The digital audio space is really just beginning to hit its pace and so this is a perfect time for the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) to come out with its authoritative A Digital Audio Buyer’s Guide developed by IAB’s Digital Audio Committee (on which BIA/Kelsey serves).

The digital audio market felt a seismic rattle with the news yesterday of Spotify’s expected $400 million capital raise which would bring its valuation to $8.4 billion more than twice that of leading competitor, Pandora, who closed out yesterday with a $3.55 billion market cap.

As BIA/Kelsey noted in a digital audio report we released last year (sponsored by XAPPmedia), “The Internet radio revolution has been brewing for some time. Streaming audio has gone mainstream for audiences and advertisers. This revolution is foundational, meaning that new business models are forming around new audience behaviors supported by technology advances.”

IAB’s Digital Audio Buyer’s Guide is a comprehensive but very digestible 26 page educational and reference document that lays out in a clear fashion everything from “what is meant by ‘digital audio'” to sizing the digital audio market, providing best practices and digital audio ad samples to providing insights around planning and buying.

“Digital audio” is defined as comprising broadcast AM/FM stations online, pureplay online radio stations, streamed audio content with selections influenced by consumer input, and audio-on-demand (i.e., podcasts). With over 50% of the U.S. population as current monthly users of various digital audio services, IAB cites eMarketer data showing this will grow to over 190 monthly digital radio listeners by 2019.

In BIA/Kelsey’s updated forecast for broadcast radio, we’re estimating that the advertising revenue from AM/FM stations streaming online will double from $1 billion in 2014 to $2 billion by 2019. That’s a significant growth component for an industry that otherwise won’t see much revenue growth. And we see a lot of new competition both for listeners and in selling access to local audiences.

In the pureplay digital audio world, Pandora will be releasing its latest earnings report on April 23, 2015. We’ll see then how it stacks up in its drive to increase local ad revenues and how Spotify’s raise may impact its share price. Since Pandora beefed up its local sales force presence, it managed to grow its local ad revenues by 155% to over $150 million in 2014.

It appears that the local digital audio market is no longer so sleepy as it may have appeared as social, mobile and video digital advertising claimed all the headlines.

The post IAB's New (Free) Digital Audio Buyer's Guide – Informs a Breakout Category appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

The digital audio space is really just beginning to hit its pace and so this is a perfect time for the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) to come out with its authoritative A Digital Audio Buyer’s Guide developed by IAB’s Digital Audio Committee (on which BIA/Kelsey serves).

The digital audio market felt a seismic rattle with the news yesterday of Spotify’s expected $400 million capital raise which would bring its valuation to $8.4 billion more than twice that of leading competitor, Pandora, who closed out yesterday with a $3.55 billion market cap.

As BIA/Kelsey noted in a digital audio report we released last year (sponsored by XAPPmedia), “The Internet radio revolution has been brewing for some time. Streaming audio has gone mainstream for audiences and advertisers. This revolution is foundational, meaning that new business models are forming around new audience behaviors supported by technology advances.”

IAB’s Digital Audio Buyer’s Guide is a comprehensive but very digestible 26 page educational and reference document that lays out in a clear fashion everything from “what is meant by ‘digital audio'” to sizing the digital audio market, providing best practices and digital audio ad samples to providing insights around planning and buying.

“Digital audio” is defined as comprising broadcast AM/FM stations online, pureplay online radio stations, streamed audio content with selections influenced by consumer input, and audio-on-demand (i.e., podcasts). With over 50% of the U.S. population as current monthly users of various digital audio services, IAB cites eMarketer data showing this will grow to over 190 monthly digital radio listeners by 2019.

In BIA/Kelsey’s updated forecast for broadcast radio, we’re estimating that the advertising revenue from AM/FM stations streaming online will double from $1 billion in 2014 to $2 billion by 2019. That’s a significant growth component for an industry that otherwise won’t see much revenue growth. And we see a lot of new competition both for listeners and in selling access to local audiences.

In the pureplay digital audio world, Pandora will be releasing its latest earnings report on April 23, 2015. We’ll see then how it stacks up in its drive to increase local ad revenues and how Spotify’s raise may impact its share price. Since Pandora beefed up its local sales force presence, it managed to grow its local ad revenues by 155% to over $150 million in 2014.

It appears that the local digital audio market is no longer so sleepy as it may have appeared as social, mobile and video digital advertising claimed all the headlines.

The post IAB’s New (Free) Digital Audio Buyer’s Guide – Informs a Breakout Category appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

In the overall advertising mix, digital will grow to make up one third of media spend in the next 5 years, according to Ducey. Within the audio ads, digital will take a 21 percent share in the next four years. That leaves less than 80 percent of audio ad dollars for “traditional” or broadcast radio. “This will be a blessing and a challenge to broadcast radio,” said Ducey.

Much of this opportunity in digital will lie in interactive forms of audio ads. The connected car is one area Ducey cites, due to a need for hands free interaction. Xapp Media, for example, pioneers an format that prompts users to engage through voice commands (see our previous video demo). The ads will appear within the growing inventory sources of streaming apps that serve audio ads in addition to standard display.

Download the report here (free report sponsored by Xapp Media).

The post The Internet Radio Revolution Has Arrived: A Conversation with Rick Ducey appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

And XappMedia has announced a partnership this week with NPR to bring audio ads in native form, essentially creating a brand new form of mobile advertising.

