The last decade has seen a huge focus on digital and visual innovation in the advertising industry; but marketers and practitioners have always known the value of non-intrusive, highly accessible and limit-free advertising, which is why we are seeing a recent re-incarnation of audio for this generation.

Divergence and evolution

The audio marketplace has seen a divergence and then evolution from the standard radio format towards the podcast and music platforms, although radio still remains crucial. The beauty of these mediums for the advertiser is the ad: no blocking and no ‘peak-time’ engagement driving up prices.

Demand for on-demand audio driven by commutes and smart speakers

On-demand audio streams surpassed 400bn in 2017, compared to 252bn in 2016. Commuting times are rising as people seek more peaceful lives outside of cities, and rail commutes are on average 2 hours and 11 minutes: it’s no wonder that the demand for podcasts and other on-demand audio has risen so dramatically. Furthermore, smart speaker streaming helped to drive an 8% increase in the number of hours spent listening to digital broadcasts in 2018 versus 2017. The resurgence of audio should not go unnoticed.

Is the marketplace ready for digital audio?

Whilst the marketplace re-aligns with its audio roots, it is inevitable that there will be challenges for media planners, advertisers and auditors alike. The proliferation of streaming, smart devices and wifi has given consumers greater autonomy over their time and their method of consumption. Whilst this provides excellent opportunities for reach and brand awareness for advertisers, it begs the question: does the marketplace have the tools and devices ready to provide accountable and accurate tracking and analytics? Until these tools are standardised and harnessed across the market, it is likely the adoption of digital audio into media planning will remain consistent, but slow. Investment into this medium will be a lower priority until it can be demonstrated that digital audio outputs add strong, measurable value.

Alongside this tracking and analytics issue, the industry will need to work out how to harness the increased quantity of data in order to drive further engagement with consumers. While digital audio attracts investment with an environment that is free of ad-blocking, it does create a transparency issue for the consumer-agency-platform owner relationship.

An exciting future for audio

The future of digital audio is an exciting one. The integration of programmatic audio is set to   propel audio back onto the main stage of advertising channels. Programmatic advances will increase campaign ROI, augment automation and decrease audio costs. The combination of these factors, alongside the accessibility and increase in the number of platforms will see marketers, advertisers and auditors being forced to become more innovative and dynamic in a format once seen to be traditional and static.

All hail the return of audio: finally, our eyes will be given a rest from mobile screens!

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