Getting the Most Impact From Your Audio Strategy. An Interview with Audacy’s Sergei Peysakhov

Audio, like other forms of media, is fragmenting with both digital and over-the-air offerings coupled with fresh entrants such as podcasting and smart speakers. How can advertisers best leverage all of these popular formats? Sergei Peysakhov, Senior Director, Measurement and Insights, Audacy embarked on a new research study to better understand the power of audio in its many incarnations.

“Audacy is a leading national publisher with a focus on audio content,” Peysakhov explained, and has existed for over 50 years as a pioneer in FM radio. About three and a half years ago, Entercom and CBS Radio merged and a few months ago that merged company was renamed Audacy which consists of all facets of their audio business, “including our B2B media company and B2C brands.”

Total Audience Amplifies Study

Audacy’s Total Audience study was designed to offer advertisers insights into how to best meet their marketing goals by examining the synergies between the audio formats. The study examined the dynamics of digital audio and over-the-air radio when advertising messages are run on both platforms. “Do they work better together? Is there any sort of synergy to running digital and traditional radio?” he asked. These are important questions.

“A lot of times advertisers tend to fall into one of the two buckets. They have either been on the radio for many, many years and love it. But they might be a little nervous or skittish about digital audio because it feels different. Then there are marketers that are newer, born in the digital age, direct response marketers who love the digital stuff but they are worried about over-the-air. It’s funny because that distinction is really a marketing distinction. It is not a consumer distinction,” he noted. To a consumer, it is all audio and very fluid and as such, there is no reason that these two distinct formats cannot work together to drive a cogent call to action.

For marketers with these clear distinctions, it was important to understand the total audience of audio to better understand the optimal mix of audio formats from digital to over-the-air to podcasts and everything else.

Study Takeaways

Peysakhov and his team examined those time periods where digital audio advertising was running alongside over-the-air advertising and times when digital ran on its own, “and then we compared these two periods across different campaigns and we saw a very clear signal, pretty much without exception across all campaigns that the digital audio worked much harder when over-the-air was present. Digital in itself was converting at a much higher rate driving people to the website or to make a purchase,” when you are also messaging on over-the-air, he revealed.

There is considerable data available to help form insights. According to Peysakhov, the study used digital attribution that included traffic, conversion, “pixal tags that captures when the consumer makes a purchase or does some sort of low funnel transaction. We also pick up some sort of order ID … and purchase value for ROI calculation.”

The conclusions were impressive. “What we saw was the amount of traffic, the total amount of visitation to the site after exposure to an ad doubled when over-the-air was present and lower funnel conversion was about fifty percent stronger,” he revealed, demonstrating the stronger synergies to spur a call-to-action when both formats are used simultaneously.

Peysakhov added that, “one of the biggest surprises was how consistent the impact was. It was pretty much across the board where any time you had digital advertising running you add that over-the-air layer and digital works harder. It was universal across industries.”

Impact of the Pandemic

At a time when most media experienced a reset moment during the pandemic, one media form didn’t miss a beat. Audio, especially streaming digital and podcasting, continued to offer fresh content to a home-bound audience. What Peysakhov found was that, “while consumption habits of our listeners changed (during the pandemic) because of less commuting, we found that the total consumption of audio just became different. The composition became different.” He noted that, “We saw a huge spike in smart speaker audio. It was already growing and was already a large part of our listenership. It was relegated to the car for many years. But with smart speakers we’ve been saying that radio is back in the home and it just jumped.”

Interestingly, “There was actually an initial dip in podcast listening but it picked right back up. For listeners, the backlog of shows filled up and listeners found time for those shows,” doing household based activities. “I used to listen while I was commuting but now I listen to the shows while I am washing the dishes.”

Advertiser Reaction

As far as advertisers are concerned, the reaction to the study results, “has been very positive. It has led to a lot of conversations that help break down the wall. I think that a lot of advertisers mentally bucket those channels separately – a digital bucket versus over-the-air budget. Instead of thinking digital and traditional, think audio. Audio is an incredibly powerful medium,” he concluded.

