Click here to view a 12-minute video of the key findings.

Click here to download a PDF of the slides.

The host of your favorite podcast or radio show launches into an ad. You love the host. She has your attention. You want to support sponsors of the podcast to keep the show going.

You are bewildered by massive lists of features and benefits. You’re not sure who the ad is for. More features. More benefits. Right at the end the brand is mentioned several times very quickly. The advertiser is something.com?

You need to improve your creative as it drives half of all sales effect

Why is a focus on creative quality so important? Nielsen reports creative drives half of sales effect!

Advertiser Perceptions, the gold standard measurement of marketer and agency sentiment, reveals advertisers massively underestimate the sales effect of creative, and significantly overstate the impact of targeting:

Ensuring your creative is strong and well branded makes all the difference. Luckily, there is a massive trove of marketing effectiveness insights and creative best practices that can enhance the quality of ads.

Most audio ad campaigns feature low emotion and rational messaging, along with narrow targeting, yielding the lowest long-term profit

A major study released this year from Effie, the major U.S. effectiveness competition, and System1, the leading creative effectiveness measurement firm, reveals that broadly targeted campaigns with emotion (ads that make you feel something) generate the greatest profit. See the solid green line below.

Look at the dotted red line that shows little profit impact. Campaigns with narrow targeting, rational copy, and no emotion struggle to show any profit even after three years.

Broad media targeting increases profit performance. An emotion-based creative strategy causes profit to soar.

To create ads with emotion, you need right-brain elements

System1, the creative measurement firm, has tested hundreds of thousands of ads across all media. Their research finds campaigns with right-brain elements drive the strongest share growth for the marketer.

Emotion-based campaigns generate greater brand equity, according to Les Binet and Peter Field, the godfathers of marketing effectiveness

Greater brand equity generates stronger business outcomes

Brand early and often: Most podcast ads don’t say the name of the brand enough and don’t say the brand slowly

The rule of thumb is 5 brand mentions in a 30-second ad. Sixty second ads should feature at least 9+ brand mentions

Prune out the endless features and say the brand name more often. Say the brand name slowly. Spell the name out.

A lot of firms that advertise in podcasts have very odd names. Spell the name out slowly.

Brand early and often: Start every podcast ad with the name of the advertiser

It’s shocking that in some podcast ads the brand does not show up until about 20 to 25 seconds into the ads! Ouch! The brand needs to appear in the first two seconds.

Here’s a simple best practice. Begin the ad with the brand name.

Most podcast ads spend 20 seconds explaining some problem. Then the brand as hero comes to solve the problem. Too late. Start with the brand name. “Kardia, the heart monitoring app, has a lifesaving stat for you…”

Anchor your brand to a category

Despite being well advertised and famous, O’Reilly Auto Parts includes their category in their jingle. Their jingle ends with “auto parts!”

You have to say your name a lot and the category you are part of. This helps the listener who is unfamiliar with your firm learn what you do.

A major study from DVJ Insights found that the more times the brand name was said in the audio track of the TV ad, the greater the brand was linked to the ad

In all advertising, audio branding does all the heavy lifting. Brand early and often!

Hundreds of Nielsen podcast brand effect studies reveal that the greater the number of brand mentions, the stronger the brand equity

The greater the brand equity, the greater the brand association

Nielsen’s thousands of podcast brand effect studies find the more you say your brand name, the greater your advertising brand recall. If you say your name a lot, more consumers can recall your ad and correctly tie the ad to your brand.

Want to supercharge association to your brand? Consider sonic assets like a music track as brand anthem

Using the same music track in all your ad reads creates a distinctive brand asset for your brand. The worst situation is when a podcast puts a random piece of music behind your ad copy. Even worse is if they use the same music track for multiple brands.

A new study from System1 and TikTok reveals you can boost brand awareness of your ads with a sonic asset in the first two seconds. Other key awareness drivers are a logo, a brand character, and a jingle.

Your podcast ad has way too many copy points 

Copy testing giant Kantar Millward Brown finds the fewer the messages, the greater the advertising recall. Conversely, the greater the copy points, the less likely people will remember anything you said.

“Less is more,” says legendary creative Christopher Smith, Principal and Chief Creative Officer at Plot Twist Creativity

He writes, “A lot of advertisers think that because radio affords you sixty or thirty seconds, they have the time to say everything there is to say about their brand. It’s why so many commercials end up sounding like laundry lists.

The truth is, if you want to talk about everything, then you really have nothing to talk about.

In advertising, you need to have one thing to say. AM/FM radio’s sixty seconds of ad time just gives you the chance to say it in an entertaining and memorable way.

A radio spot is not a hotel: You don’t have to fill all the space

Advertisers think they have to take the amount of time they have and fill it up with words or music. Many forget that silence is a storytelling element, too.

Every second of an ad doesn’t have to be filled. No commercial needs to be wall-to-wall talking, sound effects, or music. Sometimes silence draws people in more.”

The most successful ads have both showmanship and salesmanship

Humor works! Why so serious?

The best podcasts and AM/FM radio programs put on a show. They make you laugh. Why should audio ads be so dull and serious?

Orlando Wood, Chief Research Officer at System1, the creative testing giant, urges “Entertain for business gain!” System1 data says the greater the humor, the greater the market share growth:

System1 scores ads from one to five stars. The star rating predicts long-term share growth impact via the strength of the overall emotion felt by consumers. The more you feel, the more you buy.

The Extraordinary Cost of Dull is a major study from System1, Peter Field, and Adam Morgan, CEO of UK ad agency eatbigfish. Their research finds you have to spend twice as much media money on dull campaigns to get the same impact as interesting campaigns. It’s good business to inject showmanship into your ad campaigns!

How to improve the effectiveness of your audio ad:

• Create ads with emotion utilizing right-brain elements
• Brand early and often; Say the name of the brand first and say it slowly; Associate your brand with your product category
• Utilize sonic elements like music or jingle
• Limit the number of messages in the ad
• Entertain for business gain
• Remember audio ads need salesmanship and showmanship

Click here to view a 12-minute video of the key findings.

Pierre Bouvard is Chief Insights Officer of the Cumulus Media | Westwood One Audio Active Group^®.

Contact the Insights team at CorpMarketing@westwoodone.com.