Listen Up!
Listen Up! is a unique and groundbreaking publication looking into the role of emotion in audio advertising effectiveness from Radiocentre and creative effectiveness platform System1.
It is the first research of its kind to define left- and right-brain creative features for audio, and offers actionable learnings into creating ads that will emotionally resonate with audiences and achieve better long- and short-term results for brands.
The research features consumer reactions to audio ads measured by System1’s new Test Your Ad Audio tool and radio advertising effectiveness data collected by Radiocentre over the past 10 years. In total, the analysis is based on 131 radio ads featuring effectiveness and emotional data collected from over 50,000 radio listeners and non-listeners.
Key findings include:
- Audio ads that make listeners feel more positive drive consumer behaviour change and deliver longer-lasting brand effects. Audio campaigns that created more positive emotion and less negative emotion caused significantly more consumer action change, including brand purchase and use. When comparing above-average Star Rating campaigns (lots of positive feeling, less negative ones) to below-average Star Rating campaigns (low levels of positive feeling, possibly high levels of negative ones), there was a +8.2% uplift in listeners taking any action.
- Radio is as likely to cause long-lasting effects through an emotional response as TV advertising.
The average long-term effectiveness metric in System1’s database is the same for radio and TV ads – 2.4-Stars out of 5.
- Well-branded (fluent) radio advertising creates bigger trust effects. Radio is a trusted medium; it excels as a media platform at building brand trust. However, well-branded ads see a significant increase in this trust-building effect.
- Audio ads with more right-brain features are more likely to cause longer-lasting brand effects. Audio advertising that uses features like character, story unfolding, sense of place and dramatic intimacy creates more positive emotion, less negative emotion, and attracts the attention of broader audiences (something that’s key for lasting brand effects) and forms stronger memories (boosting advertising awareness).
Read the summary report below.