This is Ad Infinitum.
Ad Infinitum is the award-winning podcast solely focused on audio ads,
the creatives who make them,
and or the latest thinking that informs them,
how the space is evolving,
and my favorite part,
a roundup of recent audio ads with analysis by yours truly,
Stu Redwine,
and each episode's guest.
Today is a bonus,
the audio from my very first What Makes Audio Ads Work talk,
recorded live at Podcast Movement in Washington,
D.C.
in August.
2024 it's fast and practical and if you put the advice into practice i promise your audio ads will work better guaranteed hey my name is stew redwood i'm the vp of creative services at oxford road i
am prepared to bring my maximum effort right now as your presenter are you prepared to bring your maximum effort as an audience all right let's go this is going to take every bit 20 minutes.
What makes audio ads work?
So our goal is to make better audio ads.
That's what the podcast Ad Infinitum is all about.
That's our creative focus podcast at Oxford Road.
You can scan that QR code to like,
share,
subscribe and leave an honest five star review.
You'll also notice that I put my CTA in my pre-roll.
So that's the first free lesson for today.
Alright,
so first things first,
I'm from Kansas City.
The reason that's significant is because a story happened there that I want to tell you guys about.
So,
I came up,
I always liked making stuff.
It's weird,
Kansas City has a decent sized production community because Bernstein Rain is there as my primary theory,
which had Walmart and McDonald's through the
1980s, so a ton of money and investment.
It was crazy.
So when I was coming up...
I sort of by happenstance ended up working on all these direct response television commercials,
which is cool because of what I do now,
but I couldn't,
I didn't know it then,
but now looking back it's pretty cool.
It's like wow that was preparing me and I didn't even know it.
I was on a Big O Tires commercial shoot and I remember I was moving around all these heavy objects like the cables,
the sandbags,
all this stuff.
I noticed that the guys that were my age now sadly and older that were gripping electric.
were also moving the same heavy objects as I was,
but there was this dude over here on a leather couch,
literally a leather couch in the studio,
click clacking on a keyboard.
And he was like a creative director or somebody with the brand.
I'm like,
man,
how do I end up doing what that guy's doing and not breaking myself carrying heavy stuff?
So that definitely altered my life choices.
Two,
something that guy said at the day is like my second first thing.
First,
my second piece of advice.
So first is
Make pre-rolls count,
put a call to action in your ads,
alright?
Second one would be,
this guy comes up at the end of the day,
we're shooting all day,
and the director's doing all kinds of stuff,
and then they turn to this guy who hadn't said anything,
they're like,
well,
John,
is there anything else we need to get?
And he's like,
yeah,
how about we do one just like what's in the script?
Because it was like a spokesperson thing for Big O Tires.
That's my second piece of advice.
And there's brands,
there's podcasters,
there's networks,
do one like...
What's in the script?
Just like do the script.
There's an awesome documentary called The Creative Brief.
It featured one of the many people featured is Joe Pitka,
who's a famous commercial television director.
And he talks about something that's really cool.
You wouldn't expect coming from him because he's known for having a really bad attitude or at least being irascible.
But he's like,
I believe there's a good idea at the heart of every script.
And I love that.
I love assigning people terrible motives and like we're all trying to do the best we can.
So do what likes it,
what's in it.
If all else fails,
just do what's in it.
Like,
don't argue with it.
Accept it,
and then do the best you can do with that.
Alright,
under four minutes on that section.
Beat my rehearsal time.
So VP Creative Service at Oxford Road.
I've been here,
yeah,
Oxford Road represented.
Been here since before the beginning.
This is our 12th year,
just did 11 years.
I was tallying it up,
1,000 plus campaigns,
55,000 ads.
20 plus unicorns early days we were early in podcasting and then a commercial podcasting so a lot of DTC brands that we hope grow to become unicorns and now we're it's exciting 14 plus international
multi-market so everything I'm telling you about how to make audio ads work come from my experience working on all of that this entire time so I oversee all the creative efforts and
I often think of something
Actually,
a producer mentor of mine from Kansas.
City used to say this guy Mark Searsdorf.
He's like,
you know,
Stu,
one day we're going to back into being good at this.
It's like one mistake at a time.
So all the fifty five thousand eleven.
