Brands must rely on strong, original advertising to leave a lasting impression on their customers. As David Ogilvy (a great name in post-war advertising in the USA and around the world): "Encourage innovation. Change is our lifeblood, stagnation our death knell". The flagship innovation of recent years has been audio (voicebot, podcasts, voice messages, audio books...). So why not bank on audio advertising to reinvent your brand marketing?
What is audio advertising?
Unless you live in a cave, you know what advertising is. It's impossible not to come across one in the course of a day. There are TV commercials, street-marketing ads, YouTube ads, radio ads, posts on social networks....
The term "audio advertising" refers to advertisements that are purely audio. That is, they have no visual support, such as a poster or video.
Audio advertising is already all the rage. According to a study conducted by the Sortlist platform, 78% of listeners are likely to buy a product recommended in audio content.
Traditional radio: The origins of audio advertising
The first type of audio advertising that comes to mind is radio advertising. Brands buy airtime from stations to promote their products or services.
It was in 1922 that the first radio commercial was broadcast in the United Stateson New York station WEAF. By 1930, 90% of American radio stations were broadcasting commercials. In France, the first radio commercial arrived in 1923, signed Citroën.
To capture the target audience, brands need to choose the right station, program and time slot. That's why brands are fighting to broadcast their commercials in the morning. After all, 50% of French people over the age of 15 watch at least one morning news program. Among them, 47% prefer radio as their medium before the Internet, print media and television.
So audio advertising has been around for a century now! But today, with the development of digital, new innovations are emerging, and so are new advertising formats.
Development of digital audio advertising
Digital audio is booming. Listeners can consume content while cooking or playing sports, for example. Brands are infiltrating various digital audio formats to promote their products or services. It's a solution that's gaining momentum, since it's estimated that by 2027, the "digital audio advertising" segment will reach 1,632.9 million listeners. But where can you find this type of content on digital?
Advertising on podcasts
And yes, among the most popular audio formats is the podcast. With over 67.4 million episodes in 2022 (on Apple Podcasts), this type of audio content attracts advertising. The advantage over radio is that podcasts can be listened to at any time of day. And 78% of listeners say they accept advertising in podcasts.
There are four four types of audio advertising that can be found in a podcast episode.
- Pre-roll: the spot is broadcast at the very start of the podcast, or even before it begins. It lasts between 15 and 30 seconds. This works best, as 75% of French listeners say that the advert at the start of the podcast encourages them to find out more about the product or service concerned.
- The mid-roll: this is the same type of format as the pre-roll, except that it lasts 1 minute and is inserted in the middle of the episode. It is also reserved for episodes lasting more than 20 minutes.
- The post-roll: like the pre-roll, this spot lasts between 15 and 30 seconds, but is placed at the end of the episode. After the credits.
- Host-read: also known as product placement. The podcast host himself talks about the partner brand, often at the beginning of the episode.
Ads on audio streaming sites
Deezer, Spotify and Soundcloud offer millions of audio tracks. These platforms offer their users a paid subscription, so that they receive no advertising. However, there are also freemium usersIn other words, they pay no subscription fee, and consume audio content in exchange for advertising.
Spotify has 200 million freemium users worldwide. On the Deezer platform, there are 12 million. And on Soundcloud, there are 175 million.
The most popular audio spot on audio streaming platforms is the pre-roll. The spot is usually indicated by the wording "Sponsored" or "Advertisement" at the top of the screen.
Web radios and live radios let advertising in
With the arrival of digital technology, radio stations have created their own websites and applications.
As with podcasts and audio streaming platforms, the audio advertising format found on lives and webradios is the pre-roll. It is launched before the live event begins.
Poster campaigns that focus on audio
There are other ways to use audio in your communication campaign. Radio and digital aren't the only channels that can host audio. Posters can too!
All you need to do is integrate a QR Code linked to audio content into your visual. This could be music, a testimonial from a brand employee or a customer.
Deezer is the very first brand to launch the first poster campaign that listensin 2022. Its aim is to reach young people aged 18-24, who are major music consumers. Several shootings have been carried out for this poster campaign. Each visual contains a QR Code that links to a musical extract that accentuates or modifies the meaning of the image.
Monabanq follows the trend and dares the audio QR Code for its recruitment campaign. On each advertising poster, a Monabanq employee strikes a pose. The QR Code allows you tolisten to his or her account of his or her experience with the company. The bank called on our start-up Ekoo to promote its employees and embody their testimonials using our audio solution.
