Background information
In today’s egtabite, we showcase an award-winning campaign from Ireland that utilises an innovative digital audio format to help a good cause – driving much needed donations for UNICEF supporting hospitals in Ukraine. This campaign won Gold at the Irish Audio Awards for ‘Best Audio Innovation’ in 2022.
audioXi, Ireland’s largest digital audio exchange, consolidates the country’s largest audio creators and aggregators in one place. It is owned by Bauer Media and gives advertisers a single point of access to over 28 different radio stations, 40 different music streams and over 1800 podcast series.
For this campaign, audioXi teamed up with Carat and UNICEF to serve listeners an audio-ad where they could shake their phone to be brought directly to the UNICEF donation page.
Interactive audio ads
When listeners heard the engaging audio ad in their stream, they were invited to shake their phone which opened up a webpage – no need to click on an ad or even unlock the mobile device.
So, for the first time ever, audioXi was able to take listeners from an audio ad directly to the UNICEF donation page, removing barriers and providing listeners with the ability to directly donate to the UNICEF Ukraine, by simply shaking their phone.
audioXi has a full in-house creative and production team that, coupled with their knowledge of the listeners and the Shake Me technology (provided by AdsWizz), positioned them in the best place to produce the creative for this campaign.
Shake Me technology can also be used to download an app, make a phone call, download a coupon or launch any mobile website – all by simply shaking your phone.
Engaging creative
audioXi’s team created two audio ads, one with a female voice actor and a second with a male voice – they did this so they would have two distinct voices on the campaign which kept it fresh for their listeners.
Due to the way the technology works, these ads can only be heard on smartphone devices, which have the SDK implemented within the audio app they are using. As they knew they were only targeting mobile listeners, audioXi could safely assume that most would be listening with headphones – this enabled them to get quite descriptive with the sound effects used and build in some 3D soundscapes.
In the audio ads, listeners could hear the sound of a heartbeat monitor pan from left to right, faint gunfire in the right ear followed by the heartbeat monitor going flat and panning out to silence. These sound effects were all used to maximise the listeners’ attention and, for a moment, immerse them in a scenario that is now a reality for many people in Ukraine.
This was the first time people in Ireland were exposed to this technology, which was something audioXi was very aware of, so when they built the scripts with their creative team, they included two calls to action (CTAs), one CTA to shake their phone halfway through the ad – “You Can Shake Your Phone Now To Help UNICEF Support….”, and a second CTA again towards the end of the ad telling the listener to “shake your phone now to donate….”. The double CTA enabled them to educate the listener on what they can now do in an audio ad environment and then push them to do it.
