Why Audio Is Having A Renaissance
Speaking and listening are the most deeply ingrained facets of human communication. At Innovation Congress, panelists discussed what that means for marketers looking to engage customers through auditory means.
With voice-activated connected device usage having jumped 130 percent over the last year and over 50 percent of Millennials using voice commands at least once a month, voice and audio are having a moment — and marketers should take note.
In a panel at last week’s Innovation Congress execs from Mobiquity, WNYC, and more explained why audio is having such a renaissance.
“By its nature, audio is very engaging,” said Peter Weingard, CMO for WNYC radio. “It leaves a lot of information off of the palette that is otherwise given to you in, say, video. You have to fill in the blanks in your mind to imagine, ‘What is the scene here?’ for example. And the fact that your brain has to engage with that content — [and potentially] speak back to it — makes you much more engaged with it overall. So it’s a very powerful combination.”
As J. Walter Thompson’s Elizabeth Cherian stated at last month’s Cannes Lions event, speaking and listening is the oldest means of conversation; the human mind is inherently designed for this type of interaction — far more than the artificial motion of swiping at a smartphone. So, what can marketers do to engage with this natural behavior through consumers’ connected devices?
Going Hands-Free
The “Alexa, play my music” use case is fairly well established and understood when it comes to voice-activated devices. But panelists encouraged marketers to think farther outside the box when it comes to thinking about Alexa and Google Home skills: It’s crucial to ask the questions, “when might a consumer have their hands busy? When might voice or audio make the most sense to communicate with them?”
For example, Mobiquity launched an Alexa cooking skill for Nestle’s GoodNes brand as part of creating an engaging audio-first experience. Why? Well, it’s a bit difficult to swipe through on a smartphone while up to your elbows in flour.
“If you’re in the kitchen, your hands are busy, and maybe you’re pressed for time,” said Joel Evans, co-founder and VP at Mobiquity. “This made is so users [could actually] interact with it via voice. It takes you through all the different steps; You can ask, ‘Okay. What are my ingredients? What’s next?’
“We ended up creating a visual that aired with it [as well.] So you’ve got two different tracks. When [a user] enables the skill, they put their name and their email address in, and we could send a link — which, when opened on any web browser, becomes a companion digital experience. And the audio track itself actually changes because now it knows that you’ve got a visual guide going along with it. That’s something that’s been very successful for us.”
In other words, audio can be a key to engaging customers as they go about their daily lives in their homes. And what’s more, it can be an even stronger experience when paired with corresponding visuals. As Evans put it, “we can think audio first — not audio only.”
And marketers, take note: By 2020, 50 percent of search in general will come from images and voice.
