My Mum is eighty-five. Well, eighty-five in a few weeks, and despite the fact that she was going to get a new knee for her birthday, she’s still of the opinion that things like Coronavirus happen for a reason. Her words. What she means by that is that things overall will generally improve in some way in the longer term; like people beginning to appreciate social interaction more for example, but I guess another benefit might also be that many businesses will realise how efficient flexible working can be. Don’t get me or my Mum wrong here, neither of us mean to make light of the grave situation in which the world finds itself, and both of us know many who’ve already been affected, including my Uncle, currently in hospital. But my Mum’s formative years were lived through the Second World War and so she’ll always have a make-do-and-mend attitude. Even to pandemics.
Times of crisis are a great test of many things, but not really for the audio industry , with the advantages of working from home, recording ads remotely, and being able to move production facilities with no more fuss than an afternoon of logistical planning and a taxi across town. The clients we work with assume it’ll be business as usual, which is why we’ve chosen not to shout it from the virtual rooftops of social media. And just like processes and people are having to adapt to the situation, so brands are too, moving campaigns from OOH to audio, or just changing the messaging or tone of an ad they’d already planned. Equally, there are some we’re working with at the moment that didn’t have campaigns planned, but the strange times have meant they need to be out there communicating an assurance or a call to action.
However our days or mindsets might adapt over the coming weeks and months, there’s one thing that will never change, and that is our love of audio. How we all consume it has evolved and it’s true that some take it for granted and some only take notice of it when they need something from it. However, its undeniable efficiency of cost, its power of creativity, and its versatility to connect make it as constant and reliable as any bond in our modern lives. It's why I posted old radio shows to my isolated Mum, it's why Maple Street is providing daily soundtracks for the company whilst we all work remotely, and it's why people always turn the radio on to see if it's safe to go outdoors.
No one here is pretending it's business as usual, because it isn’t. It's very business unusual, but it's business unusual for everyone, so as an industry it’s about doing everything we did just like before, but with a little more of a human touch. Maybe Mums are right about some things.
Adapting The Message
Here are a few examples of how advertisers are using audio in the current climate.
We've been busy helping brands revise their messaging to suit the unusual times. Here's an ad we made for Tesco this week:
Here's a round-up of how others are adapting:
