Audio is a key element in advertising, but is often the weakest part of any single ad despite having the most resonance with the audience.

Why is audio so significant? Aroma is certainly more powerful because it lingers in the mind and can evoke a powerful reaction. I went to the mall this past Saturday to pick up a new pair of shoes and walked past a Starbucks, Cinnabon, and Auntie Anne’s. All 3 had a healthy amount of people waiting in line for service. You can smell their food from at least 3 stores away. The problem is that smell is very limited by location and product. It’s very difficult to deliver a smell to someone in their home. Rather feeble attempts limited to print publications can be seen, such as some type of sample pack insert or scratch-n-sniff, but those require that the viewer actively take action rather than engaging their passive interest. “Smell-o-vision” is nothing more than a joke in a Bugs Bunny cartoon and forever will be; people don’t want foreign smells forced on them in their personal space. The same holds true for taste. Touch is limited by immediate proximity. Like smell, neither can be easily submitted to the consumer.

The absolute worst thing you can do with audio is use unpleasant sounds in your ad. The primary goal of advertising is to make your audience want whatever it is you’re selling. Any unpleasant sound, like a crying baby or car alarm, becomes associated with your product and that negative sensation carries over. Unless the product directly relates to that sound via relief from it (children’s medication, earplugs, etc.), your ad has just turned off your potential customer. Of course there can be exceptions, such as the recent VW ad where a new car owner sets off his car’s alarm whenever a couple looking at it in the showroom get too close. The sense of mischief overcomes the negativity of the noise. The car alarm serves it’s purpose of being an attention grabber and then the content overcomes the negativity. This probably isn’t the best example, however, since there seems to be a lot of hate for this particular spot, and recent VW commercials in general.

The same applies to unexpected sounds, such as banner or pop-up ads that have speech. Usually the bitrate is so low that it sounds like it someone speaking through a cardboard tube, so it’s poor quality AND intrusive. TV spots do this too. Despite not technically being louder, commercial producers use various compression tricks to max out the midrange on their audio, making it seem much louder. Many viewers are forced to constantly adjust or mute the volume when commercials come on, and it’s gotten noticeably worse in recent years. Dolby is working on a solution, but a technical workaround shouldn’t be needed. Such a negative visceral reaction reflects poorly on your product; your ad didn’t get my attention, it annoyed me. People aren’t likely to buy something that annoys or displeases them.

Out of our 5 senses, advertising is predominantly limited to sight (print, billboards, etc.), sound (radio), or a combination of the two (television, web). Sight, like touch, is limited by proximity. Your audience must be actively viewing the advertisement. It is very easy to ignore or dismiss. If someone doesn’t like your ad they can change the channel, turn the page, drive past, or simply look away. Sound, however, has no such limitation; it travels through the air, unhindered by other masses. Your audience can be doing something else but still pay attention to the audio portion of an ad, and even be in a different space than the device broadcasting said ad. This is why audio is so significant; it is easy to consume and hard to avoid.