Steve Keller (SXM Media) looks at opportunities for sonic interventions: What are things in the world, in our culture, where sound can provide a positive solution? Sonic intervention, for the purposes of this research, starts with the concept of the color line, first addressed by W.E.B. Dubois in his 1903 collection of essays, “Soul of Black Folks.” For Dubois, the color line was the dividing line between Black and White individuals. A century later, SUNY Binghamton professor Jennifer Lynn Stoever defined the sonic color line as the hierarchical division between the whiteness and blackness of sounds that have been created and perpetuated by a dominant culture on the listening ear. Indeed, in the 1920s radio show Amos ‘n’ Andy with 40 million listeners, two white personalities performed racialized sonic tropes. Black radio performers were forced to play these stereotypes. Fast-forward to today, the sonic color line still cuts through our technology, our smart speakers, and often in the studio Black voiceover actors are asked to sound more “urban”. Yet the error rate in recognizing prompts from Black speakers is significantly higher than the rate for White speakers.
Many viewers of programs on “traditional” networks like NBC are now watching those programs on digital platforms. To promote programs and increase tune-in, providers must reach viewers where they watch—that means: on all platforms. This presentation described the research conducted to explore the effectiveness of NBCU’s content marketing in launching and sustaining shows in today’s complex, fragmented viewing environment
Podcasts offer strong value for advertisers as the result of the growing amount of content, audience diversity and high engagement levels, including increased brand recall. Opportunities for monetization of podcast ads have increased and MAGNA expects U.S. podcast ad revenues to reach $2.4 billion in 2023.
Brands increasingly use social media influencers as part of their marketing strategy, yet methods for measuring their effectiveness and for choosing optimal partners are unreliable. New research analyzing the key performance indicators (followers and engagement) of 180 influencers, across five social media platforms, identifies patterns that marketers can use toward establishing partnerships with the right influencers.
Attention, Emotion and Memory (ESG) are seen as the key elements in building brands.
The “Attention Break-out Session” during the second day of the AUDIENCExSCIENCE conference showed that attention metrics are typically used within a larger framework. Case in point, a presentation by Realeyes and Mars showed how Mars sees attention to marketing messages as a trigger of emotions that leads to memory and (hopefully) brand building.
Source:
AUDIENCExSCIENCE Break-out Session, Attention Metrics: Validity, Reliability & Predictive Powers. Using Attention AI to Predict Real-World Outcomes – Max Kalehoff, VP Marketing Growth, Realeyes; -Johanna Welch, Global Mars Horizon Comms Lab Senior Manager, Mars.
Devora Rogers – Chief Strategy Officer, Alter Agents
In this session, Idil Cakim (Audacy) and Devora Rogers (Alter Agents) presented some findings from research they conducted together in uncovering the “rituals of humans” pertaining to their audio consumption. In this study, audio content could include audiobooks, podcasts, sounds (nature), music, etc. These rituals often included tasks being performed while listening (e.g., cooking, exercising, commuting, walking, etc.), but also the ritual experience could be the audio itself, opening up many opportunities for advertisers to reach audiences. Beginning her discussion, Idil acknowledged the massive changes that have taken place in audio over the past few years. Their methodology embraced a variety of approaches which included a quantitative nationally represented survey, ethnographies through mobile diaries and a qualitative approach using a 45-minute in-depth interview. Both Idil and Devora presented findings from their study which provided deep insights into the ritualized and often personal nature of audio content. This provides many unique opportunities to connect with consumers through targeting the ritual (e.g., school drop off, prepping for sports, cooking, etc.).
Key Takeaways
Seventy-four percent of listeners consume audio during their daily rituals, and 40% of listeners plan their day/activities around audio content.
The top six rituals when listeners engaged with audio were listed as the following: Having “me time,” putting my child to bed, exercising, snack time, walking and commuting (work/school).
Both quantitative and qualitative ethnographies indicated the top reasons people listened to audio content were because they participated in the following activities: running general errands (85%), doing home maintenance (84%), exercising outdoors (83%), preparing a meal (83%), driving (83%), commuting (82%), having a meal (81%) and cleaning (81%).
The study identified that in seemingly routine and dull moments, "audio infused rituals with energy and purpose” and assists listeners to recall and share a message.
Audio is part of more rituals than any other medium. Audio was listed as the highest in rituals throughout the day followed by online/streaming video, scrolling social media and broadcast/cable TV. Audio spanned the whole day revealing many moments for brands to connect.
Overall earnings from their study indicated the following results:
Rituals make our lives predictable, manageable and enjoyable, and audio often plays a role in these rituals.
In many cases audio is the ritual because listeners are so “deeply engaged with the listening experience.”
Certain cohorts are "more reliant on rituals and highly engaged in audio."
