The choice of song has long been critical to a commercial’s success — think Volkswagen and Nick Drake’s “Pink Moon” back in 1999, or, more recently, Fiona Apple singing “Pure Imagination” in a stirring Chipotle ad.
But with the increasing importance of the “second screen” — the use of smartphones and tablets while watching TV — a viewer’s connection to an ad can come through any kind of audio at all, whether it be a song or the sound of a beer being cracked open.
Many of these connections are made through Shazam, an audio-recognition app used by some 80 million people each month to identify what song is playing on the radio or in the supermarket. Since Shazam was tied into a third of last year’s Super Bowl commercialsit has come to play a prominent role in advertising. Maybe you’ve seen its “S” icon flash on a TV ad with a suggestion to use the app for some extra content, anything from a song to a coupon.
On Monday, Shazam will announce a partnership with the giant media-services agency Mindshare that could result in far more of those kinds of audio integrations through a new program called Audio+. It could also chart some new territory for the growing area of audio branding.
Norm Johnston, Mindshare’s chief digital officer, described audio as the next form of media to be claimed by brands.
“We spend a lot of time with Google optimizing keywords for search, and a lot of time with Instagram and Pinterest talking about what brands should be doing with imagery, but not a lot of time on sound,” Mr. Johnston said in an interview last week. “That can be everything from the music you have playing in a TV spot to the sound of the actual product. It’s the sonic territory that the brand would like to own.”
Mindshare, part of the GroupM division of WPP, handles an estimated $31 billion worth of media planning and buying each year for clients like Unilever, Nike, HSBC and Jaguar Land Rover.
Miles Lewis, a vice president for advertising sales at Shazam, cited a campaign for the Jaguar F-Type as an example of how the app can also be used to extend an advertiser’s pitch beyond TV. When viewers “Shazammed” a 30-second commercial showing the exterior of the car whizzing by, they were then taken to a three-and-a-half-minute tour of the interior, by mobile device.
Even when successful, however, the second-screen effect has sometimes proved porous. When Microsoft used Alex Clare’s song “Too Close” in a commercial last year, the track became a hit when curious viewers used Shazam to identify it. But when they did, they saw nothing about Microsoft.
The Mindshare deal is meant to avoid that by pairing audio and marketer so that neither is forgotten. An ad can be tied to the song when it is tagged, for example, and brands could also “buy” a song in the way they bid for search terms on Google, so that when someone uses Shazam to identify a song even outside the context of an ad, the advertiser is still able to attach itself to that track.
“Audio is an area that has been missed,” Mr. Lewis said. “If a number of brands use music in their TV adverts, and they forget to close the door and link the music to their marketing dollars, there’s a missed opportunity.”
Part of the promise of deals like the one between Shazam and Mindshare is how they could expand the idea of audio as a conduit for marketing. Aside from broadcast programming and songs in commercials, these could include a short jingle or even sound effects like a pet food brand using a barking dog or a brewer linking itself to a freshly opened beer.
“Obviously music syncs have become uber-important over the last decade,” said Josh Rabinowitz, the director of music at another WPP agency, Grey New York. “But now the overall sound of a brand — music, mnemonics, sound design and sonic signatures — should become just as vital to the brand’s messaging via the second screen.”
In another example of audio branding, Harman International Industries, through Aha, itsstreaming audio app, is teaming with Placecast, a company that offers a technology called geofencing, that allows retailers to send messages to users in a defined geographic area. Harman and Placecast are testing together an in-car advertising program that offers drivers and passengers promotional offers in real time through the car radio and touch screen, based on the location of the car.
The initial advertiser taking part in the four-week test, which began on Thursday, is the Quiznos sandwich chain. “Radio is great to drive top-of-mind awareness,” said Susan Lintonsmith, chief marketing officer at Quiznos. The hope, she said, is that adding the location-based elements “takes this to the next level” and produces “radio on steroids.”
Here is an example of how the test will work: As drivers listening to Aha approach a Quiznos store that has been geofenced as part of the test, they hear a commercial for Quiznos promoting offers like coupons; the offers are also dynamically displayed on the car’s touch screen. Touching a thumbs-up icon on the screen will send a coupon by email that can be redeemed at the store.
“Audio is a great way to embed a brand message,” said Alistair Goodman, chief executive of Placecast. “And when you tailor an offer to a place nearby, it’s seen as a value service, not as advertising.
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Via: NYTimes
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