Expert Insights on Audio Advertising that Wins

What does it take to create audio ads that earn accolades, win awards, and (most importantly) drive success with your target audience? It’s a question we hear all the time. So, we decided to answer it with some of the most knowledgeable and experienced experts in the biz.

In our last LinkedIn Audio Event, our Sonic Strategy Director, Steve Keller, teamed up with former Cannes Audio & Radio Lions judges Mariana O’Kelly and Diana Sukopp to bring advertisers everything they need to know to create ultra-successful, ultra-memorable campaigns. During their conversation, they discussed:

• Tips for creating audio ads that win, both on stage and in the market

• How to make sure your target audience notices (and remembers) your ads

• What it takes to tackle the most common hurdles in the audio advertising industry

Itching to hear it for yourself? You’re in luck—we’ve got the full recording of their conversation ready for you. Take a listen below.

If you’re short on time and can only listen to the highlights, we’ve got those too. Check them out below.

Figure out how to make a difference.

Highlight: “Every client has a very specific idea of what his marketing campaign should look like, but they do not really know which problem they want to solve. So as a creative, you constantly have to ask questions with your strategic director, with your clients—shoot, with everyone in the room—to get to the bottom line of it. What is really the challenge that you are facing? And what do you think your problem is, and how can we react to that? And how can we really, really make a difference?” - Diana Sukopp

Audio lets you enter their hearts.

Highlight: “Audio is a channel that gives you a very unique way to enter into the heads and hearts of your audiences. It's really something where the craft of words evolves, where the power of imagination unfolds… The media channel is also quite affordable. And what happens when you get people interested in your story? They are very, very much involved in finding their own pictures for it. So they can fall in love with it on a much, much deeper level and make a connection to your brand. They would literally carry you around inside their ears and inside their head.” - Diana Sukopp

Tell, don't sell.

Highlight: “It's extremely important to make sure that you don't focus on just selling something in audio, but that you really tell something. It’s one of my favorite quotes; I always say, ‘Tell, don’t sell.’ And yes, we're not an art gallery where people just kind of consume us. We do need to sell whatever we put out. But I think there’s a subtle way of doing it. If you have engaging storytelling, and it's very clear what the benefit of the product or the brand is, it’s easier for people to consider you as a brand.” - Mariana O’Kelly

The craft of an audio piece is everything.

Highlight: “I believe the craft of an audio piece is everything… you can have the best idea and best soul for your brand. You can have an award-winning piece. But when you go into the studio to record it, if you have talent performing or executing the spot, and you can hear them read off the piece of paper and there's not a natural breath or a pause, I don't know if you always buy it. So, I'm always at a stage where I go, ‘Could this voice have been better?’ And my answer in my head is always yes. So, performance is everything in a piece of audio, because it's almost like all of your senses are being channeled through your ears. And I think there's a lot of spots and a lot of audio—traditional audio, specifically—out there that doesn't stay true to this fact. Do you believe that a real person is telling you the story? And I think some of my favorite pieces of work are ones where it sounds like a real person. It doesn't sound like a professional voiceover artist.”  - Mariana O’Kelly

Dive into your brand's DNA.

Highlight: “So, I would just say that a brand is something where, if you were to go, ‘What person is this?’ You’d ask, ‘What would they sound like? What would they say?’ It's the brand's DNA that I think you need to dive into and go. ‘If I was to have a beer with this brand at a bar, what would they say? Like, would they be funny? Would they be serious? And what would the conversation and the topic be?’ And I think that's how you start building the story—around your execution.” - Mariana O’Kelly

Connect on a human level.

Highlight: “Audio is one of the only things that is not competing on the screen, but competing with the surroundings that you’re in. I think that connection, and making it as authentic as we want to be as a brand, it's always age to age, which is human to human for me. It doesn’t matter if you're a B2B or B2C brand, it's always age to age. Find the link where your brand can connect on a human, and then find the emotion, as well. It could be a funny story. It could be a very emotional story… It's a masterclass in creativity… You have to deliver context. You have to deliver the craft itself. Be passionate about every single detail, be obsessed about your case and make it better and better and better, until you think this is really the best way. And then let it go and see how the audience is connecting to it.” - Diana Sukopp

Use technology in fair and equitable ways.

Highlight: “Certainly here at Studio Resonate and at SiriusXM Media, we’re concerned about finding ways to apply AI that can be helpful to our clients—but also, we're concerned about the implications on culture. Those of you who've paid attention to some of the work that we've done, particularly around the idea of sonic diversity, know that diversity isn't just something you see. It's also something that you hear. So, in looking at the development of AI voices, you have to ask: What are the training sets that are used there? Are the AI voices diverse? And what can we do to push that forward? So there are folks out there that are concerned about these issues that are working on them. Trust me, these are also questions that many brands are thinking about. It's a brave new world, and we all need to do our best to make sure that we're using the technology in ways that are fair and equitable.” - Steve Keller

Don’t forget to join our community on LinkedIn to make sure you catch our next audio event live.  And if you’re ready to start creating audio campaigns that win, let’s talk.