Cases studies of voice monetisation

In this week’s egtabite we highlight selected case studies included in egta’s new publication Voice: Key insights for media companies into an emerging technology. This recent Insight digs deep into the current challenges and opportunities for voice, the leading players and devices in the voice ecosystem, the various ways to create and monetise voice experiences - while offering a glimpse into the future of this technology. The publication also includes an extensive overview of recent use cases from the radio and TV industry, together with various ways of monetising voice.

Voice advertising – the unique position of radio and streaming

The main hurdle in monetising voice advertising is that Amazon and Google do not directly sell advertising on their assistants and don’t allow ads through most third-party voice apps. There are however some exceptions, advertising spots are still delivered during Alexa flash briefings and via music streaming services including radio actions and skills. This puts radio and music streaming in a unique position, they can serve targeted audio ads that include a phrase prompting the user to interact with their voice assistant. These could be campaigns where the user is prompted to ask for a sample, get more information about the brand or directly purchase a product.

Voice-enabled product sampling by RMS

One of the egtabites previously covered voice activated sampling campaign of the German sales house RMS for PickUp! chocolate bar where the online audio spot encouraged listeners to ask their voice assistant for the product sample. Listeners who were interested, registered via voice and received their trial package. In a similar fashion, RMS together with Mindshare designed a campaign for Unilever and their new AXE shower gel fragrance. The campaign included 5000 samples and was accompanied by social media campaign that targeted young men 16 to 29 using smart speakers. The campaign delivered around 3.5 million ad impressions (pre-stream and instream) and testers were also asked about their experience.

The results showed great levels of activation and a positive effect on brand image and positioning. The survey revealed positive feedback from the listeners – 62% found the audio spot for the campaign good to very good, 62% said it is very likely they will purchase the product, 97% said the ordering via a voice command was very good and 99% said they would take part in a similar sample campaign again.

Bauer Media Audio – interactive radio ads for Audi

Bauer Media Audio UK cooperated with AdTonos, a programmatic audio advertising platform to deliver interactive voice adverts on Absolute Radio, Kiss Radio and Magic Radio via smart speakers as of December 2020. The campaign was run by AdTonos utilising its YoursTruly technology, in partnership with Octave and Omnicom Media Group’s PHD, delivered theads on behalf of Audi across commercial radio stations in the UK for the first time. An ad featuring an interaction trigger is inserted into an ad break, once broadcast, listeners can react to the ad with a simple voice command to engage the voice assistant and complete a desired action before being returned to the live radio station. Listeners could easily book test drives for the Audi’s latest model through voice-activation on their smart speakers. The campaign also harnessed intelligent geolocation technology to help listeners select their nearest dealership. AdTonos believes that by allowing advertisers to dynamically insert interactive ads in live radio content, the tool paves the way for instant, two-way communication that will not only increase conversions, but also forge stronger links between advertisers and valuable radio audiences.

Voice-activated branded content

Apart from spots advertising products voice platforms can also offer radio listeners a new level of interaction with audio content by offering to listen to branded content. While listening to their favourite radio station on a smart-speaker, listeners will hear an audio teaser for special content. The listener then has a choice: either to ignore the audio spot and continue listening to the radio programme, or to activate the branded content (like special interviews) with a simple voice command. We covered an example of RMS campaign for ODDSET here.

NPR in the US developed this idea into a voice specific ad format in their offer to clients called Voice Landing Pages. Users hear a 15s post-roll on smart-speaker placements that prompts them to hear the full branded content (called Brand Soundscape – also potentially developed by NPR for the brand) in a seamless, interactive experience. Another example of their special adformats is visual newscast post-roll that servea 15s post-roll on smart devices with screens such as Echo Show.