With Christmas just around the corner, brands are already competing for consumers’ attention in the increasingly competitive landscape and the biggest shopping holiday of the year. Christian Facey, CEO and Co-Founder of AudioMob, explains why audio ads offer brands an opportunity to not only cut through the noise, but provides a new and exciting channel for brand messages with higher reach and better targeting.
The Holiday Season is notorious for crowding the digital airwaves with colourful, loud and repetitive adverts, determined to make an impact with consumers. With over $1 trillion generated in Christmas sales in the US alone last year, the scope for brand-reach rockets compared to a normal day, and brands repeatedly take advantage of this trend. The rise of audio advertising is relatively new in the industry outside of radio, but is already creating a huge buzz. Amongst the clamour, audio ads in mobile games are carving out their own platform; disrupting the industry and growing rapidly, brands are seeing a higher calibre of ad placements in mobile games.
AudioMob is the pioneer of this new format: a Google for Startups backed premier of audio ads in mobile games. Their ad format is completely brand safe and immersive, with the potential for brands to be bold and creative in reaching a mass audience. Despite 2020 plummeting physical store sales, with the pandemic induced lockdown, shoppers are expected to spend more this Christmas, than last year. Christmas shopping will also experience a big shift from offline to online, which presents a golden opportunity for brands to cut through the noise and maximise their reach through digital audio ads.
Lockdown consumers demand better
2020 has been a year like no other, and with so much time spent at home, classic adverts have over saturated the media space. Lockdown has driven a monotony into the world, with work from home, eat from home and play from home now considered the new normal. Christmas shopping this year will look different: lines out the door and scrambling for the last sale will all be virtual. With so many physical stores closed to the public, the sales are being taken online, and ad campaigns are relying on becoming more creative to keep up with the rapidly decreasing attention span of consumers.
Entertainment is a staple of lockdown life, with TV, film, podcasts and mobile games all going some way to bridge the gap between social distancing and virtual connection. The issue for brands is the overexposure through classic formats: consumers are left craving something different whilst their eyes glaze over another visual repetitive ad. Christmas this year is the right time for brands to put their ear to the ground, and pick up on new trends to get ahead of competitors.
Essential gameplay
An untapped resource for advertisers, mobile games alone generated 48% of total revenue of games worldwide this year, with a huge $77 billion. Mobile games are well entrenched in lockdown entertainment, and not just for the stereotypical young teenagers. The gaming demographic has evolved over the years, and their target market is suddenly a lot wider. In fact today, 63% of mobile gamers are women with the average age of a female gamer, 36 years old.
Mobile games offer a huge opportunity for brand reach with a clearer focus on the target demographic. The platform can leverage an untapped audience and connect brands to consumers directly. In simple terms, mobile games can connect a brand with an audience of over 2.5 billion gamers worldwide: the biggest potential brand reach in the entire entertainment industry. To take advantage of Christmas, brands need to listen to the demands of their consumers, and the market: it would be a no-brainer to turn their attention to mobile games as a huge potential revenue stream.
The Future is Audio
Audio ads are no longer the restricted radio broadcasting megaphone from decades ago. They can be elegant, smooth and create an experience that mirrors real human contact. In mobile games, audio ads can be taken a step further to feel like reality: they can be completely immersed into the creative framework, giving brands a fresh and vibrant take with their advertising. It’s even possible Before Minecraft, World of Warcraft and Fortnight, Second Life was a pioneer in the virtual gaming world. Founder Philip Rosedale, speaks on the newest episode of Web Masters,
to build the game around a completely integrated audio ad, adding to the entire experience for the gamer: such as the built in radio in the recently launched Big Brother: The Game, which used AudioMob’s ad format to offer audio ads during the game.
The development of a successful DSP has placed AudioMob at the helm of audio ads in games, becoming the format increasingly favoured by developers. The natural swell of movement towards non-intrusive in-game advertising, drives audio front and centre. Audio ads enable players to continue playing whilst being exposed to the ad; they aren’t distracted enough to leave the game but still engage with the brand. For consumers, it’s a win as they can continue gameplay; for brands, they are still getting huge and increasingly targeted exposure; and developers can ensure an uninterrupted and immersive user experience. It’s a win win win and an opportunity to stand out from the crowd on a day when so many brands are fighting for centre stage.
Brands need to listen
Audio ads are on an uphill trajectory, with predictions of an 84% revenue growth from 2019 to 2025, and AudioMob is offering a clean and elegant solution for brands to tap into the market. With many physical stores closed and Christmas campaigns becoming more creative, the battleground for brands is rife with the need to rise above competitors. AudioMob straddles two huge opportunities for brands to cut through the noise of the industry: mobile games are a naturally thriving environment for an ad placement with a huge audience reach whilst audio ads drive an immersive and non intrusive experience for the player. Audio advertising could boost Christmas exposure miles above the rest in 2020, and AudioMob is driving the industry to produce better, more exciting and immersive audio ads.
By Christian Facey
CEO and Co-Founder
AudioMob