Contextual conversations and sonic branding: why brands need to rethink audio

Brian Carruthers

This event report explores how audio is changing the way brands must present themselves; voice-activated assistants and searches are growing and users are moving away from screens to use the internet and, ultimately, to make purchase decisions.

The advertising industry is largely concerned about attracting consumers' eyes rather than their ears: television, cinema, print, OOH and digital are visual media. And while it dances around issues like how to measure viewability, it is in danger of neglecting what is certain to become an increasingly important area: sound.

Sonic branding

That is being driven in part by consumers' willingness to use things like voice search on their smartphones and the rapid penetration of new voice-activated technology such as Google Home and Amazon's Alexa - the latter could be in four in ten UK homes by the middle of...

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