Digital media advertising

Advertising Shake Up for 2015

January 29, 2015

britney-spears-pepsi-ad

The Super Bowl is one of – if not the – biggest sporting events watched in America, synonymous with showy half-time celebrity performances and adverts. But not just any adverts – brands pull out all the stops with their big-budgeted celebrity-endorsed ads. This year even features the likes of the Victoria’s Secret Angels and queen of the derrière, Kim Kardashian. And being ostentatiously American, any adverts shown and any songs performed will trickle down through social media and reach – and impact – the rest of the Western world.

The Super Bowl Sound Awards for Excellence in Audio Creativity

Perhaps no other sporting event is so lucrative for televised celebrity performances and brand adverts. But for this year’s Super Bowl, TV adverts are not getting all of the attention. The Super Bowl Sound Awards for Excellence in Audio Creativity – yes, it’s a mouthful – is a chance for advertisers to strategically use audio in order to increase their consumer outreach. And the judges? Radio listeners, of course.  Westwood One, the flagship network for radio’s Super Bowl XLIX coverage, stated, ‘Our Super Bowl broadcast is the perfect environment for advertisers to leverage their commercial creative, thanks to our incredible reach and sheer volume of audience across platforms.’

It’s not just Super Bowl-related ads that are getting a shake-up this year

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Picture Credit: Inside Radio

The latest figures by Borrell Associates indicate where the biggest growth for advertising lies for 2015. Video ads are
still top players, with an estimated growth rate of 39% to $7.7 billion. Targeted display ad spending will nearly
double to a monumental $28.2 billion, a humongous growth rate of 92.4% from 2014. Audio ad growth for radio is a much smaller estimation figure of 8.3% to $300 million. Overall, Borrell state that audio ads will capture just 1% of all digital money spent by advertisers. But these figures for audio ads may be bolstered by two factors. The first is the influence of the Super Bowl. If their new radio ads scheme works, more brands may feel more confident in investing their time and money in audio ads. The second, is that of the ‘mobile effect’. Within five years, Borrell estimates, nearly 70% of online advertising will be done via a mobile device. Listener-targeted audio adverts in mobile radio apps, despite being quite a mouthful, could be the key to a more increased audio ad growth rate.

Native advertising is set to get a boost too

BIA/Kelsey has forecast that native ad spend in the US will reach $18 billion by 2019. Facebook’s shift to in-feed advertising and their transition to mobile puts them at the heart of native advertising. In fact, a vast majority of Facebook’s $7.9 billion in advertising revenues for the first 9 months of 2014 came from none other than native formats; in-feed on desktop and in-stream on mobile. And this year, Facebook are pushing ahead for native video advertising. Just how they will gain revenue from these ads has not yet been announced, but it is possible that whilst the videos will appear on a user’s newsfeed, they won’t play automatically – suggesting cost-per-click. But one thing is for certain; native advertising will bring in big revenue for Facebook, and in return for native video advertising overall. That leaves native audio advertising as an area that has been vastly untapped.

In with the old and in with the new

The traditional platform of advertising, via the much-beloved television set, is and probably always will be a highly effective way for brands to reach out to existing and new consumers. But with digital platforms being an ever-increasingly important aspect of our lives, it is time for advertisers to embrace these new shake-ups if they really want to realise their potential and expand their outreach – and essentially make more money! After all, with over 90% of adults listening to radio, it is surprising that technology changes have not been embraced as much as they should be.

 

If you are interested in becoming a broadcasting partner, or would like to know what our integrating technology can do for you, contact our Partnership Account Manager Matthew Layton – matthew.layton@exaget.com or +447533517396

If you are interested in advertising opportunities, please contact the CEO of Exaget, Shankar Meembat –shankar.meembat@exaget.com or +447411130680

Why you should look out for smart glasses in 2015

January 7, 2015

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We all know and love our smartphones, laptops, tablets, kindles, and iPods. We can’t imagine a world without them. We know such a world once existed, but how on earth did they manage to survive? But now imagine this:

It’s the morning commute. First Monday back after the New Year festivities. Oh how you wish you could run away from reality. But hold on, you can! All you have to do is pop on your smart glasses and the next thing you know you’re surrounded by little curly-haired people with hairy feet, amidst clear blue skies and luscious green rolling hills, while Gandalf offers you his pipe as you share some weed. (Pipe weed, for those of you who aren’t familiar with Middle Earth).

