Studies Find Less is More for Audio Ad Copy

RADIO ONLINE | Tuesday, November 14, 2023 | 11:22am CT

Westwood One

Several firms recently collaborated to produce a first-of-its-kind study that examined thousands of campaigns. Colourtext, a media analysis firm, examined over 10,000 campaigns that aired between 2019 and 2021. Activity included 615 national brands across 22 advertiser categories. The study revealed the lower the audio word count per minute, the greater the brand standout, which in turn increases campaign web response. This week's Cumulus Media | Westwood One Audio Active Group blog outlines the key findings.

• Eliminating 10 words of audio copy increases the Creative Standout score by 1%. Creative Standout is achieved when consumers say, "this ad stands out" and rate an ad with an 8, 9, or 10 on a one-to-ten-standout scale.

• Eliminating 10 words of audio copy increases web traffic by 0.25%. Creative Standout in audio advertising is strongly linked to ad response via website visits. For each 1% rise in Creative Standout achieved by an audio ad, website response rate increases by 0.25%.

• Kantar Millward Brown: The fewer the messages, the greater the recall. An ad with four messages will have message recall of only 24%, compared to 43% for ads with just one message. The more messages an ad attempts to communicate, the lower the likelihood of a single message being communicated.

• Chris Smith's audio creative best practice: Less is more. Be single-minded. Say one thing. A radio spot is not a hotel. You don't have to fill all the space.