This change, however, creates a challenge for brands. If you are an advertiser, you need to rethink your content strategy to increase your brand or product's visibility in AI-powered search summaries. The challenge is to ensure that an AI assistant not only recognises a brand’s offering but also understands the narrative the brand wants to deliver and does so in a brand-compliant tone. The challenge is particularly acute in audio, where we use a single sense, and only one search result is returned.Brands need to think harder about how they differentiate and position themselves front of mind. The need for a unique and consistent audio creative approach is, therefore, paramount. Brands must sound unique to enhance recognition. Or put another way, they are going to increasingly need potential customers to recognise who they are before AI-led voice search leads them elsewhere. Put simply, brands, therefore, need to focus more on fame.

To succeed in an increasingly AI-dominated advertising world, brands must renew focus on ‘traditional’ media channels like TV, OOH and of course audio; platforms that generate huge reach quickly. These channels can easily do the heavy lifting for brand building and create opportunities for consumers to engage with AI assistants via voice.

And then we come to targeting. Targeting, of course, has its place: when target audiences are particularly niche, when behaviour is observable, when timing truly matters, and when you are closing the gap between intent and purchase, precision delivers real value. But audio excels at creating and amplifying fame. It can’t, however, do this in silos. In this new age, it is perhaps more important than ever that we take a step back and remember what audio is especially good at - reaching a lot of people very quickly and cost-effectively. 68% of commercial radio listening, for example, is still offline.

And then we must think about how audio creatives amplify fame. Think of the Cadbury Gorilla - you didn’t remember it because it was targeted at you, you remember it because everyone saw it, talked about it and ‘In the Air Tonight’ is a known household song. It is the same with the Meerkats, Go Compare, and McDonald's. And did somebody say Just Eat?

Audio should also be a key consideration of a wider brand architecture and be consistent across all audio touchpoints; linear, digital audio, TV, BVOD – basically anything you can hear. Consistency is key, and the creative we serve to listeners should never be an afterthought.

With a defined audio brand, audio can work effectively through the sales funnel. Targeting should then be applied to influence business outcomes, for example, broader linear campaigns for fame, digital overlays for mid-funnel consideration and using behavioural signals and personalisation for lower-funnel conversion. Within audio, brands must now think of media, targeting and creative as one. Joining them all up will give flexibility and advantages as we encourage purchases.

Kantar’s BrandZ research shows that brands with strong brand assets achieve 76% higher brand power and 138% higher perceptions of advertising strength. This includes sonic assets. It’s worth taking the time to get this right. A study by System1 and Radiocentre also found that “introducing a brand’s distinctive audio assets (e.g. music, characters, etc.) earlier in the ad, ideally within the first few seconds and maintaining fluency throughout, can help listeners process the wider ad content/message more effortlessly.”

Creating audio assets may sound daunting, but in reality, it is very simple. When used time after time, consistent audio brand assets strengthen both short-term impact and long-term brand memory, but they need the opportunity to be heard, and if they are heard and recognised, then a brand is in a better position in an increasingly AI-dominated world.