 

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com

 

 

Pandora's Insider's Guide to Digital Audio Drives Growth for Local Businesses

There is something compelling about audio. It commands attention, offering an intimate experience to the listener in an uncluttered environment. For Liz Lacey, vice president of sales marketing for Pandora, audio works especially well for all sizes of advertisers from small to medium to large. 

"Small and medium size businesses often don't think of audio," she noted, "They immediately go to search and social. They think audio is hard. They don't really know where to start. Our goal is to make audio accessible, give them the tools that they need and make them feel confident that they can incorporate an audio strategy to complement their social and search campaigns."

Pandora's Insider's Guide to Digital Audio for Local Business

To that end, Pandora has created a local advertising eBook, which, Lacey explained, "talks about the advantages that audio can bring to the table: an uncluttered environment, ads that are served one at a time and adjacency to brand safe content. It also talks about the differences against other tools such as social, search and even broadcast radio." The book is part of a larger strategy by Pandora and serves as an evergreen marketing material for digital audio and internet radio for local businesses.

In short, Pandora offers advertisers, "audio ads at scale, tapping into the power of Pandora's logged-in user base which reaches 150 million users with the flexibility to target however you need to. Streaming audio's flexibility, intimate storytelling ability, and targetability takes center stage for business looking to reach local audiences efficiently. In today's challenging times, small and local businesses need to be able to adjust their messaging based on the changing dynamics of their local market. With streaming audio, local advertisers can easily swap out audio ads working with Pandora and our Studio Resonate creative team."

Impact of the Pandemic

The impact of the pandemic especially on small businesses has been profound. According to Lacey, "In March we saw many advertisers, not only small and medium businesses, put a pause on their campaigns. But we did see that audio—because of its ability to be more agile and cost less to produce versus a TV spot—come back pretty quickly in the second quarter. We spent a lot of time this year educating businesses both large and small about how streaming audio can be an effective solution to engage their customers by adjusting their media and messaging strategies to meet the mindset and behavior of the consumer in their current state."

Research has backed up all of these efforts through the use of Soundboard, Pandora's 75,000 listener panel of users who have opted in to allow Pandora to poll their insights and behaviors. "Starting in March, we launched a multiple wave study to understand how our listeners feel and what they want from brands, what is working and not working and used that as an opportunity to talk to our advertisers to guide them on how they can use audio," she explained and added that there has been growth for advertisers using audio during the pandemic because of the medium's agility, flexibility and efficiency.

Digital Audio Advertising Components

Perhaps one of the most innovative aspects of Pandora's data gathering is the ability to personalize at scale. "When we use our dynamic ad product which allows us to use different data signals to personalize a message based on different scenarios, we can build many different iterations to support a single creative idea," she stated. It starts with understanding the consumer, and Pandora's ability to reach these audiences at scale. "We collect billions of data points daily on our listeners—whether brand's want to bring their own first party data to append to Pandora's massive data set or use Pandora's robust first party data for turnkey targeting solutions, advertisers can reach the right consumer, in the right environment, and in the right mindset and mood (of the listener)."

A billion data points begs the question, what data is collected and what metrics are used to measure? When users register on Pandora their behaviors are bucketed into three categories—declared, observed, and inferred audience data. Declared are attributes such as email, age, gender, and zip code. Observed is learning based on the user's interactions with the interface, including stations, songs, artists, genres, or music engagements (i.e., thumbs, skips, replays, etc.) Lastly, inferred data is what's inferred about the user based on their technographic (device), geo data, and behavioral (i.e., ethnicity, HHI, political leanings, parents, students, etc.) "We can then offer advertisers 2,000+ pre-set audiences that are already developed based on all of the data we ingest and analyze," Lacey stated. With metrics and measurement, "We do everything from website pixel tracking to measure lower funnel direct response metrics such as site traffic and conversion," she noted, to "branding and awareness. We are leading the charge in the industry around audibility, working closely with Moat by Oracle Data Cloud, our first party measurement partner, to test Audibility measurement and reporting aligned to the 2-second MRC standard. Pandora has been investing in research with one main goal in mind: create holistic audio measurement capabilities to help advertisers better analyze the effectiveness of the audible impression."

