We’ve all heard of out-of-home advertising: staples such as billboards and subway ads. Audio is one of the oldest forms of advertising, from terrestrial radio to pandora. Shopper marketing has been around for decades to steer in-store shoppers with last-mile messaging.

These are all common staples of local advertising. But combine them, and you may have something interesting. This combination of OOH, audio, and shopper marketing is what Vibenomics calls audio out-of-home. It gives retailers a way to more intelligently monetize the soundwave inventory in their locations through targeted messaging.

The company reaches 150 million monthly uniques according to chief strategy officer Paul Brenner, our latest guest on Heard on the Street (listen above). That’s twice the size of Pandora in audience reach and larger than most cable broadcast stations, while offering ads at the point of purchase.

“It’s taking your traditional music and messaging platform — whether that’s the one’s you know today like Mood Media or Pandora for Business — and exposing that in a way that there’s real-time ad insertion available to advertisers through their DSP. So audio out-of-home is essentially the music and messaging that you would hear — music, promos, ads — completely automated all the way down to the location player of a retail store, bought and sold through traditional programmatic.”  

Brenner says that this medium is most conducive to retail environments where there’s a considered purchase (like a Verizon store) or ample product variability (like a grocery store). The latter is the longstanding domain of shopper marketing, which is the area Vibenomics is disrupting most.

“At an agency level, we are getting some audio money and some out-of-home money. But the biggest interest comes from shopper marketing. Because we have a relationship with the retailer — along with a buy at a reasonable CPM — we can show the delivery of the impression. We can provide them a lift study. We can provide them an ROI study. We have the POS data with the retailer… We seem to be winning a bigger share of the shopper marketing budget because they know what to do with that.” 

As for what’s next, Brenner wants to move into advertiser verticals and retail categories, including sporting goods and pet supplies. Vibenomics also has an opportunity to offer its analytics engine for a sort of “reporting-as-a-service” function that retailers can use in their out-of-home-audio endeavors.

We discuss the ins and outs on the latest episode of Heard on the Street. Listen above, find out more about Heard on the Street, and see our episode archive here. Contact us if you’d like to sponsor an episode, and check out Street Fight’s media kit for the full slate of visibility options.