Mindshare and Shazam Launch AUDIO+

GLOBAL INITIATIVE TO HELP CLIENTS LEVERAGE THEIR AUDIO BRAND ASSETS FOR CONSUMER ENGAGEMENT

LONDON, UK — Mindshare Worldwide, the global media agency network and Shazam®, the world’s leading media engagement company, are launching AUDIO+, a program to help leading brands audit, map and capitalise on the sound-based elements of their global advertising campaigns. The companies will work together with Mindshare clients to drive consumer interactions via second screen mobile devices using the Shazam App. The Shazam App uses leading, proprietary audio content recognition (ACR) technology to identify in just seconds any of a brand’s audio assets from TV, radio and in-store adverts and connects the consumer to a tailored mobile experience for the campaign.

Brands now operate in an adaptive and fast-paced media environment, so the need to understand the brand’s asset map and to optimise all aspects of it, from text to video, on a global basis, has become more important. Without knowing all the touch points of interaction between brand and consumer, a company can be missing out on the opportunity to interact with their customer and carry on the conversation. Text (search and social), video (YouTube and other platforms) and image (social such as Facebook) assets are all audited and distributed as part of a brand’s paid, owned and earned media strategy, but audio assets have until now gone un-categorised and un-leveraged.

AUDIO+ addresses this by auditing, mapping and then leveraging a brand’s audio assets, helping to provide insights to clients into the ROI on sound-based assets for the first time. All of the client’s advertising campaigns with audio can be Shazam-enabled, potentially presenting different mobile experiences to consumers depending on the type of media or placement.

The deal will provide Mindshare clients with: insights into the ROI on any sound-based assets for the first time (in part using the Shazam Engagement Rate launched and available in the U.S. in June 2013); a bespoke audio audit and strategy that will apply Shazam’s audio recognition service across TV, Radio, Branded Video and In-Store media; attractive pricing for Shazam’s development and license costs; access to consumer engagement data, reporting and insights; first access to Shazam betas for new capabilities and enhancements; co-produced workshops; and an impact study into the value of audio branding on brand metrics, ROI and other benefits.

Nick Emery, Mindshare Worldwide CEO, said: “Brands have spent the last twelve months optimizing their owned assets for search – text, images, video, etc. – they now need to look at the broader band territory around sound given the rise of technologies like Shazam. TV and online video is an audio visual experience, it’s time that brands were given the power to leverage the audio, not just the picture.”

Rich Riley, Shazam CEO, said: ”This program will help brands worldwide to understand more about when and where people want to engage for more information about their products and services, whether it’s on television, in the cinema, on the radio, in retail locations, online or anywhere else. With Mindshare mapping and the Shazam Engagement Rate, the partnership offers brands an unprecedented way of looking at their ad spend to see which ads at are the most effective and see the most engagement. Additionally, working with Mindshare will help extend these insights so that companies can see the full range of where and how they are reaching their core audience.”

Financial details of the deal are undisclosed.

For further information please contact:
Greg Brooks at Mindshare: [email protected] or+44 (0) 7826 869312

ABOUT MINDSHARE
Mindshare is a global media agency network with billings in excess of US$29.2 billion (source: RECMA). The network consists of 113 offices in 82 countries throughout North America, Latin America, Europe, Middle East, and Asia Pacific, each dedicated to forging competitive marketing advantage for businesses and their brands. Mindshare is part of GroupM, which oversees the media investment management sector for WPP, the world’s leading communications services group.

ABOUT GROUPM
GroupM is the leading global media investment management operation. We serve as the parent company to WPP media agencies including Maxus, MEC, MediaCom, and Mindshare. Our primary purpose is to maximize the performance of WPP’s media communications agencies on behalf of our clients, our stakeholders and our people by operating as a parent and collaborator in performanceenhancing activities such as trading, content creation, sports, digital, finance, proprietary tool development and other business-critical capabilities. The agencies that comprise GroupM are all global operations in their own right with leading market positions. The focus of GroupM is the intelligent application of physical and intellectual scale to benefit trading, innovation, and new commmnication services, to bring competitive advantage to our clients and our companies.

ABOUT SHAZAM
Shazam is the world’s leading media engagement company with more than 375 million people in 200 countries and adding another 10 million new users each month. With the industry’s unlimited fastest tagging in the Free and premium Encore Apps on iOS and Android devices, Shazam is the best way for people to discover, explore, buy, and share more music, TV shows and branded content they love.

Shazam makes it easy for people to share their discoveries with their friends on Facebook using the Shazam Friends feature, as well as on Twitter and Google+. For people who don’t yet have the Shazam application on their smartphone, it is available for FREE on every major platform and can be found on iTunes App Store, Google play, Amazon App Store, AT&T’s AppCenter, Verizon VCast app store, Nokia Store, Windows Phone Marketplace, BlackBerry App World, and GetJar.

For further information about Shazam Entertainment visit www.shazam.com and @ShazamNews. You can also follow us on Facebook or Google+. For daily music updates follow the Shazam Blog and @Shazam.