The new advertising frontier: actionable audio ads
Your smart speaker just got smarter.
Voice Assistants like Google Assistant and Amazon’s Alexa are becoming more ubiquitous by the day, with a predicted 8 billion voice enabled devices in use by 2024. We’re beginning to trust our smart speakers, with 72% of users already seeing them as part of their daily routine, and their popularity is only increasing, particularly over the last year, with usage increasing 11% during Covid 19.
Voice transactions are projected to be worth $80 billion by 2024, showing what a fruitful proposition actionable audio ads will be in the coming years, allowing digital radio listeners to interact and buy products by issuing simple commands to their smart speaker.
Berocca’s sonic boost
Vitamin tablet brand Berocca are early adopters, recently launching an actionable audio ad for its new Berocca Boost variant. The campaign is an FMCG industry first, and allows consumers to move from a 40 second audio advert to completed transaction in under 1m 40s.
Audio ads of this nature have the exciting ability to target consumers ‘in the moment’ with an immediate and low friction ordering process
Other pioneers of this new advertising medium include Audi, who produced an interactive radio ad where listeners were able to ask their smart speaker to book a test drive at their nearest dealership, offering an easy, naturalistic and hands-free way for their audience to actively engage with them immediately after hearing about their product.
The results
Ads of this nature are particularly useful for marketers, as the direct effect of the campaign’s adspend can also be measured in terms of how well users engage with the ad, and the ad itself can be optimised and improved over time. Berocca are utilising this to run different versions of the ad depending on the time of day, day of the week and the weather, on ad breaks via Global radio’s stations such as Capital and Heart. There is potential to develop this even further, personalising via name, news hooks or particular interest to further deepen the connection and hone relevance and accuracy.
70% of users already ask their voice assistant for information about brands
Evolving consumer habits see people embrace voice commerce to complement mobile and e-commerce, with 70% of users already asking their voice assistant for information about brands. Smart-home transactions via voice assistant are forecast to exceed $164 billion by 2025.
Research shows that the smart speaker radio audience is likely to be receptive to interactive ads, with Amazon Echo users open to a greater level of engagement with advertisers than they currently have, and 44% of Echo users loving the idea of being able to ask Echo for more information after hearing an advert.
Audio ads of this nature have the exciting ability to target consumers ‘in the moment’ with an immediate and low friction ordering process, while the personal and connected nature of smart speakers enables ads to be carefully targeted, and valuable end-to-end data collected. There is huge potential for this new form of marketing to complete advertising campaign goals, generating leads, sales, and delivering an engaging brand experience.
