That Ad Sounded Good, Now Where’s The Buy Button? Study Finds Link Between The Two.

Inside Audio Marketing
It may be intuitive to think that an advertisement that sounds good is more likely to connect with listeners. Now there is some tangible evidence that is true. Veritonic has released a study that it conducted using four variations of a podcast ad for a vitamin subscription service with various creative elements and volumes. Among the findings is voiceover volume matters, and three-quarters of study participants reported that a commercial’s good quality audio positively influences their product purchase consideration.


To conduct the research, Veritonic teamed up with Realeyes, a research company that uses technology to capture and overlay study participant’s self-reported reactions to ads with the passive attention and reaction metrics captured via a webcam. They then delivered four separate creative executions of the vitamin ad, ranging in length from 32-seconds to one minute and 35 seconds. The shorter ads contained a succinct message. But while one was at a normal volume, the other used a much louder music bed. The longer ads contained more detailed messages, one had more than three sound effects and a music bed with normal volume, and the other had a music track that was lower in volume.


The research found that the proportion of the ad where people had sustained attention, and did not look away or get distracted, was the weakest for audio ads with voice overs that were low in volume, at 10% below the benchmark. It also found that the proportion of the ad where people had sustained attention was similarly weak for audio ads that contained many competing sonic elements – including lengthier messaging, more sound effects, and music –coming in seven percent below the benchmark.


The research also shows 22.7% of participants showed a confused expression during audio ads too low in volume. This was more than double the percentage for the ad with normalized volume. Veritonic says that suggests participants struggled to follow the ad with the low-volume voiceover.


What worked? Veritonic says the ads’ attention quality was highest for the audio ad that had the highest voiceover volume (36%) as opposed to the ad that had the lowest voiceover volume (27%) and the ad that had too many competing elements within the creative (25%).


The study also found that 32-seconds was the shortest ad which scored highest in engagement, followed by the ad with the loud voiceover, the ad with competing sound elements, then the ad with the voiceover that was too low.


Veritonic says its latest Audio Attention Report provides data-backed insight into the importance of creative efficacy programs for audio and podcast advertising. As noted in the report, audio is one of the most immersive and effective media channels available to brands and advertisers today, yet it’s still not getting the focus and investment it deserves. Consequently, those advertisers who seize the opportunity to invest in impactful audio advertising stand to gain remarkably outsized returns.


“Our work with the Audio Attention Report will provide advertisers with granular and unparalleled performance data that allows them to optimize their audio and podcast ads, and increase their ROI,” said Alex Browne, Head of Partner Strategy at Realeyes.


The research builds on Veritonic’s brand lift research for advertisers, delivering such metrics as awareness, favorability, use, intent, and recall data for audio campaigns of all sizes. CEO Scott Simonelli says teaming up with Realeyes to measure and categorize human response to sound complements the work they have done during the past decade in audio measurement and optimization.


“This unique combination allows us to provide advertisers and brands with unprecedented insights into audience reactions to audio and podcast ads—cognitive, emotional, and physical,” Simonelli said. “We take pride in offering a level of insight for audio advertising optimization that has never been available before, contributing to the success of podcast and audio advertising globally.”