If this sounds too far-fetched to you, start getting used to it. The market for wearables is already opening up with the advent of the smartwatch; Android have already released their models and Apple is to bring out their Apple Watch sometime this year.

Smart glasses won’t be far behind. In fact, they’ve already been around, just not commercially. Osterhout Design Group products initially started out as devices for military applications, and are now broadening out into other industrial areas. They have been investing into their range of smart glasses for the past six years. So why smart glasses now if they’ve already been around for a while?

If you’re a keen gamer you’ll be familiar with those Oculus style headsets that completely immerse you in virtual reality. If you’re part of the rest of the world, you won’t have a clue what that is. Quite simply, picture a black rectangular box strapped to the top half of your face. The new smart glasses, however, are augmented reality glasses, such as Google Glass, which means that digital graphics and information are overlaid on top of the real world. Hence with one eye you can be admiring Gandalf’s majestic beard and with the other keeping track of your stop.

And what’s more these smart glasses are more fashion savvy. Last year Vuzix partnered with Lenovo and launched their M100 device, which looks a bit like an extended Bluetooth earpiece. This year Intel will be partnering up with Vuzix following a $24.8 million investment. Intel’s investment highlights their faith in the wearable tech market, which they claim is the next big growth area.

Jaunt, another wearables company, are tapping into the entertainment industry. Following their amassment of $28 million in funding from backers that included British Sky Broadcasting, they have released apps that range from an on-stage view of a Paul McCartney concert to that stroll with Gandalf through the Shire.

So if smart glasses will be able to transport you to Middle-Earth, what is there that they won’t be able to do? Jay Wright, vice president of product management at Qualcomm, stated that smart glasses had the potential to ‘disrupt the smartphone‘. Will smart glasses kill the smartphone star? Or anything that has a screen, for that matter. Are we likely to see a future of people watching television, listening to the radio, maybe even virtual shopping, all from a little piece of plastic curved around the side of their head? And how would advertisers feel about this prospect of their industry being turned upside down? If programmatic is challenging for them to grasp, embracing – and more importantly understanding – the technology of smart glasses may have them reaching out for some aspirins.

But perhaps we’re jumping the gun a little; after all, in order for wearables to be truly trending, they need to be just that – wearable. Teaming up with the fashion industry is imperative if wearable tech companies such as Vuzix and Jaunt want to see their products fly off the shelves. In an age where ‘sleek’ is the golden word of aesthetic descriptions, if the smart glasses don’t look good, consumers won’t bite, it’s as simple as that.

So whilst you may be getting used to your smartwatch, or eagerly anticipating it, watch this space; and if at some point this year or in the next you sit down next to someone wearing glasses on the tube and hear them say ‘You’re right, he was an absolute fool of a Took’, you’ll know who they’re talking to.

 

If you are interested in becoming a broadcasting partner, or would like to know what our integrating technology can do for you, contact our Partnership Account Manager Matthew Layton – matthew.layton@exaget.com or +447533517396

If you are interested in advertising opportunities, please contact the CEO of Exaget, Shankar Meembat –shankar.meembat@exaget.com or +447411130680

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December 8, 2014

It’s been a hell of a day at work. Best not to mention the tube. And it looks like someone gave the kids too much sugar. Slouched on the sofa, G&T in hand, there’s just one thing you want to do. Chillax with your favourite artist, Nicki Minaj. You love the song, but you haven’t yet seen her ‘Anaconda’. You wonder what it looks like. YouTube is about to show you.

But oh….the bitter disappointment. It’s the dreaded YouTube pre-roll.

Frankly, you couldn’t care less about some new dragon warfare game. You start to search frantically for those two holy words – ‘Skip Ad’. Panic sets in. You can’t find them. You may not be particularly religious, but you’re praying now. You must endure 30 excruciating, agonising seconds of what feels like medieval torture. Never has time gone by so slowly.