That's a lot of mistakes and a lot of stuff that's gone right.
So you are going to hear what I know makes audio ads work.
We got 16 minutes of buckle up,
buckaroos.
One thing that is all important is the listener.
I've been saying recently that the hope that hosts are people,
too.
it's also important to remember that
The listener are people too,
like just critically,
critically important.
So what do we know about the listener,
which is also us?
I love this quote,
it's from Aristotle from way back in the day,
300 BC,
for a speaker subject and person addressed,
the healer determines the speeches and an object.
So we can intend all kinds of things,
we really need to make sure we understand the audience.
I believe the hosts understand this the best.
The best hosts understand their audience the best.
It's important to partner with them as brands and agencies.
So what do we know about the audience?
First of all,
there is no them.
There's only us.
This is good in this application and then throughout the rest of your life as well.
Just always keep this in mind when somebody cuts you off.
There is no them.
There's only us guys,
alright?
A couple of things about all of us,
the 95-5 rule,
generally accepted in marketing right now.
So there's everybody that,
like,
let's say,
in the world,
there's everybody that listens to your podcast.
Then there's the people that might buy your product.
5%
of them,
and I'm talking B2B and B2C,
generally holds 5%
are in the market at any given time.
Okay,
because we can talk about audience size,
we can talk about opportunities.
It's like,
the slice starts getting really thin.
And then,
Aaron Bird Bass Institute's study...
Looking at a ton of campaigns,
16%
of advertising is correctly remembered and attributed.
So that's very important as well.
So tiny slice and nobody remembers the ads anyway.
So audio,
particularly podcast,
comes with some unique advantages against those odds.
Those are tough odds that we have to beat.
20%
of our time is spent listening to audio in general.
Podcast ads work harder.
I put down Podscribe,
Sounds Profitable,
Edison.
Through a rock,
you will hit more research that is proving this time and time again.
Podcast ads hit harder because it's lean in,
it's on demand.
I'm choosing it.
I have a relationship.
Post-read ads work even harder.
Again,
proven over and over.
An important thing to keep in mind is that sonic branding is a superpower.
There's an IPSA study that found that sonic brand cues are seven times better than all other brand cues.
Visual brand cues,
anything else that you could do.
at improving brand recall so when we go back to that five percent or even in the market sixteen percent of those are even going to remember your ad is there a shortcut yes sonic branding is definitely a shortcut all right and even if a brand doesn't have a sonic brand you as a host let's say i'm primarily
talking to hosts uh you as a host could invent your own for that brand for your show it's it's training it's like a dog whistle right all of us are the first sonic brand we ever knew was our name
Right,
we are trained to listen and respond to sounds.
Let's see.
Okay,
so where are we reaching these people?
We're reaching them in the funnel.
I think this is funny.
Eighty years ago,
Bond Salesmanship by William Townsend,
this is basically where the idea of the funnel came from.
Sounds vary of its time.
The salesman should visualize his whole problem of developing the sales steps as the forcing by compression of a broad and general concept of facts.
through a funnel which produces the specific and favorable consideration of one fact.
Very industrial,
very turn of the 20th century,
very pre-World War II.
You can feel that we really thought we had everything worked out.
We have mastery of the physical universe.
If we break everything into pieces,
name it and label it and optimize it.
That's how we got the funnel because people are robots.
This was supposed to be a build,
it's not.
So the classic funnel is on the right for you classicists.
Awareness,
consideration,
conversion.
There might be some other steps in between.
The adaptive funnel,
this is from Tom Roach's work,
which is how I like to look at it because it's relationship based,
is build,
nudge,
and connect.
If you think about it,
it's the same way like you build a relationship with a person.
Audio is what's represented there in the middle.
It has superpowers when it comes to reaching people in the funnel.
It's a magnet.
We pay attention to it.
It's our first sense.
It's our fastest sense.
Even faster than the sense of touch is the sense of sound.
It's processed in the same part of the brain as memory and emotion.
We assign meaning through sound.
It's processed in our temporal lobe.
Language is on the left side of the brain.
Sound and music is on the right side of the brain.
Brain goes into Wernicke's area which is where you understand language.
Broca's area is where you put together language.
We can use that to our advantage for instance if we're talking about jewelry.
