• by Sarah Mahoney  @mahoney_sarah, June 4, 2024

While Audible has been winning over book lovers since 1995, it’s never used a unifying campaign. That’s changing with the introduction of “There’s more to imagine when you listen,” a global effort designed to replace disparate marketing efforts.

“As our business evolved into a global leader of audiobooks, podcasts and original content, the time was right to establish a cohesive voice and approach,” says Susan Jurevics, Audible’s chief brand and international officer. “Historically, we had numerous marketplaces producing individualized campaigns with different taglines and different creative choices.”

Audible developed the new platform on three continents, shooting in Brazil, Thailand, and the U.K., and it will run in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, India, Spain, the U.K. and the U.S.

“The maturity of the audio category varies in countries around the world and this campaign takes that into account,” she tells Marketing Daily via email. “Our objective is to ensure that each territory's unique cultural nuances and consumer behaviors are taken into account, allowing us to deliver a campaign that is globally cohesive yet locally relevant.”

The ads’ execution explores how Audible can immerse listeners in extraordinary worlds while they engage in routine daily activities like commuting, exercising, cooking, cleaning, or soaking in the tub. “This brand campaign is defined by rich and immersive visual and linguistic devices, just like Audible’s unparalleled access to entertainment, escapism, education and culture,” the company says in the announcement.

Fold7, the London-based ad agency, created the campaign, with Antoine Bardou-Jacquet directing. Some spots feature elaborate alien scenes, with characters disappearing upwards in what turns out to be a vacuum cleaner operated by an Audible sci-fi fan. Others feature a hard-working team of murder detectives flooded out of their offices in torrents of water from a listener’s bathtub.

Jurevics says the ads are running on TV, digital, out-of-home, cinema, radio and social, with a rollout structured to maximize impact and reach.

Audible, acquired by Amazon in 2008, says its catalog now has over 900,000 audio titles, including audiobooks, Audible Originals and podcasts. While it remains the dominant player in audiobooks, it is facing new competition.

Spotify, which leads in podcasts, recently announced it was adding audiobooks for premium subscribers. While Audible subscribers purchase books using credits, Spotify’s approach gives subscribers 15 hours of listening per month, which it says should average about two audiobooks. (Fans of best-selling writers like Sarah Jane Maas and Erik Larson, with books that take 16-hours plus to listen to, might disagree.)

Once Spotify subscribers hit the 15-hour cap, they can either pay a “top-up” charge or buy the audiobooks a-la-carte.