Embracing rituals "unlocks huge potential for advertisers to become part of them and connect more deeply with consumers."
Steve Keller – Sonic Strategy Director, Studio Resonate, SXM Media
Steve Keller (SXM Media) looks at opportunities for sonic interventions: What are things in the world, in our culture, where sound can provide a positive solution? Sonic intervention, for the purposes of this research, starts with the concept of the color line, first addressed by W.E.B. Dubois in his 1903 collection of essays, “Soul of Black Folks.” For Dubois, the color line was the dividing line between Black and White individuals. A century later, SUNY Binghamton professor Jennifer Lynn Stoever defined the sonic color line as the hierarchical division between the whiteness and blackness of sounds that have been created and perpetuated by a dominant culture on the listening ear. Indeed, in the 1920s radio show Amos ‘n’ Andy with 40 million listeners, two white personalities performed racialized sonic tropes. Black radio performers were forced to play these stereotypes. Fast-forward to today, the sonic color line still cuts through our technology, our smart speakers, and often in the studio Black voiceover actors are asked to sound more “urban”. Yet the error rate in recognizing prompts from Black speakers is significantly higher than the rate for White speakers.
All of the above is the background for Steve’s research in which he builds a business case for sonic diversity in radio, podcasts and other audio platforms. To the best of his knowledge, this is the first large-scale sonic diversity study of its kind: the impact of racialized listening on advertisement favorability and effectiveness. In two experiments (one a large field experiment, the other a quantitative experiment with panelists) researchers used three podcasts—Sway’s Interviews (interviews with black entertainers), Song Exploder (about deconstructing songs, a varied audience) and This American Life (predominantly white program and audience). The study used 20 voice actors divided evenly black/white/male/female, who were not coached, and who were paid as if they were working on a regular ad to provide a conversational read from the advertising scripts, for 60 sonic stimuli total. Partnering with Veritonic the researchers asked participants (4,000-plus sample size) questions about favorability and attributes in the ad, and intent to listen, and whether they thought the voiceover was “definitely,” “probably” or “not sure” either Caucasian or Black.
A second experiment analyzed advertisement effectiveness: Would there be a rise in podcast listening as a result of the ads?
Key Takeaways
Whereas White actors were consistently perceived as White, there was a lot of misattribution for Black voices. This is probably due to “sonic markers,” i.e., what we listen for. And the race of the listener influenced the perception of the race: Black listeners were much better able to correctly identify the race of the voice actor, although not always.
Context matters: Misattribution occurred when there were other potential contextual cues, for example, Black voices were more often correctly identified when advertising for Sway’s Interviews than for This American Life.
Black voice actors received higher aggregate scores, even from White panelists, even breaking down into categories of likeability, empowering, trustworthy or intent to listen to the podcast. Whereas Black respondents tend to rate ads higher when the voice actor is perceived to be Black, with White respondents there was little to no difference.
Neither race nor gender had an impact of ad effectiveness, although in the second experiment there was a rise in podcast listening because of the ads. So, if we’re hearing more Black voices, we’re creating the ads that have the potential to be judged more favorably by Black audiences without necessarily any negative impact on the effectiveness for any consumer group.
Brian West – SVP, Data and Measurement Strategy, NBCU TV & Streaming
Many viewers of programs on “traditional” networks like NBC are now watching those programs on digital platforms. To promote programs and increase tune-in, providers must reach viewers where they watch—that means: on all platforms. This presentation described the research conducted to explore the effectiveness of NBCU’s content marketing in launching and sustaining shows in today’s complex, fragmented viewing environment.
NBCU partnered with VideoAmp to obtain the cross-channel metrics needed to achieve optimal strategies regarding the linear-digital mix of content promotions as well as their frequency, length and creative executions. After years of development, the goal of measuring tune-in on linear, digital and walled garden platforms has now been reached.
Key Takeaways
As most viewers watch on several platforms, providers need a complete view of all platforms to optimize content promotion. Obtaining accurate measures of viewers’ use of all platforms, however, is not an easy task and requires measurement innovation.
NBCU partnered with VideoAmp to converge linear TV, digital and offline datasets through commingled identity graph to provide a view of the consumer across platforms. This approach allows NBCU to measure performance of all promotion tactics and determine which best drive conversions.
The analysis of these data is helping NBCU to improve the impact of promotions. The data show how important it is to promote content on both linear and digital platforms and determine, for example, the right mix of promos on linear and digital platforms.
Consumers may love online video platforms like YouTube, but when it comes to the inevitable disruption—the annoying mid-roll ads that start playing in the middle of a scene, sentence or word—they are not so amused. In fact, new research shows that the irritation caused by these ads leads to lower levels of product involvement and brand recognition than that garnered by non-disruptive ads.
