The Value of Sound
Measuring the value of sound was the topic of discussion with Scott Simonelli, founder and CEO of Veritonic, on Episodes 15 and 16 of the Sound In Marketing Podcast. Scott has been a pioneer in online testing and optimization and has a unique perspective on this niche subject as he is also a composer.
What Is Veritonic?
Veritonic is an audio effectiveness and measurement platform. They help clients measure the value of sound and its impact on advertising ads. Scott started Veritonic because of the need for an unbiased sound and music vote from the actual audience of the ad music that he was writing for; not just the preference of the executives involved. With his background of working for testing companies as well as being a working composer, he had an incredibly unique perspective on the situation.
The big hesitation on measuring the data, in Scott’s opinion, is that marketing companies have been doing things in a certain way for so long that they are afraid to be wrong. And rightfully so. This is still a fairly new take on the marketing world. It takes time for new concepts to be adopted.
While at Optimost, he witnessed a client spending a lot of money on their platform to test the visual but throwing in the music at the last minute for a national spot. He was baffled that the testing was only being done on the video; not the audio.
They were choosing music based on what the advertisers liked, not the target demographic that would be watching the ad.
7 years later, Veritonic was born. Veritonic’s name came from the latin “veritas” meaning true and “tonic” meaning the root of the chord or the tone. Veritonic is the “true tone”.
So Many Sound Possibilities
The amount of sound content that’s out there today is so much greater than it was even back then. There are so many different places that sound can live in people’s lives and they’re a part of our lives in the most unique ways. That’s a lot of opportunity to measure usage, effectiveness and plot campaign direction that will hit your exact demographic. However, it must be measured differently based on the circumstances and context.
You don’t measure audio the same way you measure an image.
Scott Simonelli
Only about 20% of the companies Veritonic works with are truly data driven. Although some may think that being data driven limits and constricts creativity, it actually provides more room for creativity. Once you know the proper direction to approach, you can be more direct in your creative approach. Even the internet during the Pets.com phase had some wobbles before it got its footing so it’s not surprising that not everyone is on board… yet.
A Dynamic Experience
A dynamic experience is the expectation of the consumer now. They expect the ad to be relevant in month two just as much as it is relevant in month one.
Scott Simonelli
One of the things slowing progress is a lack of great creative community around audio ads. There is one outlier to this; insurance companies. Insurance companies are a great example of a community that knows that they have to have a good audio branding to be “seen” and recalled. Age old logos of companies such as State Farm and Nationwide make it clear that a sound identity is absolutely imperative for a new insurance company to compete with those top dog companies that have the track record as well as a concrete history of solid sound logos that any and all of us can recall within seconds.
Insurance companies know the value of sound.
The Slow Shift
Along with the lack of creatives in the audio ad space, there are also advertisers that don’t fully understand the audio space. There are a lot of old habits and “ways of doing things” that are hard to break.
For one, people are afraid of being wrong. However, a bad creative campaign hurts the advertiser’s chance of success, the advertising platform, as well as the end user who will inevitably have a bad ad experience.
As advertisers hurry to finish up the ad, they throw in audio as an afterthought the majority of the time. And why not. The visual ad is so expensive, and with stock audio and AI audio out there being relatively inexpensive, it’s a way to cut costs.
But, according to Scott, only around 10% of that music actually fits the ad appropriately. The audio is generally an afterthought and combined with an advertiser not as familiar with audio advertising best practices, your ad’s effectiveness can go downhill pretty fast. That’s why Pandora and Spotify and the like are out there ready to create an ad for anyone ready to up the value of sound in their advertising strategy.
For more on streaming radio advertising practices check out Pandora and Sound Marketing.
Video First – Sound Second
People are spending 95% of their time on the visual. However, the visual is not 95% of the emotional response to that ad. In the first 5 seconds, the audio sets the mood.
Scott Simonelli
For the first two years, Veritonic primarily tested video; not audio. The industry has behaved that way because it’s more expensive to create the visual. The audio is where they can “cut corners and save some money.”
The danger of the mentality of visual first audio second on an audio advertising platform is just that. It’s not necessarily music related, it’s communication related. There are a lot of factors in play. Time, context, finding the message, the timing of the context (ex. Is the emotional element hitting too late or too early in the ad). Then coupled with putting the ad in the wrong place on the wrong podcast and you’ve got a failed campaign.
Sound must come first on a sound first platform. Your best practices must change dependent on the outlet.
Scott Simonelli
Predictive Tech Measuring the Value of Sound
The desire for being good at this and interested in changing old practices to better serve today’s climate is exciting and necessary. Predictive technology has made it that much easier to obtain (instant) baseline data on how someone responds to an ad.
When you can find out really quickly and specifically how people are responding to what you’re creating, that gives you a lot of power.
Scott Simonelli
Quick statistics on performance allows for the ability to change what you’re doing on the fly and course correct the situation in real time.
Sound is measurable and important. Creating a plan and structure for the sound associated with our marketing is something that we all realistically have to be thinking about. With companies like Veritonic pioneering the way, this is possible.
Built on machine listening and learning (M-LAL), the new technology generates an instant, comprehensive score for marketers and others to understand how their audio creative stacks up to others like it and make fast, informed decisions as a result.
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