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

 

Q&A Interview with Erika Trautman, Rapt Media CEO

Erika Trautman started out in the industry by running her own Emmy Award winning production company, Outlier Films, and also worked as a documentary filmmaker. “I’ve been a writer, producer, editor, and director in the past, so I have a true appreciation and understanding of the importance of online storytelling as a way to engage and communicate. Rapt Media was created as a result of my frustration and disappointment with online video’s inability to rise to its full digital potential,” she explains. Trautman continued, “Rapt Media technology platform helps to create interactive content marketing in the video space and has the only interactive storytelling video tech combining personalized narrative with data integration.”

In this interview, she talks about how her technology works, some examples, the data collected and some predictions regarding the influence of video in the future media space.

Charlene Weisler: How exactly does Rapt Media work?

Erika Trautman: Rapt Media is a cloud-based platform built and hosted on a global content delivery network that enables video to be viewed on desktop, tablet and mobile without downloading an app.

Charlene Weisler: How do you do that without an app?

Erika Trautman: Our HTML5 video player along with our patented encoding technology allows us to serve branching videos with clickable overlays to mobile devices without using a native app. Inserting a Rapt Media video is as easy as embedding a video from YouTube or Vimeo.

Viewers are invited to click/tap content within the video that lets them create their own personalized experience based on their individual behaviors and preferences.

Charlene Weisler: Can you give an example?

Erika Trautman: Warner Bros. used Rapt Media’s interactive video technology to create an entertaining, mobile-friendly campaign to engage millennials, boost ticket sales, and grow awareness of its box office release, “Focus.” The campaign allows users to step into the shoes of a con artist, testing their skills through a series of interactive scenarios to see if they have what it takes to pull off a con. Whether attempting to con the Internet Mogul, the Investment Banker, or the Art Dealer, the campaign gives users a more personalized experience with the story.

Charlene Weisler: How much is human input and how much can be handled by Rapt to craft the creative?

Erika Trautman: Our customers typically brief, concept and map out an interactive storyboard as part of the creative process which comes before scripting and production begins. Our platform is extremely user friendly so that non-video experts can easily create interactive video.  We often provide “best practice consultation” for the interactivity and branching options being explored by the client. After the shoot and post production, the client typically owns and manages the overall “build” of the interactive video experience within our platform.

Charlene Weisler: What data do you integrate?

Erika Trautman: The Rapt Media platform easily integrates with Learning Management Systems and Marketing Automation Systems like Eloqua, Marketo, and Hubspot, as well as analytics platforms including Google Analytics, Omniture, and CoreMetrics.

Charlene Weisler: Do you capture any data regarding consumer usage? If so what do you collect?

Erika Trautman: Our custom data analytics platform helps marketers track content performance in real-time based on robust user data including unique plays, total repeat viewers, average viewing time, total nodes (content areas) viewed per session, total video plays per user, and total number of times a link-out was clicked during a viewing session. Additional demographic data including country/location, device type, operating system and browser are also provided along with consumer/viewer insights from the content areas that are driving the highest level of engagement (nodes viewed and average time viewed).

Charlene Weisler: Are you able to get GPS location?

Erika Trautman: Our API allows two-way communication between the video player and surrounding page to integrate insights based on user behavior within the video as well as geolocation data to create a personalized content experience.

Charlene Weisler: Where do you see Rapt residing in the media ecosystem? Is this something that can be used by television networks to create new content or enhance the viewer experience?

Erika Trautman: Interactive video helps entertainment and news media organizations tell complex stories in a new way to enrich the user experience. It provides in-depth coverage on editorial topics and a deeper look into storylines based on the viewer’s unique interests. It drives new readers to the site and increases time spent engaging with the content.

Charlene Weisler: How has the activity of storytelling changed in the past few years? Are there truisms that stand the test of time? Anything different today?

Erika Trautman: The foundation of effective storytelling lies in the emotional connection created with the audience, and that vital component still remains true today. What has changed, however, is the way those connections are being made through emerging content formats. Passive, linear storytelling mediums do not allow the audience to engage dynamically with the content, restricting everyone to the same experience. Interactive storytelling creates the opportunity for engagement, allowing the audience to personalize content consumption based on their individual preferences and unique interests. Marketers are also able to collect valuable insights that help them better understand which storytelling elements are resonating with the audience.

Charlene Weisler: Looking ahead into the next three to five years, what predictions can you offer on the media landscape?

Erika Trautman: The category of “Content Tech” will grow and dominate. Marketers, brands and media companies will invest in technology platforms that enable the creation, management and measurement of personalized, digital brand experiences that can be optimized through data and user insights. Emerging technology will use key audience analytics to produce better creative that engages customers, creates and tracks behavior, permits continuous creative improvement and optimization and opens the door to a new age of storytelling interactive content, or what we call “the next layer of the web” will be at the center of those technologies.

This article first appeared in www.Mediapost.com

The Future of Media Incrementally Unfolds

One of my favorite events of Advertising Week is the Future of Media Panel which took place this year at NYU on October 3. This year’s group of panelists ranged from advertisers to agencies to content platforms to gaming companies and each offered their opinions as to where they see the media landscape over the next few years. 

Last week I wrote about my habit of predicting the future of media using the side-view mirror,where objects appear closer than they actually are. This week I leave it to others to look ahead.

Of course there was a full range of answers from the panel; As much as we would like to think that being immersed in the media gives us the one true answer, it often turns out that we are creatures of our own environment. Agencies speak of the renewed importance of marketing. Social Media companies see the increasing importance of consumer engagement and involvement. Networks predict that television, which currently enjoys the lion’s share of budgets, will become even more interesting in the years ahead.

Among those views that had general consensus -- Content will continue to be a vital element for success, perhaps even leading to more gamification in order to assure engagement. And not just games; There will be added importance to personal and local content that connects with users and viewers. Quality content can come from anywhere, from the professionals as well as the amateurs who create in their basement. Arianna Huffington of the eponymous HuffingtonPost.com called it a “hybrid future” where there will be greater collaboration around the content platform. Nigel Morris from Aegis cautioned that change may feel slow but in retrospect you might see how fast change has actually occurred. Storytelling, especially as it informs a brand, will increase in importance as Tony Pace of Subway concluded that a brand is, in fact, a collection of multiple stories.

But has anything really changed in the process of predicting of the future of media? Weren’t we all talking about the digitization of media a decade ago? Eric Hirschberg from Activision summed it up; “My conclusion is that media unfolds incrementally and I think there is an addiction editorially to thinking about revolution - To think about something that will render obsolete everything that has come before it in its wake. That rarely happens. What usually happens is that new tools and new creative opportunities emerge. It is more important how you respond to these incremental changes than being able to predict them.”

Well put. Let me check my side-view mirror to see how close these incremental changes are to accelerating change in the media landscape.