In the new audio odyssey, all boats may be rising.
Streaming audio – in the shape of both podcasts, digital music, smart speakers and more – is opening up to advertisers.
In this video interview with Beet.TV, Diana Anderson – SVP, Group Director, National Audio and Local Digital Activation of the media agency Carat – says her clients are eager to buy more of all kinds of audio.
All-channel game
“Audio – even AM/FM radio – is having a resurgence,” she says. “Our big brands are really leaning into using audio, terrestrial and streaming and podcasting – brands like P&G and Home Depot.
“The landscape has definitely changed. Terrestrial audio used to really be the most dominant form of audio that people were listening to. It still is, but the level, how much they’re dominating, has definitely changed.
“When we look at AM/FM radio, streaming, and podcasting all working together, they’re complementary and really shouldn’t necessarily be standalone.”
Anderson explained how an agency may use each of the options to different effects:
- Terrestrial radio – mass reach, price efficiency.
- Digital audio – incremental reach, precise targeting, more real-time metrics.
- Podcasting – little scale, but a branding and connection opportunity.
“So I think all three of them work together as part of a client’s audio strategy,” she says. “That’s what we try to recommend.”
Radio reborn
According to latest The Infinite Dial report from Edison Research and Triton Digital in March:
- 37% of Americans age 12+ (104 million) listen monthly, up from 32% in 2019.
- 62% of Americans use voice-operated assistants.
- 45% of Americans have listened to audio in a car through a cell phone.
But Anderson says traditional radio is part of the revolution, rather than part of history.
“About 10% percent of listening overall to AM/FM content is now to the streams of the terrestrial stations,’ she says.
“Over this course of the pandemic, that has definitely expanded as people are looking to find their favourite DJs while they’re working from home, or they’re looking for news.”
Addressable audio
As it becomes more digital, audio begins to offer the kind of addressability that advertisers have enjoyed in display and video.
Carat’s Anderson says her agency is above-average in the industry for the proportion of digital ads it buys for its clients using programmatic, automated tools – about a quarter of the total, compared with manual insertion orders.
And she says brands want to use data to buy audio in a targeted fashion.
“Most clients are asking to, at minimum, use third-party audiences to reach the target,” she adds. “And more and more clients want to use their own first-party data in order to target audiences.
“A buy that’s done that’s using digital audio strictly for reach may just rely on demo(graphics), but most even those clients are moving to add at least a mixture of some demo targeting with advanced targeting tactics with it.”
You are watching “Advertisers: Turn Up the Volume on Streaming Audio,” a Beet.TV leadership series presented by TruOptik, a TransUnion company. For more videos, please visit this page.
