Creative Ideas for Your Streaming Audio Ad Strategy

With some strategy, creativity, and best practices in your back pocket, streaming audio can elevate your brand to help you stay competitive in today’s advertising landscape. From sonic branding to dynamic audio, modern audio advertising offers countless ways to make your brand resonate with your audience. With the modern techniques and adtech solutions available, you can easily capture attention. And with a little extra planning, you can capture the kind of high-quality attention that leads to conversions. 

Here are nine innovative approaches that will help your streaming audio ads cut through the noise and create lasting impressions with your audience.

1. Create a Sonic Strategy

One third of young adults favor brands with a recognizable sound, from McDonald’s jingle to Netflix’s ta-dum. But to have a sound that sticks, follow the three Cs: congruence, context, and consistency. 

• Congruency: We're trained to recognize patterns, and when things don't fit, our brains don't like it. So, make sure your audio aligns with your brand. Is your business playful, serious, luxurious, or practical?

• Context: Before you put your ad in a listener’s world, answer: Where are they listening? What are they listening to? How are they listening?  How do they feel?

• Consistency: Ensures your brand message sticks by promoting your message again and again. While too much consistency could lead to ad fatigue, you do need to run ads that reinforce all of your other marketing efforts. It's why strategies like sequential audio are so powerful (more on that later). 

2. Pick the Right Voice Talent

The right voice actor can make or break your ad, either appearing as a character that a listener can relate to or a person that doesn’t understand them. Look at this example from a brand that took voice talent to another level. In a past campaign, Pepsico used localized ads and geo-targeting. The ads appealed to the senses by featuring foods that complement Pepsi well, pairing regional food with local dialects.

Pepsi selected 10 distinctly geographic dishes (Philly cheesesteaks, DC crabcakes, etc.) and paired them with 22 voice actors who were born and raised in the respective areas for authentic representation. To take it a step further, all of the sound design was food-centric, so each ad was complete with an audible crunch. 

The ad space is constantly innovating, making this level of localization and personalization more accessible to brands of all sizes. Thanks to our new agreement with the Narrativ platform, brands can create audio ads featuring AI voice replicas. Ethically licensed and expertly crafted, these AI voices allow for faster production and easier access. 

3. Add a Dose of Humor

We could always use more of a laugh. However, when it comes to advertising, humor has its time and place. A Kantar study found that intentional humor in advertising has been on the decline for almost two decades. Despite this, 72% of consumers would choose a brand that uses humor over the competition, while more than nine in 10 people would prefer brands to be funny.

Though humor in advertising has its risks, it can also have high rewards. Here are some tips to help your jokes land: 

• Stay away from trying too hard 

• Avoid punching down 

• Don’t risk sacrificing your brand for the punchline

• Be sure to learn what actually makes your audience laugh

Most importantly, prioritize the listening context. For instance, humorous ads can pair especially well with comedy podcasts, as listeners are already in the mood for a joke, making your ad feel like a seamless part of the episode. 

4. Elevate Your Campaign with 3D Audio

Create the illusion of a three-dimensional environment with 3D audio,  a form of sound design that immerses listeners in your sound. Tapping into “theater of the mind,”  3D audio pulls listeners out of the noise and into a realistic environment. And it enhances the ad experience, delivering a multi-sensory storytelling experience. Think of a food retailer combining a voice actor and brand message with the sounds of an oven beeping, sizzling food on the stove, and the chopping of food on a cutting board—the scene isn’t just set, it’s experienced.

5. Think Outside the Box with Soundscapes

Soundscapes can be considered a form of 3D audio, used to create a mood, feeling, or excitement. What's a summer vacation ad without the sounds of waves or rollercoasters? And who wants to hear a Christmas ad that doesn't have a fire crackling in the background? Soundscapes help orient listeners in the ad and draw associations between the listeners' feelings and the brand itself. This auditory experience proves that visuals aren’t always needed to invoke one’s imagination. 

6. Target by Demographic, Location, or Mood

What can separate a good ad from a great one comes down to ad personalization. Advertisers can achieve this by leveraging targeting. High-level targeting ensures you're not wasting impressions on too broad of an audience and not following a one-size-fits-all approach. 

With our advanced targeting solutions at brands’ disposal, you can target based on demographics, location, mood, weather, and a variety of other data points.

7. Use Dynamic Audio to Reach the Right People at the Right Time

Take targeting a step further by combining it with dynamic audio. For the uninitiated, dynamic audio has the power to adjust ads in real time based on the unique listener, using factors like weather, time of day, or location. It’s like a choose-your-own-adventure book for advertisers. 

For instance, a brand may have several versions of the same ad with a uniform CTA and message. However, each version is served to the right listener based on their environment, which could be during a downpour in the evening or a sunny, morning commute. Dynamic audio analyzes listeners and adjusts your ads to match. And here’s a pro tip: You don’t need to throw in every possible data point at once. Consider focusing on one factor at a time, whether it’s age or location. 

8. Treat Listeners with Rewarded Ads

Rewarded ads are like a cherry on top for your audience. By offering audiences incentives like uninterrupted listening, premium features, or unlocked gated content in exchange for interacting with an ad, brands can build loyalty and create positive associations. Brands can choose from our options like sponsored listening, video plus, and happy hour. 

9. Adopt Sequential Audio

While it’s true that repetition improves memory, running the same ad every day for six months can overdo it. Sequential audio is a great way to boost your investment and keep your campaign fresh for longer. With this strategy, you can unveil a story over time. Get started by mapping out the beginning, middle, and end of your brand message. With your ads running in your desired order, building upon the previous one, your listener can receive new and personalized info each time.

Elevate Your Strategy

Convinced that digital audio is the right move, but overwhelmed by all the possibilities and potential? We have the scale (85M listeners across our streaming network), the in-house talent (Studio Resonate), and the solutions (targeting and more) to give your brand that extra push to get to the top.

Ready to create streaming audio ads that don’t just exist but stand out? Let’s talk.

Learn More About Streaming Audio Advertising