The YouTube pre-roll is a negative experience for the viewer. If the viewer – essentially, to an advertiser, a potential customer – feels like they are being harassed or forced to endure a piece of advertising content, then someone in the advertising and marketing world is not doing their job properly. The net result is that the potential customer is left with a negative association with the advertising brand.

Our association with the YouTube pre-roll is a negative one. However, the opposite is true with a well-produced, well-deployed audio pre-roll. Here at Exaget, we entwine broadcaster and advertiser brands into a product that really works. We leverage the emotional connection the listener has with the radio station. By downloading the radio station’s app on to their mobile, they have invited the radio station onto a device as personal as a toothbrush.

We’re currently running a brilliant example of the sensitively branded pre-roll with one of our premium broadcasters, French Radio London. When a listener opens the French Radio London app on their mobile phone or device they are greeted by the following pre-roll, which interweaves the radio station’s brand with that of their luxury advertising partner, Relais & Châteaux.

For a sneak peak of how our pre-roll works, download the French Radio London App here
For a sneak peak of how our pre-roll works, download the French Radio London App here

This turns the audio pre-roll into an incredibly valuable piece of advertising real estate. At this point the listener is most probably still looking at their mobile device. Not only will they engage with the accompanying visuals – in this case the understated sophistication of Relais & Châteaux’s gourmet gift boxes – they are also presented with an opportunity to interact with the brand with just a simple tap of the map icon.

The benefits are obvious to the advertiser, the broadcaster and the listener. The advertiser gets to leverage the emotional connection that the listener has with the broadcaster’s brand and output – resulting in a deeper engagement with their own brand and product. This in turn helps to establish a relationship with the consumer, increasing the likelihood of consumer-to-brand interaction, and ultimately improving the advertiser’s chances of increased sales. In this case the exclusive and opulent nature of the advertiser’s brand adds value to the broadcaster’s already premium brand. The listener is presented with a seamless, consistent, and relevant listening experience.  

Your relationship with your phone is personal. Emotional. As is your relationship with the radio station you chose to listen to. Mobile in hand, radio on, headphones plugged in, you cocoon yourself in your own little world. It’s personal. Intimate even.

The new possibilities offered by interactive radio advertising allow advertisers to turn these personal, intimate moments into opportunities for engagement.

But woe betide the advertiser who abuses them.

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Exaget Week in Review: Digital market booming due to rise in digital streaming

August 8, 2013

Exaget, Digital streaming, Digital media

John Byrne weighs up the pros and cons of a strategy focused on apps versus mobile optimised sites. According to a report by Compuware, 85% of consumers prefer applications to mobile websites since they are considered more convenient, faster and easier to browse.
Recent audience research also tells us that 24% of all adults now listen via a mobile phone, up 34% year on year. This rises to 43% for 15 – 24 year olds up 24% year on year. Adults listening across all digital platforms has increased by 15% now at 27.9 million. (Source RAJAR Q2 2013)

Here at Exaget we celebrate this further growth in mobile listening and qualifies our commitment to delivering unique audio marketing solutions via the mobile.

Here’s this weeks round up:

 

Can you live without that app ?

We all have them: that little icon on our phones that without which our lives would feel more complicated and all together less enjoyable. For a digital publisher, it will always be ‘nice to have’ that app: the interesting, functionally focused app that extends their brand. – read the full article here

 

Increase in Radio listening across Digital platforms – RAJAR data release (Q2, 2013)

Recent RAJAR listening figures tell us that 24% of adults- Have ever listened to radio via their mobile phone, up 34% Year on Year and 43% of 15-24 year olds – Have ever listened to radio via their mobile phone, up 24% Year on Year. – read the full article here.

 

Brands and bands: Advertisers partner with broadcasters on client-branded streams.

Branded stations are becoming more popular and more requested on digital media. Large national advertisers are increasingly working with broadcasters to launch client-branded online radio stations. Walmart, Macy’s, Pepsi, Toyota, Wendy’s and Supercuts are among the brands that have pressed play on custom streams. – read the full article here

 

If you found this week’s update interesting feel free join our mailing list or donate a share, like or tweet. If you are a broadcaster, or advertiser and are interested in learning how targeted audio advertising can work for you get in touch.
Exaget Team
@Exaget