Westwood One is a longtime believer in the power of sound because it moves the needle for brands. We recently held the fifth annual Westwood One Sports Sound Awards for advertisers in our Super Bowl broadcast. This consumer and industry contest celebrates creative excellence and highlights the power of sonic branding. This year, the 2018 Westwood One Sports Sound Awards winners were Motel 6 and GEICO.

VERITONIC, an audio effectiveness platform, tested all of the Super Bowl ads in our broadcast to see how likeable they were, what emotions they generated, and how well they drove purchase intent. Data was collected from just under 1,550 panelists.

Here are highlights from the results:

Clothing, quick service restaurants, and auto aftermarket were most likeable
Being likeable endears a brand to a consumer. If a sonic brand triggers a positive emotion, listeners will similarly experience those good feelings for the brand.

In measures of likeability, Wrangler scored top ratings with their “Outdoor” spot touting its product’s versatility and credibility.

Music played a big role in high ranking spots. Jingles lead into many ads. McDonald’s classic “I’m Lovin’ It” sonic cue also made an appearance in their top ranked commercial.

Quick service restaurants, home improvement, and auto aftermarket scored high in trustworthiness
KFC’s ad voiced by recognizable country megastar Reba McEntire saw the highest score in trustworthiness. Her voice is familiar and easily placed.

Kidde, the leader in fire safety technology, saw multiple ads ranked high in trustworthiness. This is an important brand attribute for a company deeply invested in fire safety education.

Auto aftermarket brands like AutoZone also appeared in the top rankings. These brands want to engender a feeling of trust in their shoppers.

Great audio creative causes purchase desire
A key performance metric is intent to purchase or take action. Having strong purchase intent means consumers are on their way through the “purchase funnel,” the pathway shoppers take on the purchase journey.

Hagerty Insurance scored top honors in increase in purchase intent from pre- to post-exposure with their spot featuring a grandfather bonding with his grandchild in his car. Listen to it below:

Categories that ranked the highest in purchase intent were insurance, small business products, and home improvement.

The average increase in intent to purchase of all tested ads was 9.3, showing the importance of investing in quality creative.

Millennials respond positively to great ads
VERITONIC has a global database of audio creative testing. On average, spots see a total creative score of 62. The Super Bowl ads tested from our broadcast saw a spike. Millennials gave the spots an average score of 76. The persons 35+ demo’s average score for the Super Bowl ads was 72.

These differences align with VERITONIC global audio trends: younger demographics frequently respond more positively to audio ads than older demographics.

Top industries for Millennials were clothing and retail.

Responses to ads differ between males and females while highest ranked categories were similar
Looking at intent to purchase, males had a smaller change post-exposure compared to females who saw a larger jump. This suggests that females may be more open to ads, at least in the context of the Super Bowl.

The best performing category for males was clothing, followed by electronics and quick service restaurants. Rounding out the top five ad categories were auto aftermarket and consumer packaged goods.

Females similarly saw clothing, electronics, and quick service restaurants rise to the top. Retail and auto aftermarket rounded out the top scored ads for women.

Westwood One is the authority on effective creative
Through extensive audio creative testing, we know what works and how to get everyone listening. Likeability, trustworthiness, and purchase intent are all important metrics when it comes to great audio creative.

Great audio creative goes hand in hand with reach. Westwood One not only champions excellence in audio creative, it guarantees performance with the audio industry’s first ROI guarantee. Click here to find out more about the Westwood One ROI Guarantee.

Key takeaways:

• Clothing, quick service restaurants, and auto aftermarket were the most likeable
• Quick service restaurants, home improvement, and auto aftermarket scored high in trustworthiness
• Great audio creative causes purchase desire
• Millennials respond positively to great ads
• Responses to ads differ between males and females while highest ranked categories were similar
• Westwood One is the authority on effective creative

Head over to TheSoundAwards.com to listen to the rest of the amazing entries from this year’s competition.

Lauren Vetrano is Director of Content Marketing at Cumulus | Westwood One.

Andrew Eisner is COO and Co-Founder of VERITONIC.

Contact the Insights team at CorpMarketing@westwoodone.com.