(New York) Radio reaches 91 percent of Americans and more of these listeners are choosing digital audio options to curate their own music news and entertainment, creating niche markets for advertisers to invest their ad dollars.The number of digital radio listeners will grow about 12 percent by 2019 with nearly 200 million listeners digitally tuning in to radio, according to the marketing research firm, eMarketer.Additional data from eMarketer shows that advertisers are following listeners into the digital market. Digital market spending is expected to grow nearly 41 percent by 2019 with an estimated $96.1 billion forecast in ad spending, which is predicted to outpace TV ad spending by nearly 28 percent. Traditional radio ad spending is expected to remain constant over the same time period at about $15.2 billion.The average podcast listener indicated in an Edison Research survey that they spend about six hours a day listening to audio, including terrestrial radio. This time is filtered by advertising that is growing more tailored to audiences with programmatic ads that allow advertisers to drop in at the right time to relay the right message to the right audience.As the country’s largest audio advertising agency around, Oink Ink Radio recognizes the high stakes in the audio advertising game. Oink has been a leader in the creation of audio advertising for the past 25 years.“While it’s still pretty early in ‘the game’ and brands are trying to determine their place in it all, we are already seeing programmatic ad options change the way advertisers target consumers. We’re being asked to deliver autonomous messaging specific to various regions or markets. That’s clearly where all of this is headed: the more targeted, the better the ROI,” said Dan Price, Oink Ink co-founder.About 65 percent of podcast listeners say they’re more likely to consider purchasing products and services they hear about during a podcast, according to a survey by the Interactive Advertising Bureau in partnership with Edison Research. Further, an ad delivered by that podcast’s host increases the chances of the listener seeking out the service or product being pitched.“Host-read ads on podcasts make perfect sense, which of course works against a creative provider like us; but it’s true. The format is so intimate and the audience so connected that there is built-in credibility. Having said that, however, it’s a brand new space. Once podcasts attract, for exle, multiple advertisers — as opposed to a single sponsor, as we most often see now, brands will look for differentiation as they do now on traditional radio,” said Jim Price, Oink Ink co-founder and creative director.With the growing popularity of mobile and digital options, ways to capture real time data on consumers’ listening habits are also being developed. Earlier this year, Nielsen, one of the industry’s leading metrics companies, launched a digital audio arm to capture data on consumers’ listening habits across digital platforms. Some online audio companies, such as Pandora, are already collecting this data.“Metrics for radio listenership had always been fairly broad in my estimation. We’re all about information-gathering — the more the better,” said Jim Price. “Our clients spend an awful lot of money to have us do what we do, and without properly documented data, we can’t fully do that job. The more we know, the more insight we have, the better our creative can connect.”The digital market is expected to capture even more listeners with the help of major automotive manufacturers who are phasing out AM/FM dials on their dashboards and replacing them with digital products.“The fact that we’ve been around for 25 years and all of a sudden, now is the busiest we’ve ever been tells me that creative might be starting to inch up on technology,” said Dan Price. “It seems that every other week there has been some new development in the world of digital, but the creative use of it all just wasn’t keeping up.We think that maybe we’re seeing all these new clients reaching out to us because they now want their content to work harder for them. They were making the investment — we’re here to make sure they get their money’s worth.”
