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Within the bubble I work and live in – that of voice assistants, audio, and Sonic products and solutions – the proclamation that audio has arrived is undeniable. For us, the inhabitants of this bubble, the trends are clear, the facts undeniable, and the patterns difficult to ignore. But in my conversations with marketers and other executives in business functions outside the bubble – professionals grappling with an endless barrage of new tools, strategies, and tactics while keeping an eye on time-sensitive results and the bottom line – I have the perception is very different. Audio as a category that can be assigned to an owner and budget, as a marketer is now doing with mobile and social, has yet to emerge. Instead, marketers feel like they are being pelted by random manifestations of audio, from hardware to software to content and experiences, and they are unsure what to do or where to start.

A baseline sketch can explain not only why the advent of audio is as significant a disruption as that of mobile and social media, but also how that disorder is different. Unless marketers fully understand what makes audio both compelling and unique, they will continue to be confused by the various manifestations of its presence and growth, and unclear what action to take, let alone what strategies they are formulating and what resources they are should provide.

The value proposition of audio

Perhaps the best way to explain audio’s value proposition is to focus on two form factors that have quickly become mainstream over the past five years: smart speakers and earbuds.

Let’s start with some basic numbers.

Smart speakers hit the scene seriously in 2016 when the Amazon Echo and Google Home saw unprecedented adoption compared to other digital devices like laptops, cellphones, and smartphones. According to the Business Insider Smart Speaker Report, 50.2% of US consumers have a smart speaker at home as of April 2021, with growth of at least 21% expected from 2020, according to Canalys. The growth in earbuds has been consistently more amazing: a year-over-year growth rate of 33% in 2021 and an estimated total shipments of 310 million units this year.

The obvious question is: why is this happening – and why now? Given the screen hardware – HD TVs, tablets, and smartphones are becoming more affordable (unless you want the latest high-end iPhone, of course) – why turn to a medium that doesn’t seem to deliver much more but much less (no pictures, only sound)?

The rising demand for smart speakers and earbuds is essentially the same reason the BlackBerry 7230 was eagerly adopted when it was launched in 2003, and the same reason why the smartphone quickly went mainstream with the introduction of the iPhone in 2007 allow us to do things in situations where it was not possible or convenient to use the laptop. For example, with our new handheld devices, we could now read our emails while walking down the street with Blackberry in hand, reading the news and playing games while riding the train, and doing basically anything what we could do with a laptop – but now literally anywhere. Our physical tethering – to the office or home where we needed the ethernet or Wi-Fi – was broken.

Related article: The Future is Multimodal: Why Voice Alone Will Never Be the Answer

Marketing Implications for the Rise of Smart Speakers and Earphones

A new kind of liberation is taking place with smart speakers and earphones. Namely, we are freed from our reliance on our eyes and hands to do things. Whether laptop, tablet or smartphone, in all cases we had to look for something, locate it, hold it, wipe it, pinch it, type it and put it down. Both our eyes and hands were held captive while we were using these devices. In other words, while the Blackberry and smartphone freed us from a certain place, the smart speaker and earbuds freed us from doing the same things in new modal situations. For example, we can listen to podcasts while jogging, ask about the weather while repairs are being carried out under the hood, request information about potted plants while potting, or ask about dimensional conversions when preparing food. Importantly, it couldn’t be done in front of smart speakers and earbuds without us pausing our work, freeing our hands (and washing and drying them often) and then typing on a keyboard or kissing a surface.

The effects are enormous. A whole new world of situations has emerged for the marketer, offering radically new opportunities to get in touch with prospects and customers. Audio as a vehicle for marketing products and services – so the good old radio – has of course been around for more than a century and is still a relevant, effective and convincing channel to reach buyers and to build and deepen brand loyalty. But until now audio has remained a one-way medium, the listener just a passive receiver of information. With smart speakers and earbuds, the listener is now also a participant, initiator of engagements. By speaking naturally, they ask about things they want – information, experiences, interactions – and can do so with minimum effort and maximum convenience.

The exciting challenge for marketers is to identify the ways the brand can fulfill a need through this simple and elegant, yet powerful, new old medium. We are already seeing this in the latest televisions to buy from Costco: No more typing on keyboards when watching a movie or changing channels: you just click the remote and ask.

We’ll soon see calls to action from packages, television and radio ads, billboards and magazines, storefronts and supermarket aisles, all of which allow users to switch from being a brand to interacting with that brand without doing more than speaking. The possibilities are as varied as the situations in which our eyes and hands are occupied. And if you think about it, and ironically not least thanks to laptops, tablets and smartphones, we are almost always in precisely these situations today.

Related article: Getting started with speech? Think mobile

Dr. Ahmed Bouzid is the CEO of Witlingo, a McLean, Virginia-based startup that develops products and solutions that enable brands to connect with their customers and prospects through voice, audio and conversational AI.