inform operators and clients to start creating an Italian marketplace. In Italy there is a very strong radio culture but only a few traditional publishers can now be purchased through programmatic buying platforms. This highlights a great market opportunity that is also worth capturing on the publisher side.
In general, programmatic has gone beyond the boundaries of the online world, to embrace several other mediums—not just the audio but also the digital billboard for example—and Xaxis is not getting caught unprepared. In DOOH, we are certainly in a first phase of automation of the processes that has already lent to advertisers—over 20 customers activated this year including market leaders, such as Ford or Zalando—numerous advantages. On the audio front, we have foreseen aforementioned potential and have moved as first mover.
Within both markets, we offer our clients state-of-the-art and innovative advertising solutions, guaranteeing them a strategic competitive advantage.

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