Pandora boasts something called Intelligent Ad Delivery which is "an ad delivery system that allows us to know when it is best to serve an ad in the right moment by taking into account an individual listener's behavior with the platform." Additionally, Ad load is relatively uncluttered compared to terrestrial radio with only one to two messages per pod compared to as much as a block of eight ads.

The Value of Digital Audio

"Audio is interesting because it reaches audiences that are not necessarily consuming traditional media, which is our position when we talk to advertising partners who might be going heavy into television and AM/FM broadcast radio," she explained, "If you are trying to reach a younger audience you need streaming audio as a supplement to achieve that audience reach." And when it comes to advertisers who rely on social and search, digital audio adds amplification of the message. "You can grow awareness, increase consideration and boost results," she concluded.

Click here to download The Insider's Guide to Digital Audio for Local Business.

 

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com

 

National Public Media Leads Spoken Word Audio Innovation for Marketers.

When you have a company as diverse and expansive as NPR, the competitive marketplace can range from legacy radio to podcasting start-ups and news companies such as newpapers that have shifted online. 

For Erica Osher, National Public Media Vice President of Sponsorship Products, this offers sponsors a compelling proposition. “NPR is obviously a leader in audio,” she explained, “We still have our very strong radio presence. But we’ve been on the path, in the past decade, with the growth of podcasting and other digital platforms and explorations on new emerging technologies.”

NPR’s Path to Expansion

For Osher, the Spoken Word Audio Report results confirm the success of NPR’s efforts to, “explore how NPR can continue to reach new audiences, younger audiences, while still servicing and providing a great content experience for the people who have always loved NPR and have been here from the beginning. It’s a balance but it is something that we are very excited about.” This has led to great experimentation, “seeing what sticks and then see about how to make it sustainable,” she stated. “I think NPR has come a long way in the last decade or so in achieving that.”

All of this focus on the listener experience across the array of present and future platforms makes NPR a must-have for sponsors. Osher noted that, “We were ahead of the game when it came to brand safety and trust, protecting the user experience, having an authenticity and respect for your audience - All of those things that are really on trend. The way we do sponsorship on NPR really lends itself to conveying that trust to our sponsors and in their messaging as well. And that, beyond anything, is our biggest value proposition.”

But it is not just the environment that provides value. She explained that, “We have also developed some interesting, different products,” in areas of programming and research. “As NPR has grown and distributed to more platforms, we have iterated and grown more and more new products and evolved with the technology to offer custom audios, sponsorship experiences that really invest in storytelling and branding, but also more data tools and attribution technologies and better targeting.” There is also the effort to, “craft the way we deliver and create those sponsorship messages so that they are resonant on whatever platform they are on and whatever audience is engaging on it.”

Sponsorship Opportunities

For those marketers who seek the advantages of NPR’s content, audience and measurement tools, there are a myriad of opportunities for sponsorship. “It really depends on what your campaign needs,” she began, “and that is what I like best about this. When we talk to clients, the first thing we ask is ‘what are you trying to achieve in your campaign, who are you trying to reach and how are you measuring success?’ You have to understand that before you can come up with a media plan and suggest creative options.”

From a more direct sales brand which may gravitate to a digital platform to a brand seeking scale with audience targeting with less focus on storytelling or a branding campaign with a social responsibility message that seeks to engage via audio with a deeper user experience, all options are available. “What we have tried to do is to create that range,” she stated. “And to make products that work no matter what the brand is looking to achieve for their campaign and then, because of the breath of our platform and the breath and diversity of our audience, it puts us into a really good position to be able to craft the plan and to target that audience to create the right assets to go with that brand.”

Arguably one of the more compelling value propositions with NPR is lack of clutter. “We’ve always had a very low sponsorship load which benefits the user experience, it sticks with the aesthetic and mission of NPR and it also offers sponsors more value because there is less distraction,” she explained.

The Audience is Key

Respect for the audience, gleaned through careful research, gives NPR a clear brand message opportunity for marketers. “From my perspective, it really comes to what the audience is most interested in and crafting the right creative to fit the audiences’ interests. I think the one common denominator across all of our platforms for our audiences is that they want it to be authentic. They’re curious minded so they want to be informed and they don’t want it to be overly promotional. They want things based in fact rather than huge claims,” she concluded.    

