The group is led by Chief Insights Officer Pierre Bouvard, whose public-facing work includes managing the Westwood One blog — now named Audio Active Group, co-branded with Cumulus Media and Westwood One.
Cumulus says the new group “is the natural evolution from a sponsor-focused research and insights group to a true comprehensive marketing advisory.” It promises to help clients measure the impact of an entire audio campaign — not only the parts which are activated within Cumulus properties.
In addition to the Audio Active Group blog, Cumulus is taking advantage of this announcement to highlight the group’s newly renamed YouTube channel HERE. It contains the library of nearly 50 sales videos.
Some areas of specialization for the Audio Active Group:
- Audio creative best practices: Advising on the development and testing of sonic logos and advertising creative; offering recommendations on how to optimize and enhance current creative; advising on how to deploy new creative strategies to meet campaign objectives
- Media planning: Providing recommendations on daypart mix, flighting, weight levels, podcast genres, and AM/FM radio programming formats to meet campaign objectives, based on audience analytics
- Strategic allocation within audio: Advising on the right mix of ad-supported audio platforms
- Measurement of the entire audio investment: Advising on the right approach for brands to measure campaign effectiveness, including brand lift, sales effect, and search and site attribution
“One-third of brands in audio today are new to the medium. As major brands discover audio, they have lots of questions about audio creative strategy, media planning, and campaign measurement, and we have a deep understanding of what audio campaigns can accomplish,” said Suzanne Grimes, EVP, Marketing for CUMULUS MEDIA and President, Westwood One.
.