Advertisers seeking help when it comes to audio’s role in a campaign’s media plan — especially one for a new brand — should take the advice of consultant and former Senior Media Analyst for Procter & Gamble John Fix in Westwood One’s weekly blog: “Audio, specifically AM/FM radio, creates reach and brand awareness. This is important for new products, as building awareness is key.”
Fix, who over a five-year period took P&G from non-existent to first in radio advertising, explains how audio ads work not only for creating brand awareness but telling a product’s benefits, explaining its packaging, and directing listeners where to find it.
“Incorporating audio in a media plan, especially a new product with a budget that does not include traditional mass reach media like linear TV, can be game changing,” Fix says. “A long-held perception is that sight is needed to create product identity, [and] brands are afraid that audio may not create awareness for new products because there is belief that it is hard to talk about a product that consumers have not seen. [But] audio best practices stress the importance of branding and conveying the benefit of the product.”
The key to branding in audio ads is, Fix says, saying the brand early and often. “The brand name would ideally be spelled as it sounds, so that saying the brand easily translates to recognition of the brand as it would appear on the label. If the brand name uses non-traditional language or an acronym, spelling the brand would not be a bad idea. Lyft, Tumblr, [and] Krispy Kreme are brand names that may require an audio prompt like ‘Krispy Kreme, spelled with a K.’”
Fix recommends that brands lead with a recognizable benefit for consumers, and to “utilize consumer research to find the clearest, simple description of the benefit and use it in the audio. If a brand can articulate a benefit, then audio will work. If there isn’t a strong recognizable benefit to the consumer, then a brand will have to think very hard about the product and the right of the product to succeed.”
Audio ads also should include packaging information to make it easier for the consumer to find the product. “Products ideally have a form similar to the category, [but] if the new product is in a form unlike the category, or if the product uses assets unlike those familiar to the brand, then the audio should describe what the consumer should look for, [such as] ‘found in the bright yellow bottle,’” Fix says. “This allows audio to tell the consumer what to look for on the shelf [and] help a consumer to identify the brand and find the product at the point of sale.”
Another must in audio advertising is being descriptive as to where to find the product in stores. “A brand, especially a new innovation, should say which product category it is associated with, if necessary,” Fix says. “Market structure determines that retailers place substitutable products near each other, [and that] new products should be in outlets where the category is sold. This is also where the description of the package can help: ‘Available at grocery stores in the orange bottle.’”
How to combat the long-held belief that only visual media are up to the job of introducing new brands? “A good media brief for an image or video ad would describe exactly what would be desired in a visual medium, and that language should be compelling in audio,” Fix says. “This framework ties the brand name, the appearance, and the strengths of the product to the applicability of audio and shows that it is possible for audio to lead a consumer to the shelf to find the product that will deliver the job to be done.”
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