There’s More to Imagine When you Listen: Behind Audible’s New Campaign

A commuter stands on a subway platform, surrounded not by drab walls and concrete, but undulating deep-sea creatures. Elsewhere, a small dust cloud caused by a home improvement project becomes the breath of an ancient dragon. This is the power of imagination, an alchemy that happens when people listen to Audible, and it’s the core of our new global brand campaign, expressed in the tagline, “There’s more to imagine when you listen.”

The campaign, which launched June 3 and will continue to roll out throughout June and July, leverages rich new creative, unexpected IRL and social media activations, and some of the world’s best-known authors, creators, performers and influencers—all working together to harness and reflect the transformative power of storytelling.

Susan Jurevics, Audible’s Chief Brand and International Officer, says, “We know from research and direct interactions with our customers that listening to Audible brings more color and excitement to the everyday rhythm of life. Our listener base spans the globe, with a wide range of habits and interests and in countries where the audio category is at different stages of awareness—so in crafting this campaign, it was essential for us to identify a voice that could appeal to an expansive worldwide audience. We wanted to marry known, universal use cases with specific content genres.”

The extensive scope of this, the first truly global brand campaign for Audible, required a nearly year-long coordinated effort among several Audible teams and select external agencies around the world, including Fold7, Audible’s dedicated creative agency in the UK; global agencies Wavemaker for media buying and WPP for social media management; and Canada-based Viral Nation for influencers and social shoot creative.

Leading this workstream was James Finn, Audible’s Global Head of Brand and Content Marketing. He says the strategy was to find “a way for us to unite our customers, creators and employees behind this Audible brand promise of bringing imagination to life. Through our creative execution and the framing of the campaign, we focused on everyday situations in which we know people love to listen, and the vast, inspiring world it creates for them.”

Among the most exciting elements of the launch are a series of commercials from one of the most awarded ad directors in history, Antoine Bardou Jacquet. Each spot highlights a genre and a popular everyday situation to show what Finn describes as "Audible’s power to transform the world around the listener.” For example, a harried commute becomes a zen moment to focus on wellbeing, and household chores become an engrossing sci-fi adventure.

So how can a brand campaign be both globally and locally relevant at the same time? Albert Hogan, Audible’s Senior Director of Brand and Content Marketing for Europe, worked side by side with Jess Kessler, Head of Brand and Content Marketing for North America, to coordinate their teams and external agencies around this effort. They learned from the research that what unifies customers across marketplaces is when people tend to listen to Audible the most: while commuting, relaxing and exercising.

The key was to depict those universal scenarios while being inclusive and flexible enough to reflect the experiences of listeners in different countries: casting locally, highlighting popular content in each marketplace’s language, and even adjusting the creative to be more relevant—a subway in one country might be an overground train in another. “We consulted creative experts in each country, taking cultural nuances into consideration to make sure audiences see something instantly familiar in the campaign,” says Hogan.

Creators, too, figure largely in the campaign. “Our creators are the backbone of our work,” says Hogan, “so we are working closely with narrators, authors and behind-the-mic producers to bring the magic of audio storytelling to life.” And since Audible is a home for both established and emerging creators, Kessler adds, “We have notable authors and performers who will talk about what inspired their imaginations, like fan favorite Richard Armitage and bestselling author Michael Connelly, while we are also highlighting the next generation of storytellers: creators from our Indigenous Writers’ Circle, our Podcast Development Program, and our Emerging Playwrights Fund."

Of course, celebrating creators extends to social media, where fans come together as a community and millions of people create engaging content every day. From the start, Rosina Shiliwala, Audible’s Global Head of Social Media, was excited about tapping the imaginations of consumers on social media to support the global brand campaign, including leveraging influencers. As part of our global influencer program, “we work with social media creators who share their love of Audible with their own audiences, in their own organic way,” she explains.

For the campaign launch, the team brought together four very well-known influencers from around the world—US-based Brittany Broski, UK’s Ayamé Ponder, Australia’s Oliver Mills, and Mexican gymnast and influencer Daniel Corral—to shoot a scene that expresses the transformative power of an absorbing listen, using examples from four of the most popular audio genres: romance, fantasy, well-being and thriller. “We used the backdrop of a café, since it’s a globally beloved venue where people are using headphones all day long,” Shiliwala says. “It was a great way to bring the power of listening to Audible to life for people around the world.”

The filming was the jumping off point for an apparent love story between Ponder and Mills on TikTok, which has driven millions of views, thousands of comments from enthusiastic fans hungry for more, and substantial media coverage, due to its intersection with another love story that had been playing out on Ponder’s channel beforehand.

In addition to digital spaces, the campaign also includes exciting IRL takeovers, specifically in places ideal for listening to Audible. “We have placed a strong emphasis on outdoor channels, paying particular attention to commute and travel situations in order to tap into key listening occasions,” says Polly Blenkinship, Audible’s Global Head of Awareness Media. Her team has channeled Kessler and Hogan’s creative ideas into immersive, surprising experiences, using “innovative outdoor technology such as 3D and ‘see through’ panels, showing how media and creative can work together to bring ideas to life.”

As the campaign continues throughout the year, Shiliwala’s team plans to collaborate with Audible’s local marketplaces to feature more social media creators from around the world as they share their own experiences of listening and imagination, and Blenkinship’s team will unveil even more transporting real-world activations.

A number of initiatives designed to include and inspire Audible employees will also continue to roll out throughout the year, such as interactive photobooths, a travel photo contest, and more, all around the theme of “where does your imagination take you?” By sharing personal stories of imagination on Audible’s intranet and internal newsletters, employees will learn more about each other and connect to their colleagues in other countries.

And that’s the central point of the global brand campaign: Meaningfully connecting through the power of imagination. When Finn reflects on the campaign’s initial catalyst one year ago, he says, “Something we really wanted to do from the outset was bring all the different teams throughout Audible into the process, including our creators and employees, to involve them and inspire excitement and ownership. It’s something we are proud of and plan to build on in the future.”