Black Friday went from a retail-only experience to one that was entirely digital during the pandemic. As the world opens back up, brands are looking at how they can create a seamless omnichannel experience for their customers and dynamic audio might just be the answer, writes A Million Ads' Lindsay Shelton
Black Friday isn’t what it used to be. Rather than a single day of shopping, it has morphed into more of a marketing label used to promote early festive season deals, overlapping with Cyber Monday and Christmas. And, according to a recent trend report, it continues to evolve for shoppers and marketers alike. During the pandemic people went digital out of necessity; then shopping went hybrid but still leaned digital. This year, it’s set to swing back to an integrated in-store and digital shopping experience, in a true omnichannel experience for consumers.
This season, digital audio can align with your brand’s omnichannel strategy by serving relevant messages promoting the most contextually relevant offers for shoppers to find in-store or digitally, seamlessly, within one campaign.
And looking at IAB UK’s latest Digital Adspend report, digital audio advertising is booming. The market grew by 58% year-on-year in 2021, a staggering increase on the already healthy 17% growth rate it saw in 2020.
With consumers ready to spend during this key shopping season (whether it’s with their favourite brands or new ones) and shoppable media maturing, brands have an opportunity to elicit a strong direct response from their ads. This is where addressable advertising can be effective by automatically serving the right ad variant that is tailored to speak directly with each individual listener.
The gift of dynamic audio
Brands should be looking towards data-driven audio ads with the possibility to create thousands of ad variants that are more contextually relevant for consumers, drive better engagement and increase footfall.
When thinking about the best dynamic solutions for Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaigns, brands should be using contextual data signals to personalise their audio creative for better cut-through. For instance, counting down the days in the run up to Black Friday drives urgency and highlights short term offers, or utilising sequence and rotation to switch between different products and offers allows for maximum flexibility with short-term promotions. Alternatively, brands could capitalise on their nationwide presence and drive consumers in store by highlighting their nearest retail locations.
Black Friday dynamic advertising in action
During Black Friday, Curry’s PC World wanted to drive urgency from shoppers with limited time offers across a huge range of products. They partnered with A Million Ads to ensure they were serving the most relevant message to each listener. By counting down the days left in the sale, using a dynamic call-to-action for listeners to purchase from their device, and directing listeners to their local store for collection they were able to deliver almost 200,000 unique ads in one campaign.
In practice, one ad signalled that there were five days left in the sale, with details of two products on offer to all in Doncaster, whilst another ad counted down the two days left and featured different products that were available in Aberystwyth. This enabled Curry’s PC World to target multiple segments and personalise them to ensure they were more relevant to its audience.
Similarly, Dell partnered with A Million Ads to increase awareness of Dell products before, during and after the Black Friday sales period in France. The ad creative used day/time data to increase contextual relevance and urgency around the sale with a countdown to Black Friday. The script sent out different offers depending on rotation and time of day. The script switched between driving customers to visit the Dell website and calling the Dell support team. Dell was able to reach 2 million unique listeners with an average frequency of 2.5 x per unique listener and 87.2% listen through rate.
Create an emotional connection to this moment
Digital audio is becoming a priority for brands in order to speak to individual consumers in a way that serves both upper and lower funnel marketing. Black Friday provides the perfect opportunity to use addressable content to create an emotional connection when consumers are already eager to spend. And by working with us, we’ll align with your retail strategy to increase revenue, store visits and brand love.
Posted on: Monday 14 November 2022
