ARN has announced the launch of ARN Neuro Lab – the first in-house media research initiative of its kind in Australia.
Backed by a neuroscientific research approach, the ARN Neuro Lab will aim to deliver a better understanding of consumer behaviour and provide new insights about the power of audio to inform better content creation, audience connection and commercial investment.
Led by Research and Neuroscience Specialist, Dr Shannon Bosshard, and ARN’s director of research and Insights, Justin Stone, ARN Neuro Lab will focus on conducting studies and presenting findings to deliver practical ways for commercial partners to maximise impact and connection using audio.
Dr Shannon Bosshard
The first study, called Sound You Can See, was conducted across 2020 to explore how audio can influence consumer engagement, mood and attitude towards brands. Among a range of findings, the study showed audio builds strong connections between audiences and brands and hearing an advertisement across two audio formats, such as radio and podcasts, generated a 200% uplift in attention and 134% uplift in memory for the content. Further, audio was shown to enhance the effectiveness of other media and can increase memory for out of home and TV messages by an average of 35%.
ARN’s CEO Ciaran Davis said, “The launch of the ARN Neuro Lab reinforces our ambition to be the leaders in defining audio. It’s the first in-house media facility of its type in Australia and demonstrates our commitment to helping our commercial partners maximise the impact of their investment in audio while arming ARN with a better understanding for how radio, music and podcasts can be used together to meet the audio needs of all Australians.”
The ARN Neuro Lab can be accessed by clients to evaluate and optimise creative impact across radio, music and podcasts. Clients will be able to plan audio that maximises multimedia effect, understand brand salience in their category, and how audio advertising can influence it.
Dr Shannon Bosshard said: “Launching the ARN Neuro Lab is a career highlight for me. To be able to take my academic interests and put them into action, within an applied setting, is incredibly rewarding. Much of the work we plan to roll out this year will be global-firsts, and will help ARN be at the forefront of audio excellence. The results we’ve seen from our first few projects are encouraging and will further reinforce the power of audio as a means for human connection.”
Justin Stone
ARN’s director of research and insights, Justin Stone said, “The ARN Neuro Lab will be a powerful resource for our commercial and content teams alike. We are aiming to give clients a greater depth of customer insight and help to evaluate, then optimise, the content they use to connect with audiences. Combined with our existing qualitative and quantitative methodologies the work we do through the Neuro Lab will give ARN and its clients a significant advantage by delivering an unparalleled understanding of how audio can achieve the results we desire.”
The ARN Neuro Lab will publish findings of the Sound You Can See study and additional research papers next year.