BIA/Kelsey Senior Analysts Mike Boland and Abid Chaudhry were back again this week to talk about these two topics today on the latest in our Analyst Roundtable series.

Chaudhry started the discussion with Facebook’s $2 billion purchase of the virtual reality gaming company Oculus VR. “We’re going to be in a post mobile world in a few years from now and Facebook is putting their bets down that virtual reality will be the next big thing,” Chaudhry said.

Chaudhry said he expects Oculus VR will continue as a gaming system and more of a “laboratory purchase” by Facebook. Mike chimed in and said,” This is a platform play. They want to own the physical touch-point with the consumer.”

Boland began his discussion of XappMedia’s new mobile ad unit with a video demonstration of how the new ad format will interface with consumers. The unit is expected to debut this week on the NPR platform. “I think this is going to represent a lot of the innovation we’re going to see just not audio ads but just in the general thinking of native advertising that’s more resident to the use case of mobile advertising.” Boland believes this should give advertisers a clearer picture on the ROI. For a more in-depth analysis, take a look at Mike’s recent blog post here.

Check out today’s analyst roundtable below:

The post Analyst Roundtable: XappMedia Introduces New Ad Format and Facebook's Buy into a Virtual Future appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

And XappMedia has announced a partnership this week with NPR to bring audio ads in native form, essentially creating a brand new form of mobile advertising.

BIA/Kelsey Senior Analysts Mike Boland and Abid Chaudhry were back again this week to talk about these two topics today on the latest in our Analyst Roundtable series.

Chaudhry started the discussion with Facebook’s $2 billion purchase of the virtual reality gaming company Oculus VR. “We’re going to be in a post mobile world in a few years from now and Facebook is putting their bets down that virtual reality will be the next big thing,” Chaudhry said.

Chaudhry said he expects Oculus VR will continue as a gaming system and more of a “laboratory purchase” by Facebook. Mike chimed in and said,” This is a platform play. They want to own the physical touch-point with the consumer.”

Boland began his discussion of XappMedia’s new mobile ad unit with a video demonstration of how the new ad format will interface with consumers. The unit is expected to debut this week on the NPR platform. “I think this is going to represent a lot of the innovation we’re going to see just not audio ads but just in the general thinking of native advertising that’s more resident to the use case of mobile advertising.” Boland believes this should give advertisers a clearer picture on the ROI. For a more in-depth analysis, take a look at Mike’s recent blog post here.

Check out today’s analyst roundtable below:

The post Analyst Roundtable: XappMedia Introduces New Ad Format and Facebook’s Buy into a Virtual Future appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

XappMedia might be a company you haven’t heard of, but that could change soon. It has spent the past few years pioneering a new ad format that prompts users to engage through voice commands. It’s well suited for lots of hands free moments (think drive time or jogging).

I’ve been talking to the company for the past year about its technology, and this week it debuts publicly. Known as Interactive Audio Ads (demo here), they’ll appear within the growing inventory sources of streaming apps that serve audio ads in addition to standard display.

The company also announced today that its launch partner is NPR. The new ad units will accompany audio spots within the NPR News app, and they’re already available for NPR advertisers that distribute audio ads through the app. Expect to see (or hear) it there, and likely other streaming apps soon.

This should resonate with advertisers in addition to being a fitting user experience. There will be a clearer ROI proposition for trackable and conversion-oriented actions that these voice commands drive (i.e., “download app”). In fact, NPR is already seeing $20 CPMs for some of these ads.

We’re bullish on the technology for that and lots of other reasons. One thing I like about it is that unlike the “feature creep” that has defined the world of mobile ads (slapping banner ads on a smaller screen), it takes a more native approach to the mobile form factor and specific use case.

This week’s announcement is also well timed for a white paper we have launching next week on audio ads. Until then, you can see our analyst round table this week. The video embedded below jumps right to the part where I explain and demo Xapp ads. Stay tuned for more.

The post Talk Back to Your Mobile Ad: XappMedia's New Ad Unit appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

XappMedia might be a company you haven’t heard of, but that could change soon. It has spent the past few years pioneering a new ad format that prompts users to engage through voice commands. It’s well suited for lots of hands free moments (think drive time or jogging).

I’ve been talking to the company for the past year about its technology, and this week it debuts publicly. Known as Interactive Audio Ads (demo here), they’ll appear within the growing inventory sources of streaming apps that serve audio ads in addition to standard display.

The company also announced today that its launch partner is NPR. The new ad units will accompany audio spots within the NPR News app, and they’re already available for NPR advertisers that distribute audio ads through the app. Expect to see (or hear) it there, and likely other streaming apps soon.

This should resonate with advertisers in addition to being a fitting user experience. There will be a clearer ROI proposition for trackable and conversion-oriented actions that these voice commands drive (i.e., “download app”). In fact, NPR is already seeing $20 CPMs for some of these ads.

We’re bullish on the technology for that and lots of other reasons. One thing I like about it is that unlike the “feature creep” that has defined the world of mobile ads (slapping banner ads on a smaller screen), it takes a more native approach to the mobile form factor and specific use case.

This week’s announcement is also well timed for a white paper we have launching next week on audio ads. Until then, you can see our analyst round table this week. The video embedded below jumps right to the part where I explain and demo Xapp ads. Stay tuned for more.

The post Talk Back to Your Mobile Ad: XappMedia’s New Ad Unit appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.