If I say that's a 24 the word that probably comes to mind is carrot.
We predict what somebody's going to say we can surprise people and also like I said mood and memory.
So the question is can people recognize your brain with their eyes closed?
So if you would,
I've got a prop here.
This is gonna be dicey.
Just don't look at what I'm taking out of this box.
Okay,
so this is the first registered sound mark with the U.S.
Trademark Office.
We'll see if this works,
guys.
Do you guys hear that?
I want to do it again because it's delicious.
It's
MVC. The notes are GEC.
Which is weird,
is an acronym for General Electric Company,
even though General Electric Company didn't own them.
First used in
1929 on the Ray-Gu,
then used everywhere.
This is a set of restored Carroll chimes from 1954.
These things are like unobtainium.
So that is powerful,
powerful stuff and something that every brain can do and you can do.
Like I was talking about the brain,
there's all this brain science.
One thing we need to remember is that it is cocaine ear,
alright?
The nucleus accumbens also comes into play.
We all know it because that's how it releases dopamine.
Music is a fast track to releasing dopamine.
Especially for those of us with synesthesia,
which everybody has that to some degree,
the crossing of the senses.
When you get big massive goosebumps when you listen to certain music,
you're like,
Yeah!
Oh man!
That's synesthesia.
And a bunch of dump of beans dumped into your system.
So we create these memories.
We can train people to feel good and have a positive experience.
And all of that's done through sound.
All right.
Nine minutes.
Seven things.
These are seven things.
First of all,
the segue.
Okay,
everything I'm going to show in these seven things.
I'll go back if you want to take a picture.
Everything I want to show you in these seven things are things that hundreds of millions of dollars of...
Performance dollars have gone behind and at Oxford Road,
we love research,
we do research.
A point of view that I have,
I'll say it that way,
is like there ain't no research like a cash register ringing.
Okay,
so that's what you're going to see here.
This is based on what people do because people will say all kinds of things,
but what do they actually do?
First is a segue.
This one's quick,
right off the cuff.
What we found is that...
we wanted to see how to what degree you need to customize a script so we had a general script genre customization and then customized by host and it's amazing to me even to this day and having been in podcasts this for 11 years 12 years people come in or even have been in it they're like oh i know how scott galloway talks and we talks i'm gonna i know what carol swiss is like let me write that like them and
i in my mind i always think it's like willie armstone's playing his trumpet
And like he's,
oh my god,
let's go.
And then they're trying to put their lips next to his lips.
Be like,
Louis,
I know how you do it.
I can just connect.
It's like,
no,
don't do that.
But if you customize by genre,
that is where the gold is.
This is performance based.
Absolutely.
So
50% plus increase in traffic and 70%
increase in conversions.
Massive spin.
Okay.
Specific stories,
again Aristotle figured this stuff out 2300 years ago,
so read rhetoric,
also highly recommended.
A person is not fully persuaded until they consider a thing demonstrated.
Theater of the mind,
we can all visualize things,
right?
If we close our eyes and I say downhill skiing,
you know,
close our eyes and say
Lincoln Memorial,
like you get it,
so you can get people,
you do have visuals.
People say audio is not visual.
It's insane because they're seeing it in their head.
Alright,
so use specific,
real,
honest,
genuine stories and paint a picture in the viewer's minds.
All the greats do this.
Singing and Sonic branding.
My big point here is watch David Attenborough's
The Secret World of Sound.
It is awesome.
It's on Netflix.
Yes,
Dave.
A takeaway with singing and Sonic branding related to the animal kingdom.
Is animals use sounds to establish territory and attract a mate,
right?
Sounds a lot like Sonic Reign to me.
But if it's not clear,
you don't know what it is.
It's like that sound,
we can all imagine that sound.
And if we heard that sound anywhere near us,
we all,
we know his brand.
We're like,
I'm about to see an MGM movie.
No,
it's,
you're going to run,
right?
So,
a little bit more on Sonic Branding.
The way I define Sonic Branding is it's the way that a brand chooses to intentionally and strategically show up in audio distinctly and consistently.
And all those words are important.
But you can do that too,
like if you're a host.
Let's say you're working with a brand.
