Emerging AI audio technologies put new capabilities at brand marketers’ disposal
As new AI-powered capabilities arrive to transform longstanding marketing practices, brand marketers and ad agencies building and scaling audio campaigns may feel some uncertainty. Are campaign creatives and copywriters destined to go extinct — to be replaced with algorithms that generate jingles and voice-overs?
Not so fast, according to recent campaigns that show AI-generated audio campaigns actually increase the need for human creativity.
AI audio is an innovative medium that offers marketers a particularly vast playground to create fresh experiences and connect brands with customers more effectively than ever. To maximize this opportunity, brands need to embrace bold and numerous new ideas.
Here is why.
AI-powered audio ads offer unprecedented personalization at an unmatched cadence
Emerging AI audio technologies put new capabilities at brand marketers’ disposal.
First, marketers can tap into a new level of hyper-personalization. Brands now have the ability to speak to individual customers in their specific context, at a level that simply could never be achieved using pre-AI campaign creation processes.
Backed by AI, marketers can create a single voiced ad — or even just a single script if relying on AI voice-generation technology — and generate a full campaign complete with thousands of ad creative variations that are much more attuned to each listener’s specific situation in that moment.
For example, AI makes it possible for ad creative to mention listeners’ location, the app or platform they are using and the activity they are engaged in, the current time of day, and more.
AI also enables idealized calls-to-action, with the ability to direct customers to the closest storefront to them at that moment. Ads can include custom promo codes to granularly measure performance as well.
Second, AI’s generative capabilities profoundly accelerate the tempo with which fresh ads come to market. Campaign strategies and creative efforts must follow suit.
The pre-AI days when preparing an audio ad campaign took weeks of production time in a costly studio are over.
Now, an AI engine can build out fully-voiced ads aligned with myriad personalized permutations in minutes, and complete campaigns in hours.
That speed has the industry quickly arriving at a point where marketers’ imaginations are the last remaining limit on audio brand advertising’s potential.
At the same time, the pressure on marketers to exhibit creativity will increase. As rapid ad creation becomes the norm, listeners’ tolerance for repetitive ads — or even just an ad they have heard before — will all but disappear.
In this new environment, the marketers most effective in capitalizing on AI-powered contextualization and delivering a continually refreshed stream of meaningful creative content will be the best at winning customer engagement, and ultimately brand loyalty.
Stas Tushinskiy
The future is here, and the value of audio campaign creative is clear
A recent study by Veritonic examined an AI-powered audio campaign conducted by dentsu to promote the Intel® Evo™ Edition laptop brand.
Research includes an audience that heard personalized AI-generated ads, another group that heard generic non-personalized AI-generated ads, and a control group that heard neither.
Two days later, these groups were surveyed on metrics including brand awareness, brand favorability, purchase intent and memorability.
As expected, both personalized and generic AI ads outperformed the control group, while the personalized ads substantially outperformed the generic ads.
Specifically, personalized AI ads increased brand favorability by 22 percent over the control group, while generic ads achieved a 9 percent lift.
About two-thirds of the audience that received personalized ads also said that the act of a brand personalizing its messaging directly increased the likelihood that they would view that brand favorably.
Personalized ads similarly increased purchase intent by 18 percent versus just 3 percent for generic ads, and increased brand awareness by 12 percent.
Perhaps even more interestingly as this future unfolds for brands, about three in four of the personalized ad audience reported that they would be more likely to pay attention to ads personalized for them individually.
These findings demonstrate that even generic AI audio ads are effective and ready for primetime, while painting a stark contrast.
The upshot for marketers: make generic ads, get generic results. Make personalized ads blazing with creative energy, and you will achieve a brand impact that is multiples more effective.
Marketers: maximize the AI opportunity
New AI audio ad capabilities and strategies are eliminating all excuses for tired, bland ads.
Rather than fearing change, marketers should be excited to embrace what is in front of them for all that it can do.
Audio advertising is about to become a much more engaging and creatively vital medium, where the brand marketers with the most imagination and inventiveness will thrive.
Stas Tushinskiy is CEO of Instreamatic, Boca Raton, Florida. Reach him at stas@instreamatic.com.