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Ears Are The New Eyes.

Generation Headphones as a Unique Target Group.

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Schindler Parent > Blog > Ears are the new eyes

If a target group can be described as keen to consume, aware of trends, innovative, and leisure-oriented, advertisers immediately get attentive. If they then learn that this target group can be reached at unique touchpoints of which advertisers could only dream for the longest time, they are over the moon. The magic words are online audio. I have already dealt with this new type of radio advertising and its advantages in my previous blog post ‘RadiOnline’. Now, I want to delve deeper into understanding that particularly interesting online audio target group. More precisely: We will be looking at just one specific part of the target group: The generation headphones. Whether it is on the bus, on the street, at the airport, or in the gym – you will always encounter people with headphones, or earplugs. Their way of consuming audio content clearly shows their desire for freedom to create their own personal audio experience in privacy and their own personal taste.

The generation headphones is thus a social phenomenon characterized by unprecedented mobility and individuality. Here, the smartphone represents their gateway to the world. The 2016 study VuMA Touchpoints shows that although the target group tends to be younger, they are not ‘kids’ either. 75% are between 14 and 39 years old, the rest is 40 and older. Every social class and every age group is represented within the generation headphones. With annual growth rates in the double-digit range, the number of now 10.3 million Germans who are currently regarded as relevant in audio advertising, will quickly increase in the near future. Companies are especially interested in this target group due to the combination of a particularly high purchasing power with distinctive consumerism, the target group’s high awareness of trends, and its extraordinary leisure behaviour. In addition, the target group uses the internet almost constantly. Its members are not only always online, but they also search for products, order, buy, and book anything and everything on the internet. It is precisely this media behaviour that makes the generation headphones hardly accessible via traditional media. Advertising that works in the old linear ways and depends on fixed TV times simply no longer matches with the selective and instantaneous behaviour in which this target group uses media. Not even daily newspapers manage to reach them.

This target group receives their news and information via smartphone and no longer depends on print products. This is where online audio comes into play. The generation headphones does not only wear headphones to keep their ears warm. They consume audio content. As a traditional medium that people can always carry with them, audio is made for this target group. And of course, audio has been optimally adapted to the new lifestyle habits. Thus, it has been able to maintain its old strength to very quickly reach many people, and also to expand its new, additional strong suits. Because audio has gone online and become mobile. Read more on what additional strengths there are in my previous blog post ‘RadiOnline’. Audio covers all technological platforms from radio alarm clocks to small kitchen radios, to computers, and smartphones. On top of that the target group often uses audio in parallel with other media. Audio is thus always present and hits more touchpoints than any other medium – also thanks to the new possibilities online audio can offer.

Whether it is at home when getting up, during breakfast, in the shower, in the car, on the train, during sports or travelling, even at work, and not least at the POS, the combination of FM radio and online audio enables contact points throughout the entire customer journey. Future technological developments will only increase the strengths of audio media. My next blog post will thus follow up on audio trends that can currently be predicted, and the groundbreaking new advantages that can be expected from those trends. So click around regularly. It’ll be worth it. Sounds interesting to you? Then I look forward to reading your questions and to having exciting discussions.

It hasn’t sparked yet? I’m happy to answer your questions:

David Bumiller

Copywriter
david.bumiller@schindlerparent.de