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com

 

Ad Week 2017: Communication Is Shifting from Words to Images to Sound

It is hard to wrap your head around the myriad events associated with Advertising Week.  This year the excitement ratcheted up for all things technology, specifically augmented reality, virtual reality, artificial intelligence and especially audio communication.  All these efforts are currently impacting and will continue to impact the media industry, placing strains on traditional business models and enabling new cutting-edge companies.  But a simple overview of all these technological bells and whistles belies some crucial brand and media oriented trends on consumer behavior. Here are some takeaways:

Communication is Changing from Words to Images
Just like the early cave paintings, images today are taking on a major form of communication and storytelling.  We are moving from the word to the image to express ourselves in the forms of photos, videos and emojis.  In fact, according to Lydia Daley, Senior Vice President Social Media and Branded Content Strategy, Viacom, "Visual imaging is currently the major form of Millennial communication."  Millennials value experiences over material things and are seeking authenticity in their interactions with brands.  It is simply not enough to talk the talk.  Brands need to demonstrate that they are good citizens with a compelling story.

Audio Is Not Only Not Dead, It Is Poised to Rule
As technology advances and households continue to adopt voice activated appliances, audio is slated to become even more popular as a way to communicate.  Just as Millennials are gravitating toward images, Gen Z is moving to audio.  Why bother searching the Internet when you can simply request Alexa to find the content for you?  "Podcasts will explode," as part of this audio-ification of communication, said Susan Panico, Senior Vice President, Strategic Solutions, Pandora.  Marketers will have to consider how they can best leverage podcasts and other audio formats to reaffirm their branding and best reach their consumers.

Gina Garrubbo (pictured at top left), President and CEO, National Public Media, emphasized the importance of what she termed “host driven authenticity” as an essential ingredient in both the strong connection that listeners have for audio content and in turn the efficacy of program advertising.

Data Buzz Continues
Data and its related topics of measurement, attribution and blockchain technology were discussed at many panels because, as the old saying goes, if you can't measure it, you can't monetize it.  Simulmedia's CEO and Founder Dave Morgan believes that "the biggest advancements in advertising over the next two years will happen in measurement and attribution."  This is already happening "as advancements in matching media exposures and purchase data at real scale" are leading to "real ROI analysis at a tactical, per campaign level," he said.

But there is still some trepidation concerning data quality.  "Advertisers can buy an incredible array of very precise customer targets now, but no one really knows what they are buying," noted Scott McDonald, President and CEO of the ARF.  "We need much better standards around data quality to provide better guidance to the market.

"An unambiguous rating system that can offer an independent 'grade' on the quality of data sold for ad targeting," might be possible in the next two years, he optimistically added.

Viewing Patterns are Evolving
According to Cindy Davis, Executive Vice President, Consumer Experience, Disney | ABC Television Group, the multi-platform environment is evolving into a new way for families to co-view.  Her department launched a new research study called "Togetherish" that examines the evolving way that households watch, share and engage with content.  "Consumers are changing very rapidly," she noted.  "We must understand what viewers want and what motivates them.  We want to know where viewing is going across devices and platforms."

What the study revealed is that there are eight types of households each with their own viewing dynamic.  "All types watch over 20 hours per week and all types find value in ad-supported content," Davis explained.  While 57% of all of these homes watch TV alone, this is deceiving.  Because of the plethora of devices, no one really watches totally alone anymore.  In fact, of that 57%, 21% are actually communicating with others virtually while viewing, leading to the term convergent viewing.  "Convergent viewing heightens engagement," Davis noted.  "They watch virtually together. They watch more deeply and feel deeply connected to characters on an emotional level.  We also see higher brand metrics across the board with convergent-viewed shows."

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com

Listening in a Crowd – The Next Step in Out Of Home Measurement

CNN Airport Network recently announced a new initiative using Computer Vision and Deep Learning technology developed by Tunity that has the capability of adding a new dimension to out of home television viewing. 

How often are we at an airport or at bar and can view the screens but can’t quite hear what is going on? Tunity’s download-able app enables viewers to also become listeners. Yaniv Davidson, Founder of Tunity, believes that it is possible to attribute actual listening to specific out of home viewing. “Turner’s bold decision to adopt Tunity and promote it first to its CNN Airport Network viewers opens up a whole new era in out of home viewing,” he explained. “Viewers will now be able to receive crystal clear audio via their cell phones at the same time they see the video on a live TV set.”

