Knowing that programmatic advertising for audio is on the rise [cite: IAB], and digital revenues were becoming the focus of more publishers, Sonnant and Barometer started a customer project to prove that data and AI could overcome any unwillingness of advertisers to invest in audio advertising spend.

Tony Simmons, Founder and CEO of Sonnant, says “Publishers have been concerned that any piece of content, that was labelled ‘unsafe’ or ‘high risk’ by tech would reduce its advertising potential to zero. Our wide-reaching research indicated that just because a 90-minute show discussed ‘Murder’ around the 10 minute mark, advertisers would still be eager to advertise at a later point of the show if the content and audience mix was brand relevant. So, when I started discussing this opportunity with the Barometer team, our collective goal was to get to that later advertising placement with simplicity, cost-efficiency, and precision.”

Dr. Tamara Zubatiy, co-founder and CEO of Barometer stated, “Brands need a safe, suitable and contextually relevant advertising environment. We’ve been working hard to help brands move away from whole category exclusions towards scaled show and episode approvals, allowing advertisers to be more nuanced in their targeting. This work with Sonnant continues that pursuit and introduces a new level of granularity; ad-break to ad break, offering advertisers the most precise contextual adjacency targeting possible.

Barometer’s contextual engine decodes the nuances of spoken-word content, allowing publishers and advertisers to uncover structured content signals, intent, sentiment, tone, and relevance, setting a new standard for contextual targeting and brand suitability in audio and beyond.

Sonnant is building the digital infrastructure to unleash spoken word content into the digital age. Its platform uses specialists AI to digitise content, automating manual, non-remunerative workflows and connecting via API to publication and advertising systems to increase revenues.

Together, Sonnant and Barometer’s allows customers to find contextually relevant, suitable insertion points via API:

* Choose contextual targets + suitability and safety levels: Select your contextual framework to build safe and suitable targeting criteria.

* Create timing barriers: Ensure that any ad is placed with contextually relevant content, but at a safe enough time distance, of your choosing, to remove unwanted alignment.

* Create mid rolls and activate: Midrolls placements are now created at a safe distance, and these timing and targeting data / rules integrate directly to your existing platforms.

For more information or a demo, please see our deck here meet with us at NAB, or contact: Tamara Zubaity, CEO & Co-founder, tamara@thebarometer.co or Tony Simmons, CEO,Sonnant tony@sonnant.com.