WWO: Best Practices for Talent Reads
Cumulus Media | Westwood One Audio Active Group’s weekly blog post focuses on talent read ads on AM/FM radio and in podcasts based on a study from WPP Media and System1 titled, “The Creator Effectiveness Playbook: How to Build Your Brand with Creators.” The study measured creative responses for 1,217 
paid ads among 182,500 TikTok users and connected that to in-market brand lift data. The study covered eight global markets and $71 million of media spend, which generated 23.6 billion impressions. The best practices revealed by the research include: 1) Host-read ads generate greater impact: System1 and WPP Media find creator ads (a.k.a. “host reads”) drive greater brand memory lift, which is the combination of brand awareness and ad recall; 2) Two best practices: Say the name of the advertiser within the first two seconds and ensure strong positive emotion via entertainment; 3) “Say it and show it”: Saying the brand and showing it in the first two seconds of the ad drives the strongest brand recognition; 4) Conduct a “brand early and often” creative audit: Watch/listen to all your ads. Check off if your brand is mentioned in the first two seconds and if there are at least five or more audio track brand mentions in 30-second ads; 5) Use both salesmanship and showmanship: Emotion-based creative that is funny and entertaining builds stronger brands and generates greater business outcomes; and 6) Utilize right brain elements such as characters with vitality, story unfolding, clear sense of place, sounds of the living, dialogue, word play, distinctive accents, and music with discernable melody. See the full blog post here.
