Google has recently been pushing its video streaming platform Youtube towards becoming a more robust cash making machine. And a lot of that push has come in by focusing on the audio experience that the ‘video streaming’ platform provides. Google believes that a lot of users visit Youtube just to listen to a song and not watch the visuals. And it is this belief, that has made the company launch a new ad format for Youtube, ‘Audio Ads’.
Youtube said in a blog, “we’re introducing audio ads, our first ad format designed to connect your brand with audiences in engaged and ambient listening on YouTube. Audio ads, currently in beta, help you efficiently expand reach and grow brand awareness with audio-based creative and the same measurement, audience and brand safety features as your video campaigns.”
These new audio ads won’t be audio-only. In fact, there will be visuals but it will not be doing the majority of the communication. Youtube says the audio is supposed to carry the main message of the advertisement in a way that a user can understand what the ad is about with their eyes closed. The blog read, “Audio ads are characterized by creatives where the audio soundtrack plays the starring role in delivering your message. The visual component is typically a still image or simple animation”.
According to Youtube, more than 50 percent of logged-in viewers who mostly consume music content on the platform, consume 10 minutes of music content in a day. The company thinks it is a great opportunity for brands to reach these untapped users and be ” seen, heard and recognized alongside music content”.
To help brands efficiently reach out to music lovers on Youtube, the streaming service has introduced ‘dynamic music lineups’, which are dedicated groups of music focussed Youtube channels across different music genres such as rock, K-pop, Latin, etc. These dedicated groups are also spread across moods or interests like fitness, calm, encore, etc. Brands can choose what groups they want to target with their audio-ads which will further help them churn out better results for their business.
Audio ads on Youtube is currently in beta but is showing promising results, according to Youtube. During early testing of audio ads, the company found out that brands received a significant lift in brand awareness with the help of more than 75% of audio focussed ads. Part of this early test was Shutterfly which used “audio ads to influence purchase consideration among interested shoppers”. The American image sharing and photography company witnessed a 14% lift in ad recall and a 2% lift in favorability among their target audience, driven by the audio ads.