We have brands that have functional sounds,
sounds that their apps make,
that at the outset with one of them in particular,
massive brand,
wasn't leveraging the sound of their app as much as they could,
but man,
was it a dopamine release.
There was something we did social listening,
which I can't believe I just said that.
Whatever.
We Googled them.
And saw that there's a bunch of people talking about this sound.
We're like,
we have to make that part of the audio.
And we mandated it with the hosts.
We partnered with the hosts.
We worked with the hosts.
And not everybody does it.
But we've seen great results.
We've seen a great correlation to performance in incorporating Sonic branding.
Okay,
serious sells,
so does silly.
This really goes back to that,
I guess it was,
my earlier point,
the Big O Tires commercial.
When all else fails,
do a straight read of the copy points.
Have faith in the people that delivered it to you.
I'm serious.
Don't fight it.
Because what's wild,
I'm sure for you guys,
I know for me,
the longer I live,
the real trick is having to hold two opposing ideas in my mind at the same time that are both true.
So all this stuff that I'm telling you about emotion and memory,
true,
all true.
I can also tell you from campaigns that we've had to fix,
where people launch first into audio,
There is like a superhighway and that's no music,
no sound effects,
excellently written copy intended to persuade based on a formula of persuasion.
There's the IDA model,
we have our own that we use,
but I know I'm writing this,
I am making every word count to persuade.
Like that kind of attitude,
I've got to take this to somebody's front door,
ring the doorbell and get them to buy these knives right now.
Like writing the copy like that,
no music,
no sound effects,
straight read.
Also works,
okay?
Two simultaneous truths,
but you do really need to understand what's the job you're hiring the message to do,
what's the size of the advertiser,
what kind of product it is,
what is the audience.
I guess I'm saying,
let's say there is no one size fits all,
at all,
no way.
Three minutes,
we're going to slow down.
Not disappointed.
Savor your reads.
Podscribe research,
two minutes.
That's the jam.
Or longer.
The more you tell you,
the more you sell.
Qualify that.
I think that's with a good audience and in podcasts where people are leaned in.
This isn't for all time,
but it's definitely something that we continue to see work.
dynamically inserted ads and like i'm listening to podcasts and the breaks are sounding more and more like the worst of radio it's like it's funny to me it's like podcast is a teenager maybe more like late teens 20s actually becoming an adult like i'm not like my dad that
jerk i'm nothing like radio i don't have ad breaks with 27 half of my things yeah i'd never do that now it's like oh my god i'm my dad it's
100 it's disgusting
And people are just porting over creative from radio.
You can hear it.
They're just bringing it right over.
Two minutes.
Alright,
so don't do that.
Do a house readout,
guys.
Come on.
Same kind of thing.
State substitutions.
Judge Carlin,
seven dirty words.
Seven words you can't say.
There's seven words you need to say.
I use this and you should too.
There are no more powerful words in the lexicon of advertising.
I don't use more powerful words in the human language.
I do this,
you should too.
All right,
let me share my story and then I do this very thing.
You will be fully persuaded once you consider that it is demonstrated that seeing the fruit in my life,
go and do likewise.
All right?
Superpower of podcast,
superpower of this medium.
Good,
I got there.
Set standards.
Okay.
Advocate for yourself.
This is for the hosts.
Simultaneous truths.
Again,
I'm talking about that again.
They send you six pages.
Two pages highlighted in yellow that says Must Read.
That's crazy.
One,
send it back and ask them to do it.
Two,
advocate for how you accept copy.
What's best for you?
Some of the biggest names do this very thing,
and they did it because we've been on the ride with them.
They've done it since they were small time.
They had boundaries.
It's like,
no,
150 words,
three bullet points,
CTA.
I'm going to do a custom intro.
Well,
we need to do that.
OK,
well,
I guess you might have to walk away from some stuff,
but it's important to have standards even for yourself.
And I was going to do a Q&A,
but I think we got 30 seconds left.
So with that said,
I laid it all out for you guys.
Thank you so much.
You're a great audience.
Come talk to me if you want.
That was what makes audio ads work.
Recorded live at Podcast Movement DC 2024.
Hope you enjoyed it.
Subscribe to Ad Infinitum for more.
Leave an honest five-star review.
And remember,
have fun making the ads work.