Ballin' on a Budget: Audio Advertising with Sonic Branding Grows Brands Efficiently

Oxford Rd. recently published their Sound of Growth study, a great resource for anyone considering incorporating audio advertising into their media strategy. Audio can take a backseat to other advertising channels, but this study might have you reevaluating:

Audio advertising—whether through podcasts, streaming, or radio—delivers a hidden advantage for marketers. Our analysis, which shows audio drove an average of 18% of clients’ branded search volume, provides valuable insight into the impact of audio on consumer behavior.

Based on $400 million in audio ad spend over more than three decades, they found that audio delivers on both short-term performance results and long-term brand-building.

If you're hesitant to take the plunge into audio advertising, this research will instill confidence in audio's ability to deliver results for long-term brand building as well as short-term performance. I've also included insights from other studies that will further reinforce the notion that audio is an essential platform to include in your media mix.

Cost Effective

In the below charts from this Dentsu Study, you'll see that audio is more affordable but outperforms other media on key metrics. it's clear why sonic cheerleaders like myself can't stop banging this drum.

Click to enlarge graphs:

Audio Is a High-Trust Medium

The below graph from Acast's Podcast Pulse shows audio-only media excel in consumer trust:

Brand Building through Search Strategy

We've established that audio is both a high-trust and cost-effective medium, so let's explore why it's so powerful for building brands. As we saw above, Oxford Rd's study found that that audio alone can account for about a fifth of your brand search volume.

Les Binet's concept of Share of Search (SOS) is widely understood to be the best metric for brand tracking because it reflects what people do rather than what they say. Moreover, it acts as a leading indicator that can predict market shifts up to a year in advance.

Simply put, brands that spend money on channels that encourage people to search for their products are more likely to grow their market share.

The Long and The Short, multiplied

The Ehrenberg-Bass Institute and LinkedIn’s 95/5 rule states: 95% of your prospects are not ready to buy when they see your ad so you should be playing the long game with those folks to stay top-of-mind when they are ready to buy.

Les Binet & Peter Field's The Long and the Short of It & WARC's Multiplier Effect both offer empirical evidence that brand marketing multiplies performance marketing.

We need to think beyond the short-term, bottom-of-the-funnel-focused ads and create distinctive brand assets and cues that help to build brands over time.

Stealth Brand Building

If you incorporate sonic brand cues—which largely operate in the subconscious—into your audio advertising, you can seamlessly weave brand building into any advertisement—whether it’s designed to drive brand awareness or sales activation.

For more: Radio ads incorporating sonic branding experience a 17% boost in ad recall and a 6% increase in purchase intent.

How to infuse Sonic Brand Cues into your advertising

Here are a few effective strategies for integrating sonic branding into your audio advertisements:

• Sonic Logo: The sound counterpart to your visual logo that injects your brand essence into your prospects subconscious. You can insert this in the beginning or end, or subtly throughout the ad.

• Brand Anthems: This is the foundation of your brand's sonic identity, ideally featuring brief musical motifs that either suggest or fully incorporate your sonic logo.

• Commissioned Music: This is a great option, but make sure the music aligns with your sonic identity. We also recommend creating music that complements and informs the creative process, rather than music this is slapped on as an afterthought. We have a proprietary system that links musical archetypes with brand archetypes, helping you build implicit brand messaging effectively.

• Licensed Music: This approach is an excellent way to capture attention; however, it can be expensive to secure exclusive licensing.  Additionally, it relies on borrowed interest rather than building brand equity.

• Library Music: This approach is not ideal, as it is non-exclusive and could be used in another brand's campaign. However, if you must utilize library music, ensure it aligns with your brand identity and incorporates elements such as our brand-music archetype system.

• Sound Effects: These can include signature sound effects that bring consistency to all of your ads. A great example is Southwest's seatbelt sound.

• UX/UI Sounds, Product Sounds, & Earcons: These are brief and distinctive sound cues used in user interfaces, software, or products to guide a customer journey and reinforce the brand persona. These are iconic sounds associated with a brand's physical products like: VW door sound, payment apps with distinctive cash register sounds, iPhone camera click, Magnum crunch!

• Distinctive Brand Voice: Your sonic identity should include an ownable and recognizable voice used consistently in advertising and other audio touchpoints. It should be congruent with your brand positioning & resonate with your ideal customer. Example: Arby's voice

• Jingles: Everyone's favorite love-hate relationship! While they aren't always tied to a sonic identity, jingles are often crafted with the goal of embedding a memorable tagline in your mind through catchy music.

  • Insurance companies like State Farm are great examples of taking the jingle beyond the tagline and infusing it into their sonic identity. Their jingle/sonic logo is also designed to be flexible, allowing it to fit into various campaigns—even crossovers, like their recent nod to Severance.

  • My all-time favorite jingle: Get a Saab in Your Life