Frank Raines, former CEO and Chairman of Fannie Mae and Pat Higbie, a serial entrepreneur, have invented a new type of mobile ad that’s so intuitive, they can’t believe it doesn’t already exist.
Called XAPP (pronounced “Zap”), Raines and Higbie’s product allows listeners to talk back to radio ads when they come up on Pandora, Spotify, NPR, and other mobile apps. It uses an iPhone or Android device’s microphone to let users actively participate in the ads, rather than passively listen — or tune them out.
For example: Ourisman Toyota ran a 20% off promotion on NPR for listeners who booked appointments through the radio ad. “Want to learn more?” The voiceover said. “After the beep, just say ‘XAPP Me!'” The listener then heard a beep and was given two seconds to repeat the words into their mobile microphones.
“We give the listener a specific word or phrase to say,” says Higbie. “That’s the simplicity we believe is necessary. What Siri and other things are doing is impressive, but their results are not reliable enough to get every consumer to use them.” Higbie says his team has made the technology so good, it can separate specific responses from background noise.
NPR is XAPP’s first publishing partner. Since April, they’ve run a handful of the voice-enabled ads for local advertisers. NPR is selling the spots for a CPM north of $20.
“We have been demoing this for agencies and brands and the reaction has been roundly positive,” NPR’s VP of Digital Strategy, Bryan Moffett, told Ad Week in March. “When our test group heard [the call to action] ‘say download now’ or ‘say learn more,’ we universally heard them respond with ‘huh,’ sounding pleasantly surprised.”
“When our test group heard [the call to action] ‘say download now’ or ‘say learn more,’ we universally heard them respond with ‘huh,’ sounding pleasantly surprised.”
Raines and Higbie raised a $3 million seed round to get their startup launched. XAPP spent 17 months in stealth mode, perfecting its technology, researching the mobile advertising space, and getting feedback from marketers and publishers.
The pair co-invested in a voice assistant company, XTone, which led them to the idea for XAPP. “Frank and I were looking for something that could be really big using the base technology, and we wanted to build an end-to-end service,” says Higbie. “We started looking at the media — For more information read the original article here.
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