Ciaran O'Kane revaluates his sketch on AI's impact on the marketing funnel, and adds audio into the mix...

As part of her ATS London/MadTechMoney opening address, CEO Rachel Smith, presented a ExchangeWire's latest MadTech Sketch to over 650 attendees. The sketch put forward the idea that mid-to-upper funnel advertising will be crucial as AI and chatbots disrupt the marketing funnel.

Now that sketch did have a glaring omission: audio. Time to take another look and add audio into the mix.

Audio is one of the most overlooked channels in data-driven marketing.  

Sure, it has measurement issues and can't compete with the last-click attribution “goalhangers”, taking all the glory and reward for handy conversion tap-in (Google, Meta, Amazon et al).  But that will be fixed, as we build AI powered attribution. 

But for brand building, nothing compares to audio. I'm still humming radio jingles for random Dublin shopping centres and a local butcher chain from the early 90s. So niche, yet so memorable. Think what you could do with AI-powered jingles trained on classic radio ads with personalisation. 

The trust factor for audio is also massive. As people flee the enshitification of platforms, podcasts become a refuge. That inventory is highly sought after. 

With the disruption of lower-funnel marketing, audio sits in that sweet spot before the prompt. 

We will do a  deep dive sketch on the changing audio landscape in the coming weeks. In the meantime, I'll leave you with that jingle: “Northside, Northside. The great, great shopping centre… “