How Brands can Catch the Eye on Audio Platforms

Yes, Pandora is an audio platform where listeners mainly use their ears to experience its vast content. But as they're interacting, changing stations, and discovering new music, they're also using their eyes to navigate the user experience. This is an opportunity for brands to reach listeners in these user-engaged moments, and Studio Resonate knows how to develop eye-catching visual creative. 

Brand Messages on Display

From static images to animations to interactive media, from banners to interstitials to click-through arrays, we offer a variety of display advertising solutions that encourage user interaction, provide an engagement boost, meet your campaign needs, and deliver results for advertisers.

"Most of the advertisers we work with already have a robust visual identity which can easily be extended and adapted to our platform,”  says Ali Charlesworth, Senior Project Manager. “We have a small but mighty group of designers and developers who are not just display experts but Pandora display experts. They know our platform inside and out, and work collaboratively with advertisers to create an ad experience that blends seamlessly with their music listening experience ”

Let’s look at three of our popular display ad products and how we used them to provide creative results for three brands.

Get the Word Out with Sponsored Listening Carousels

The Challenge: So much to say, so little space. Making a compelling ad in a few hundred pixels is an art form that we know very well. But some messages need more time and space. 

The Solution: Enter the sponsored listening carousel for the solve and the win-win. This ad product gives brands multiple panels to get their message out while incentivizing the users to pay attention. The ad launches when the listener engages with the interface, and if they choose to interact with the content for 15 seconds, they’re rewarded with an hour of uninterrupted listening. 

The Activation: Senior Visual Designer, Evelyn Overall has been working with the Ulta beauty brand for years on sponsored listening carousels. The ad format allows the brand to highlight a variety of products that are on sale for a limited time. Evelyn is the Ulta Whisperer. Her familiarity with the ad product, experience on past campaigns, knowledge of the brand guidelines, and technical know-how provide consistent and high-quality results for Ulta. 

“Ulta runs a lot of carousels, and I think that speaks to not only the value of this ad product, but also the strength of our relationship," says Evelyn. “What's really neat about sponsored listening carousels is the extra space, the ability to tell a more comprehensive story. This format gives advertisers like Ulta breathing room to call out products, features, and benefits all at once.”

Sponsored listening carousels are a powerful informational tool, allowing brands to provide timely information about sales, disseminate product/feature information, and ensure the audience is receiving the message.

Catch and Hold Attention with Animated Interstitials

The Challenge: Advertisers don’t just want to get attention for a moment, they want to keep it.

The Solution: Moving audiences with animated interstitial ads. This product goes further than static images, providing eye-catching movement and giving brands the opportunity to include more information. Animated interstitials take static interstitials up a notch. It’s the first thing users see when they interact with our platform, and the motion captures attention at key engagement points. 

The Activation: Senior Designer-Developer, Manny Trevino had the pleasure of working with Disney on an animated interstitial to promote Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. The team pitched to Disney with a mock to show what this ad product could do for the brand, using design elements from previous movies. Disney was sold, and Manny began developing an animated interstitial that breathes life into the movie's static promotional poster.

“Interstitials are a great way to capture user attention because they are the first thing users see when they open the app. Adding animation can make them even more engaging,” says Manny. “Once the client provided their movie poster, we had to come up with a creative way to animate it. I started with a storyboard that utilized space elements and flares fading and moving at different speeds. This created the illusion of depth to really bring the ad to life. The copy and CTA were sequentially faded in for added impact.”

Animated interstitials are popular with both entertainment and CPG brands, but they are an excellent fit for any advertiser who wants to hold audience attention longer.

Make a Big Splash with a Station Generator

The Challenge: Some moments and announcements are big, and they need a bit more umph to really drive messages home with audiences. 

The Solution: It’s got interaction, it’s got payoff, it makes a lasting impression—it’s the station generator. Brands can seamlessly become a part of the musical experience audiences came to Pandora for in the first place, driving them to curated, sponsored stations through an interactive ad experience. When the listener engages with the interface, they can tap, press, and swipe through fun, interactive ad content that directs them to branded stations.

The Activation: Our Designer-Developer created a fun, playful ad experience for Post-it’s 40th anniversary celebration campaign: Celebrating 40 Years of Thinking Out Loud. The brand came to the table with existing creative, and the team took the concept and ran with it. From a static image of sticky notes with various illustrations, they developed a lively quiz experience by creating all the additional design elements for the user interface. The quiz helped listeners determine which of Post-it’s four decades fit them best before delivering them to a curated 80s, 90s, 00s, or 10s station.

Post-it and the Studio Resonate team went all in on the campaign, incorporating on- and off-platform versions in a variety of sizes. With station generators, advertisers have the opportunity to let users interact with their ad activity (game, quiz, etc) outside of Pandora (off platform) via a microsite, which allows for easy social sharing.

“The station generator ad product is the most related to the Pandora platform, driving listeners directly into a music listening experience,” says Ali. “It was a perfect fit for Post-it because they knew they wanted to do something with music from the decades their product has been on the market, and we were able to take inspiration from the sketches in their campaign creative to design and develop this really interactive and personal quiz for our listeners.”

Station generator allows brands to have memorable interactions with audiences that they can enjoy—and tell their friends about. And it feels like a part of the music listening experience. And not like their music is being interrupted by a brand.

Audio and Visual Experts

And now you know: the leading digital audio company has the technology, creative excellence, and engaging ad formats to help advertisers launch eye-catching visual messages with the goal of delighting brands and users. The possibilities and potential of visual advertising on an audio platform are huge. And the incredible designers at Studio Resonate are here to bring your vision to life.

Let’s get visual.