Research from System1, Radiocentre & CRA confirms that great creative is the key to maximising audio campaign results, doubling trust, awareness, and consumer response.
Listen Up! reveals six key take-outs that will help brands and agencies develop compelling creative for audio platforms. At the heart of these findings is the important role that feeling (i.e. positive emotion) plays in audio advertising’s short- and long-term effectiveness.
1. Audio ads that make listeners feel more positive dramatically change consumer behaviour and deliver longer-lasting brand effects. Radio campaigns that created more positive emotion and less negative emotion caused significantly more consumer action change, including brand purchase and use.
2. Feel-good audio ads make advertising campaigns more famous. Radio campaigns that created more positive emotion and less negative emotion saw large increases in Word-of-Mouth and Sharing on Social uplifts. This made the campaign feel bigger than it was, an indication of a fame effect.
3. Radio is as likely to cause long-lasting effects through an emotional response as TV advertising. The average long-term effectiveness metric in System1’s database (Star Rating) is the same for radio and TV ads.
4. Well-branded (fluent) radio advertising creates bigger trust effects. Radio is a trusted medium, it excels as a media platform at building brand trust. However, well-branded ads see a significant increase in this trust-building effect
5. Optimised audio adverts are effective at attracting attention and forming strong memories, increasing short-term effects. There was a significant strong positive relationship between well-branded audio ads that elicit a strong emotional response and advertising recall.
6. Audio ads with more right-brain features are more likely to cause longer-lasting brand effects. Audio advertising that uses features like character, story unfolding, sense of place and dramatic intimacy creates more positive emotions, fewer negative emotions, and attracts the attention of broader audiences, something that’s key for lasting brand effects.