Travel Convention 2016: Age of the smartphone offers profit motive to exploit audio advertising

Audio can play a vital part in travel advertising strategies in the smartphone age. A workshop on diversifying media at this week’s Abta Travel Convention in Abu Dhabi was told audio now account for 20% of overall ad time. Digital radio stations, voice search and mobile devices were said to be behind the resurgence of … Continue reading Travel Convention 2016: Age of the smartphone offers profit motive to exploit audio advertising

Audio can play a vital part in travel advertising strategies in the smartphone age.

A workshop on diversifying media at this week’s Abta Travel Convention in Abu Dhabi was told audio now account for 20% of overall ad time.

Digital radio stations, voice search and mobile devices were said to be behind the resurgence of the media, despite rise of more visual platforms like Instagram.

Delegates were told due to the nature of personal devices audio advertising can be personalised to the user and media buying automated to exploit the rise in programmatic marketing technologies.

Oliver Deane, commercial digital director at radio firm Global, said audio is often consumed by people while they are doing something else and it an “always on” channel to influence clients.

“How can audio sell travel when we living with an Instagram generation relying on images and pictures to show off? There are pictures you are shown and pictures you create for yourself.

“We all interpret sound in such a personal way. In the absence of visual our mind needs to work harder to create those pictures.

“It’s very emotional and emotion drives profit for businesses,” added Deane.

He claimed firms see a three times up lift in return on investment when advertising appeals to the emotions and latest 3D audio can transport people to holiday destinations in seconds.

Due to the adoption of smartphones 65% of listening is now happening on headphones, said Deane.

Paul Stephen, chief executive at digital agency Sagittarius Marketing, said firms need a variety of media working together to drive personalisation.

“There is no silver bullet. You still need a variety of media working together. Personalisation is really trying to improve the performance of the combination.

“We are all trying to get better performance out of what we have already got. Most brands we start working with the amount of people actually buying a really small percent.

“One percent of traffic is 100% of your business. If you can improve that by 1% your business has doubled.

“And that’s why the effort put in to gain those small incremental gains can be massive for your business.”

Terence Roane, MENA managing director of workshop sponsor Crimtan, said: “By personalising the ad you see a huge increase in prospecting results.”