“Our goal is to constantly improve the passenger experience by bringing air travelers quality news and entertainment programming wherever they may be in the airport,” explains Debbie Cooper, President of Turner Private Networks . “Bringing a technology like Tunity to CNN Airport Network allows us to better serve the passenger, allowing them to be engaged with the screens not only with a visual but with clear, synchronized sound at their personal volume level. We know through years of research that if someone cannot hear the audio clearly, they are less likely to pay attention. Tunity is a unique opportunity to take advantage of the technology that many of us use every day, a smart phone and headphones,” she adds.

Charlene Weisler: What is the unique advantage of using Tunity for television out of home measurement?

Yaniv Davidson: Currently there is no good metric for TV Out of Home because there is no technology out there that can capture who is watching what and where. For example, the Portable people meter needs to capture audio, which either doesn't exist in out of home, or exists, but might be just a background noise to a consumer that is merely in the TV's general area. Tunity can prove that a viewer is actively watching a TV, when and where. It is not an anecdotal piece of information, like a survey, it's hard, detailed data about real viewers. It can be the first platform one to shed a light on an audience that's never been measured before.

Charlene Weisler: How do you expect CNN Airport Network will use the information gained from Tunity?

Debbie Cooper: The data sets that we are creating with Tunity will give us insights into who our audience is, what they are interested in and, maybe even someday, where they are headed on their next flight. The strategic knowledge we get from this information will allow us to deliver a more personalized, engaging experience.

Yaniv Davidson: We are still in the phase of working on the data and we want CNN Airport Network to be a partner in that. We would like CNN Airport Network to give us their input so the end result is something they could use as a metric to evaluate how many (additional) viewers are watching a specific channel at a specific time in a specific location and communicate this to their potential advertisers. This is just the beginning. Eventually, I think that Tunity will enable content creators like Turner, to push personalized content to viewers' screens while they are watching TV - this will be based on who the viewers are, what they are watching at the moment, where they are and their past preference (or preference of viewers who belong to the same segment and are in the same context as them). Tunity can help Turner evaluate the effectivity of every piece of content - by segment, location context, etc.

Charlene Weisler: Will CNN Airport Network get demographic or lifestyle attributes?

Yaniv Davidson: There is some direct data that we have - like age and location - and there is additional demographic data that can be extracted or added to the data we already have. For now, we are focusing on location, age and gender - but there is a lot more we plan to add in the future.

Charlene Weisler: What makes this unique compared to other out-of-home measurement applications?

Debbie Cooper: For CNN Airport Network, it’s not just an issue of out-of-home measurement but constantly improving the customer experience. If we can be more available to more people regardless of their proximity to a television screen, that’s a benefit to us and to the audience. We will continue to use our other measurement tools and systems but having Tunity data will give us the best available data using best technology in as close to real time as possible. This allows us to know who, when and where our audience is. There have been several times I’ve been at an airport, either in a gate-hold area, restaurant or lounge and I’ve seen one person see the promotion we’re running for Tunity that explains how it works. They download the app and in a matter of seconds the audio is synched to the screen. Another few seconds pass and the person sitting next to them asks how they are able to get the audio and they repeat the download process. You can see the light bulbs go off as people experience Tunity for the first time. They have their phones out constantly, they typically have their headphones in too. Tying those together with what’s on the screen across the room or seating area is a breakthrough for CNN Airport Network.

Yaniv Davidson: This is the first time a major media company is working to solve the issue of measuring Out-of-Home TV viewership and leveraging a new and unique solution to both solve a real issue for its audience and advertisers as well as extract unique data - not available until today. Turner is leveraging the latest technology (this level of Computer Vision and Deep Learning could not have been done 4 years ago - computing power was just too expensive and Deep Learning did not really exist...) to statistically and scientifically measure what is a significant portion of their viewership. It also solves an issue for their viewers on the go - and the advertisers trying to engage with them.

This article first appeared in www.MediaBizBloggers.com